Disclaimer: The information provided in this blog is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. This content should not be used to diagnose, treat, or prevent any medical condition or health issue. Always seek the guidance of your physician or other qualified health professional with any questions you may have regarding your health or a medical condition.

What’s the difference between the two? And which one is better?

There are pros and cons to both colloidal and ionized minerals, and which is best for you depends on your goals. Here’s a closer look at each.

Pros and Cons of Colloidal Minerals

Colloidal minerals have both positives and negatives:

Pros:

• Inexpensive (shale is abundant and easy to process)

• Contain the full spectrum of minerals (shale is naturally mineral-rich)

• Convenient

  
  

Cons :

• Possible heavy metal contamination (in addition to beneficial minerals, raw shale is often high in cadmium, arsenic, nickel, and chromium [ * ])
• Low-to-moderate bioavailability (depending on their chemical makeup, shale particles don’t always absorb well, and may not reach your cells)
• Some brands provide negligible amounts of minerals

In short, colloidal mineral supplements are an inexpensive and convenient way to get the full spectrum of trace minerals—but their quality varies, you may not absorb them well, and there’s a risk that they’re contaminated with heavy metals, due to their shale sourcing.

What Are Ionized Minerals?

Ionized minerals are another type of liquid mineral supplement. They contain mineral ions —charged particles that dissolve in water, leaving a clear supplement behind.

Ions are able to bind to things in their surroundings, which can be good or bad in a supplement context. In some cases, minerals bind to impurities and become deactivated, which decreases their absorption.

In high-quality ionized mineral supplements, however, the producer can use the binding ability of mineral ions to increase absorption, by including a substance that carries bound ionized minerals into your cells.

Cheaper ionized minerals sometimes come from shale, but higher-quality ionized minerals are derived from soil or plant matter.

In addition, the purification process required to produce ionic minerals filters out heavy metals, which means ionized minerals do not carry the same risk of contamination that colloidal minerals do.

Pros and Cons of Ionized Minerals

Ionized minerals have both positives and negatives:

Pros :

• Contain the full spectrum of minerals

• Convenient

• High purity

• High bioavailability (if paired with substances that enhance absorption)

• Often derived from plant matter or soil, which includes additional beneficial compounds

  
  

Cons :

• More expensive than colloidal minerals

Broadly speaking, ionized minerals tend to be more pure and of higher quality than colloidal minerals, especially when derived from plants—but they’re also typically more expensive as a result.

Why BEAM Makes Plant-Based Ionized Minerals

Here at BEAM, we only offer plant-based ionized minerals.

While most companies use shale, all our minerals come from humate, a black, crystalline substance that forms in deep soil over thousands of years. Over millennia, plants break down and deposit their nutrients into the earth; the minerals from those plants aggregate into black crystals, forming humate.

We take humate-rich soil from several meters beneath the earth’s surface and purify it. The result is a combination of ionized minerals, plant antioxidants, and two additional substances: humic and fulvic .

Humic and fulvic are very easy for your body to absorb. They’re also large, sprawling molecules that contain numerous binding sites on their exteriors. You can picture humic and fulvic as having lots of little hands, ready to grab and hold minerals as they float through liquid.

As a result, humic and fulvic can carry lots of ionized minerals into your body, dramatically increasing absorption. A 2015 study found that humic and fulvic increase the bioavailability of most minerals, including: [ * ]

• Calcium absorption by 104% .
• Magnesium absorption by 74% 
• Zinc absorption by 350%
• Iron absorption by 264%. 

We also third-party purity test every batch of minerals we sell, to ensure no heavy metal contamination.

In short, BEAM Minerals are highly bioavailable, pure, and easy to take . All you do is drink a single 1-oz. shot of concentrated liquid each morning. It tastes like water and gives you every essential mineral your body needs, in the right ratios, with enhanced absorption.

If you’re looking for a good mineral supplement, give BEAM Minerals a try. We’re dedicated to offering simple, effective supplements that actually work.