Mineral in Food: Boost Your Health with Nutrient-Dense Options

High mineral foods are essential for maintaining optimal health and wellness.

Incorporating these nutrient-dense options into your diet can significantly boost your energy levels, improve bone health, support muscle function, and enhance your immune system.

In this article, we explore some of the best high mineral foods, including oysters, pork roast, and salmon, and provide practical tips on including them in your daily meals.

Discover how these powerful foods can elevate your well-being and keep you feeling your best.

What Are High-Mineral Foods?

High-mineral foods contain more of each essential mineral per serving. Thus, they provide more of the essential minerals per bite and enable you to boost your mineral intake.

These are great options if you’re not yet meeting your minimum mineral intake. In contrast, mineral rich foods provide more minerals per calorie and empower you to pack in more of each of the essential minerals into your daily energy budget.

High Minerals Foods

The top twelve high-mineral foods that contain more minerals per serving, popular with our Optimisers, are:

oysters
pork roast
whole wheat bread
mussels
sirloin steak
chicken thighs
natto
mackerel
ribeye steak
liver
steel cut oats
salmon.

How Can I Get More Minerals in My Diet?

The best way to get your minerals is through a varied diet of nutrient-dense foods. In addition to minerals, nutritious foods provide the vitamins and protein your body requires to thrive.

Relying on minimally processed food rather than supplements ensures you get all the essential minerals in the right amounts and ratios for optimal health.

When you’re ready to level up your mineral game, check out the links below for longer PDF lists for each mineral in our Optimising Nutrition Community:

We’ve also included infographics at the end of this article showing foods that contain more of each mineral per typical serving.

Benefits of High-Mineral Foods

Eating a diet rich in high-mineral foods can help you achieve optimal health and reduce your risk of developing chronic diseases. Here are some of the specific benefits of eating high-mineral foods:

Strong bones and teeth: Calcium and magnesium are essential for building and maintaining strong bones and teeth. Calcium helps to form bones and teeth, while magnesium helps to absorb calcium and keep bones strong.
Blood pressure and heart rate: Potassium helps regulate blood pressure and heart rate and counteract the effects of sodium, which can raise blood pressure.
Muscle and nerve function: Sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium are all important for muscle and nerve function. Sodium helps to regulate muscle contractions, while potassium helps to maintain fluid balance and nerve function. Calcium and magnesium are also important for muscle and nerve function.
Convert your food into energy: Magnesium and iron are essential for converting food into energy. Magnesium is involved in producing ATP, the body’s main energy currency. Iron is involved in transporting oxygen to cells, essential for energy production.
Boost your immune system: Zinc and selenium are important for boosting the immune system. Zinc helps to produce white blood cells, which fight infection, and selenium helps to protect cells from damage.

Risks Associated with Excess Mineral Intake

While mineral supplements can be useful if you’re not yet meeting the minimum requirements from your food, it’s ideal to get most of your minerals from food. Unfortunately, excess minerals, usually from supplementation, can lead to some health problems, including:

Digestive problems: Excess intake of some minerals, such as iron and magnesium, can cause digestive problems, such as diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting.
Toxicity: Long-term intake of high doses of some minerals, such as vitamin A, iron, and selenium, can lead to toxicity. This can cause a variety of health problems, including liver damage, kidney damage, and neurological disorders.

How Much of Each Mineral Do I Need?

Our satiety analysis has provided unique insights into the minimum amount of each mineral we crave. For more details about the minimum and ideal mineral amounts, check out the charts at the end of this article and our article, The Nutrient Bliss Points: The Perfect Amount for Maximum Food Addiction.

High Mineral vs Mineral-Rich Foods

High-mineral foods will help you get more minerals. They are ideal if you’re not yet meeting the minimum intake for any of the minerals. Meanwhile, mineral-rich foods will help you pack more minerals into your daily energy budget. Mineral-rich foods will help you supplement your mineral intake without adding a lot of extra energy.

In our Micros Masterclass, we initially guide Optimisers to use high-mineral foods to meet the minimum intake. From there, they can use mineral-rich foods to get more of their priority nutrient with less energy and move towards the Optimal Nutrient Intakes. The optimal nutrient intakes, also shown in the charts in the appendix to this article, are our stretch target for each mineral that aligns with greater satiety.

High-Mineral NutriBooster Recipes

If you’re looking for mineral-rich recipes, check out our NutriBooster recipes, designed to maximise nutrient density while aligning with different goals and preferences.

High Mineral Meal Plan

To see what a mineral-rich week of eating looks like, download our free Healthiest Meal Plan in the World here.

How Can I Know if I’m Getting Enough Minerals in My Diet?

The best way to determine whether you’re getting the required minerals is to track your food intake for a few days in Cronometer. Then, take our free Nutrient Clarity Challenge. You’ll discover which minerals you’re missing and the foods and meals that contain all your priority nutrients.

If you’re ready to improve your nutrition, we’d love for you to join our next Micros Masterclass.

Appendix – High Mineral Foods

The infographics below show popular foods that provide more of each of the essential minerals per typical serving. We’ve also included satiety charts highlighting each mineral’s bliss point and optimal nutrient intake.

If you’re currently getting less than the bliss point minimum, high-mineral foods containing more of each mineral per serving will help you boost your mineral intake.
Once you’ve exceeded this minimum, mineral-rich foods containing more of each mineral per calorie will help you pack more of each nutrient into your energy budget.