Natural Health
The story is not about us, but it is about all of us.
Each and every one of us have the right to true, valid and timely information with which to make our own choices and to live our lives with both strength and the dignity that comes from being treated with respect. Reality is not built on advertising!
How about all the pharmaceutical concoctions ads and beauty treatments ads? Look at the groceries and personal care products we're having sold at us. Well, here is a good and valid tip: read the ingredients. If you can't pronounce the stuff, let alone have an idea what it does- put that down! Don't buy that!
Natural products, and those who offer them for sale, have an obligation to present and to support true and honest information. This is not always easy. Even with simple things there are complex relationships. Our bodies are not simple and it seems that any element taken in can effect in unforeseen ways. Montana Bentonite is proud to be one provider and a source for natural health goods and information.
Hence, our K.I.S.S. site. We are not interested in marketing and sales pitches, but in putting out the truth as we know it and can express it. Truth and honesty is the base for our relationship with you. It is our marketing basis that customers "in the know" are the ones who will find us and who we are serving.
Kevin R. Johnson
So let us begin.
Here are links to important and reliable resource sites:
Montana Bentonite is pleased to be a member in each of these excellent resource bodies. We look forward to expanding our memberships and resource links in the near future. I'll also be posting specific sites and references for particular issues and conditions as we develop. (I do not expect this site become a library or a comprehensive reference for a lot of other concerns or issues with which I am not familiar.)
Bentonite Clay
picture of the mine site, view from the southeast
Bentonite clay
is one type of smectite clay. This is an organic mineral clay essentially the same as montmorillonite. But- bentonite clay is not just all the same stuff: the two dominant forms are sodium and calcium. This has to do with the majority of the elements contained: primarily sodium or primarily calcium. There also is a magnesium form that is not produced for any particular application.
This is important: sodium bentonite is produced mainly for industrial and construction applications. S.bentonite is the swelling bentonite. Calcium bentonite is produced for human and animal care applications, along with some environmental constructions such as water management. C.bentonite is a minimal-swelling bentonite. Even within c.bentonites, there are important differences in the levels of constituent minerals and chemical construction. This is why we have posted our analytical reports: you need to know. We further recommend that you not buy a bentonite clay product for your health-care interests just because it has a cute name. There are "snake-oil" salesmen and websites out there selling sodium bentonites, along other things, for health care under meaningless product names. Get the analysis report (if you can) from them and review it to see that it good and safe for your use or don't buy the stuff!
One current issue for us is what is sold today as "french green clay". This is being called a bentonite clay. We are developing our own green clay resource and are convinced that it is "nontronite". This is also a smectite organic mineral clay, but the location of the iron molecule being inside the cellular structure rather than peripheral to it, changes the correct name. It also changes the effects and benefits of what that organic, mineral clay will do.
We are now joining in with two current efforts: www.dyingtolookgood.com and www.safecosmetics.org. We look forward to developing our supporting relationship with them and we recommend these to you for your awareness.knowledge and to your better health.
History:
Montana Bentonite was formed in June of 2002 by Kevin and Jane Johnson after acquisition of the resource property from Pegasus Mining, Inc. This bentonite clay had originally been discovered and developed by Pegasus Mining as a clay source for containment lining on a local gold mining project. Previous to that the land had been Patented by and part of the Craddock family ranching operation.
Montana Bentonite was formed during the initial research and testing phase of the bentonite clay and associated minerals. The body of this mineral clay resource contains a large quantity of unique and high-grade calcium bentonite, a considerable quantity of nontronite, some diatomaceous earth, some yet undefined blue clay with overburdens of ashen silts, with chert, flint and volcanic boulders interspersed under the topsoil cover. Exposure of the primary clay body by the previous Pegasus operation allowed immediate access to the good clay body as well as to the related minerals.
Our clay deposit lays at the southeastern head of the DeerLodge valley in Southwestern Montana and at the toe of deteriorated volcanic tufts to the immediate East. I’ll post a scalable map of the location later in the evolution of this website. We are located along the North side I-90 at the #211 interchange for Gregson/Fairmont. This is close to halfway between Butte and Anaconda.
Our current operations include:
- harvesting (mining) the raw materials, selecting and testing as we go,
- stockpiling the raw materials,
- drying,
- pulverizing, repeatedly with continuing drying (not easy to do, as it turns out),
- screening to targeted particle cut-point sizes,
- packaging and sales of processed clay and
- production, packaging and sales of finished products.
Natural Health Products
While this clay has historically been termed The Clay of a Thousand Uses, we have developed three categories of products to focus our efforts on: Personal Products, Pet and Livestock Products and Home and Garden Products.
We continue our testing program and development of products. I have posted some of our lab test results in this website. We continue our R&D program and have more results and information coming in the beginning of 2010. We will bring in more information to this website as we proceed along in our development. I also look forward to developing our communications channels. (Not much of a blogger/twitterer/facebooker, though!)
Organic Gardening
Montana Bentonite also offers a "sandy ashen silt", which is a source of plant nutrients and trace minerals Our organic soil products are based on the volcanic ashen silt that was not geologically converted into clay. This is a small-particle product providing the nutrients and trace minerals that are disappearing under the barage of chemical fertilizers commonly used in today's agriculture. Having a small-particle soil amendment will provide many of the needed benefits for organic growing. Trace Mineral Analysis is provided at the bottom of the Home and Garden Products page.
Water control and moisture through the root zone for agriculture and gardening are also tremendously important to both agricultural producers and home gardeners today. Growing soil needs drainage, but also needs moisture retention. The root zone is a delicate and complex mixture of elements feeding the supply of ingredients for healthy plants. Water is becoming too valuable to waste.
Nontronite:
We have more information coming soon, on this really rare
mineral clay. This is the up-and-coming American Green Clay. It is an
iron-rich smectite clay and possibly a more-true smectite than the
well-known French Green Clay. As stated before: this is why we test.
