Silica helps to overcome these skin problems:
- Irritations
- Bites
- Itching
- Eczema
- Injuries
- Scolds
- Burns
- Sunburn
It is important to know however that silica is almost lost completely in processed and packaged foods, so it is important to know how do we get silica in a bioavailable form for our bodies.
Silica is usually found in the tough, rough, fibrous parts of fruit, vegetables, seeds and grains. These are the skins, stalks, seeds, bran and husks – the bits we usually cut off and throw away during food preparation. So eat your apple or potato or cucumber or kiwi fruit with its skin on! Eat the whole orange instead of just drinking the juice. Put the harder, stalk portion of the lettuce leaf into your salad along with the soft leafy bits. Wherever possible, keep the husk on your grains and nuts. Don’t peel your carrots or your mushrooms. Don’t remove the ‘stringy bits’ from your celery or green beans. And so on…
If you must cut all these bits off your fruits and vegetables because you do not wish to chew them, why not throw them all together in a pot of water and boil them up to make a mineral-rich stock which result in a brew very high silica. You can then put this back into your diet in a stew, soup, sauce, gravy or marinade. (By the way, while vitamins are very sensitive to oxidation and extremes of temperature, minerals are virtually indestructible. So a stock like this is a wonderful addition to your list of nutritious cooking practices.)
Lettuce is one of the best silica sources, and readily available, with the outer, darker, coarser leaves being more mineral-rich than the inner, soft, baby leaves. Oats are a great source, especially the outer husks. Oat-straw tea is a quick and easy way to get a therapeutic silica boost when you need it. Bananas are another lovely source.
Other great sources are: high-bran cereals, parsnips, asparagus, dandelion greens, horseradish root, spinach, cucumber, strawberry, sunflower seeds, pepitas (pumpkin seeds), fresh apricots, tomatoes, carrots, turnips, millet, fresh apples, cabbage and brown rice. In fact, most vegetables and grains have some silica, in those rough parts.
Keeping silica-rich foods in the daily diet, in the form of unprocessed vegetables and unrefined grains, is the best way to ensure that your body gets what it needs. We ALL need to learn to eat the ‘whole’ food to ensure healthier eating habits to be better equipped to go out and face a stressful world, or simply to be able to live life to the max!
It is to be noted that silica supplementation is a complex issue and if you need to use a supplement, for a more intensive silica intake, it is best to take colloidal silica or try a liquid silica supplement which contains it in the ‘orthosilicic acid’ form or a homoeopathic silica tissue salt.
