The minimum principle

Rethinking the law of the minimum

A few pages earlier, you learned that 57 nutrients in appropriate quantities are needed to supply our bodies optimally. Why these 57 in combination, rather than just a few? Have you ever baked bread leaving out the yeast, water, salt or flour? It will not work, and certainly will not taste right. Every ingredient is essential — in other words, necessary. The body and its nutrient supply work in the same way: the 57 nutrients are essential and work together. Let us take a closer look at calcium in bone formation: effective bone formation, while preventing calcification of blood vessels or the formation of kidney stones, also requires vitamins D and K2. Vitamin K2 transports calcium to the bones, while vitamin D regulates bone formation. However, vitamin D can only perform this regulatory role when enough vitamin A is available. And without sufficient magnesium, vitamin D does not become active in the first place. Although short-term, specific problems can be masked by individual vitamins, this can lead to problematic nutritional imbalances over the long term. The law of the minimum, made widely known by Justus Liebig, applies not only to plant nutrition but also to human and animal nutrition. Applied to humans, it means that our bodies can only develop as well as the nutrient in shortest supply allows.