Organically grown corn had twenty times more calcium and manganese, and two to five times more copper, magnesium, molybdenum, selenium and zinc. Organically grown potatoes had two or more times the boron, selenium, silicon, strontium and sulfur, and sixty percent more zinc. The organically grown pears had two to nearly three times more chromium, iodine, manganese, molybdenum, silicon and zinc. Overall, organically grown food exceeded conventionally grown crops significantly in twenty of the twenty two beneficial trace elements. They also had lower quantities of toxic trace elements such as aluminum, lead and mercury.
Trace elements are critically important for our health and for the development of the brain.
In a recent paper in the British medical journal The Lancet , Danish researchers reported that organic farmers and men who regularly consumed organic food had twice the sperm count of men who did not consume organic food. It describes two studies by Dr. Larry Phelan which show that the European corn borer moths lay 18 times more eggs on sweet corn plants grown in chemically farmed soils than on organic soils. When he carefully monitored the variables, he found that it was the mineral ratios which were responsible. When the necessary minerals are available in the proper balance, plant roots absorb exactly what they need for photosynthesis. Plants grown in chemical soils often lack this mineral balance.