As the website states, “ALBION: Minerals. Science. Chelates.” But, what the hell is a “chelate?” Sounds like something delicious on a Mexican menu. Something I’d like to order and eat right now.
Anyway, I’m getting a real Venus Project vibe from Albion’s site. That sort of “science will perfect everything” sensation in my loins that makes even the most die hard luddite a little erect. Not necessarily a bad thing. I mean, buildings that have consciousness and “fix themselves” could be kinda word, right?
The future!
As an aside, isn’t it interesting how the sound of cats making babies is so similar to the sound of babies being eaten by cats? Says a lot about cats.
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yoga bleaching: 1. a form of marketing in which yoga or an image of yogic lifestyle is used to make an otherwise unrelated product appear to be in line with yogic principles. 2. the act of using yoga or an image of yogic lifestyle to sell an unrelated product. 3. a form of spin or marketing intended to deceive consumers into believing that a product is related to yogic practice or theory when in fact it is not.
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The Babarazzi 
When I practice deep asana like King Pigeon (or kinda King Pigeon), I make sure to have a white flower in my hair. Also, I do not know what a chelate is.
Is there a nutritionist in the house?
U betcha, because about 50% of yoga teachers are also nutrition consultants.
Another 25% are comprised of either life coaches or Feng Shui consultants.
0.0001% sell life insurance.
Thanks for all the data! What’s yr resource? Got someone here who would love to check that out.
Psychic powers/anecdotal
Personally, I love anecdotes…
Duly noted. The statistics are based on intuition and observation. They are presented in a satirical context, though containing elements of empirical truth.
That’s a Jacque Fresco design of “the future!”, is it not?
You got it, Greenpoint. He was picked up by the Zeitgeist (Movement) a while back as a vision of the future. Although, we could be wrong on who picked up who. Just sayin’ he’s somehow connected…
It says nothing about cats. It says everything about how we perceive other creatures minding their own bloody business outside of us and our perceptions. Shame, shame. That that business may involve munching tiny tots is completely irrelevant.
Was just a joke, Buffy.
Dudes! So was mine. Except the tots part. No no – that was, too. Phew. Tough crowd.
You definitely had us fooled.
Chelating is the process by which you rid the body of heavy metals (i.e lead, aluminium etc.). For example, “Eating voluminous quantities of coriander is an effective natural chelating agent.”
It sounds really interesting. I need to look into that.
Stolen from WebMD:
“Promoters sometimes market chelated minerals as dietary supplements that are superior to other mineral supplements, claiming chelated minerals are used more easily by the body (more bioavailable) than non-chelated minerals. But there is no evidence to support this claim. In fact, there is very little scientific information about chelated minerals.”
No evidence…..hehehe. Seems like bleaching to me….
Chelation therapy is representative of one of those modern day snake oil alternative therapies, such as crystals and pranic healing that many in the yoga community are so fond of. Dubious healing methods are placed alongside yoga in an effort to lend verisimilitude. This bastardization is beyond yoga bleaching and more like yoga tarnishing.
Chelation is not necessary good. It is a chemical which (binds to) mops up divalent cations. What is a divalent cation? Iron (Fe2+), copper (Cu 2+), etc. Chelators exist everywhere in nature. They can be deadly is over used (eg, chelating Calcium (Ca 2+), Magnesium, etc). Just another weird therapy as per Pranama Red’s comment.
To wit, Wikipedia:
“Chelation therapy is the use of chelating agents to detoxify poisonous metal agents such as mercury, arsenic, and lead by converting them to a chemically inert form that can be excreted without further interaction with the body, and was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1991. In alternative medicine, chelation is used as a treatment for autism, although this practice is controversial due to the absence of scientific plausibility, lack of FDA approval, and its potentially deadly side-effects.
Although they can be beneficial in cases of heavy metal poisoning, chelating agents can also be dangerous. Use of disodium EDTA instead of calcium EDTA has resulted in fatalities due to hypocalcemia.”
Chelates can be useful for pulling minerals out of the body if there’s an excess. For example pulling radioactive iodine out if you happened to be downwind of Chernobyl.
That sort of implies you have blood serum tests in hand that state you have too much of X element floating around, which of course isn’t the case.
Taking chelated minerals seems silly because it’s probably less bioavailable rather than more. Afterall, they’re fairly strongly bonded to the chelate molecule, so how exactly is the cellular machinery going to pull it off? Unless there’s a catalyst that’s known to do exactly that, chelates are probably just roughage.
Thanks, toes. Is chelates a catch-all term for whole organic matter that acts in a certain way? Like how fungi can detox a lake? Or are they lab inventions? Make sense?
A chelate is a specific class of organic molecule that happens to like to bind to metal ions. Chelates are natural; your body produces a whole crap-load of them for management of minerals in the body (the iron on a hemoglobin molecule in your red blood cells is one). Plants probably make many, many more since they’re much better at chemical warfare than animals. The ones these guys are selling are probably natural, based on amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelation
Wikipedia has a relevant comment:
Nutritional supplements
In the 1960’s, scientists developed the concept of chelating a metal ion prior to feeding the element to the animal. They believed that this would create a neutral compound, protecting the mineral from being complexed with insoluble salts within the stomach, rendering the metal unavailable for absorption. Amino acids, being effective metal binders, were chosen as the prospective ligands, and research was conducted on the metal-amino acid combinations. The research supported that the metal-amino acid chelates were able to enhance mineral absorption.
During this period, synthetic chelates were also being developed. An example of such synthetics is ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA). These synthetics applied the same concept of chelation and did create chelated compounds; however, these synthetics were too stable and not nutritionally viable. If the mineral was taken from the EDTA ligand, the ligand could not be used by the body and would be expelled. During the expulsion process the EDTA ligand will randomly chelate and strip another mineral from the body.[12]
According to the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO), a metal amino acid chelate is defined as the product resulting from the reaction of a metal ion from a soluble metal salt with a mole ratio of one to three (preferably two) moles of amino acids. The average weight of the hydrolyzed amino acids must be approximately 150 and the resulting molecular weight of the chelate must not exceed 800 Da.
Since the early development of these compounds, much more research has been conducted, and has been applied to human nutrition products in a similar manner to the animal nutrition experiments that pioneered the technology. Ferrous bis-glycinate is an example of one of these compounds that has been developed for human nutrition. [13]
Thanks, Sir Toes. This is helpful information.
I think the comments above are referring to a different sort of chelation that has nothing to do w/ that referred to by the product pictured. The idea of chelated minerals in supplements is that the mineral is chelated (attached) to an amino acid (for example) since the amino acid-mineral complex is more easily assimilated than just the raw mineral on its own. It’s not really a controversial thing – just as micronutrients are more absorbable in their whole food context, minerals are more readily assimilated in a larger package. This has been a pretty common (and non-controversial) means of creating better supplements in use for a long time, and has nothing to do with the (much more controversial) notion of “chelation therapy,” using something like EDTA to chelate out of the bloodstream heavy metals, etc. It isn’t necessarily the *only* more bioavailable form of a mineral – with magnesium, e.g., magnesium citrate, chelate, or glycinate are all pretty good, but it’s not really some new-fangled way-out thing, chelates.
Does The Babarazzi not do any research before unleashing it’s Hatorade induced opinions upon the world?
Research??? We can barely read. We just close our eyes, have someone direct our hands toward the keyboard, and hope for the best.
Imaging a hooded person with a wireless Ouijaboard.
That about sums it up.