INTERVIEWER: How did you connect ocean solids with the investigations you’re pursuing?

AMENA: Twenty-two years ago I was crippled with rheumatoid and osteoarthritis. My vertebrae had taken a lot of punishment when I was working in the building industry, using cement. In those days there was no Redi-Mix available to the public. The three vertebrae at the bottom of my spine were completely worn — they were grinding along on each other, all the cartilage was gone. They wanted to fuse them together and I didn’t like that idea, and then sea minerals came on the market for agriculture. I bought a 44-gallon drum of it and I started using it on my plants. After three weeks, I could see an enormous difference in the plants and then one day I was spraying the tomatoes and imagined them urging me: “Take some, take some!” I get very close contact with my plants, and so I started taking the sea minerals. In three weeks I noticed a difference, after 12 months I went to the doctor again and had another X-ray, and he found all that cartilage between my vertebrae that had been worn away is now all restored.

INTERVIEWER: This was just plain seawater?

AMENA: No, sea minerals. They are reduced to 1 percent of the original solution’s weight, most of the salt is taken out, and the water is evaporated by the sunlight — it takes about three months. One gallon of these sea minerals is equal to the minerals and base elements of 100 gallons of seawater. Very potent, very strong. Most of the salt, which is crystallized on the top layers, is taken out and used as cooking salt and things like that — but those minerals, I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s unbelievable.

INTERVIEWER: Let’s look at the base raw material, ocean water.

AMENA: Ocean water is the richest life sustainable and life enhancing source of ionic — water soluble — minerals, both macro and trace. Just look at the abundance and variety of life forms that it supports! Ocean water is the perfect catalyst for life. Oceanographers and other scientists estimate that there are some 2 to 10 million life forms yet to be discovered. A fetus, the wonder of life, develops in a mother’s uterus, suspended in a solution not unlike ocean water. Blood plasma — the fluid of blood, minus the red cells — is chemically almost identical to ocean water. These similarities are not a coincidence. Ocean water is truly the means for life.  

INTERVIEWER: So the trace minerals are what make ocean water so important for nutrition and health?

AMENA: Yes, and especially the concentration and balance of elements suspended in it. This incredible balance of elements in our oceans is governed by nature and is perfect, and as such, supports life. Waters like the Dead Sea and the Great Salt Lake contain elements so concentrated that you could count the number of life forms these bodies of water support on one hand.

INTERVIEWER: Then the full range of minerals is essential?

AMENA: All creatures require a balance of both macro and trace minerals to function. The levels and balance of minerals in man is not governed by nature. The minerals are either present or not in our foods, including the water we drink. The advent of modern agriculture and food processing has led to a severe decline in the levels of vital minerals in our food, causing a deficiency of minerals in our bodily fluids.

Even organic food is not exempt from this, as our topsoil now is almost barren of minerals. Our drinking water has also been affected because of water purification and filtering. Although these methods are viable ways of removing harmful pathogens from our water, the processes also remove the already low levels of minerals and trace elements.

INTERVIEWER: For this reason you’ve turned to the ocean?

AMENA: Yes, for nourishment. In a closely guarded, pristine location off the Great Barrier Reef, ocean water is collected in specifically designed ponds where it is allowed to slowly concentrate. By utilizing solar evaporation and precipitation, a dense solution of rich macro and trace minerals slowly starts to develop. At this point, excess levels of sodium in crystalline form are gently removed from the solution, and the remaining liquid is transferred to another pond where it is allowed to concentrate even further.

INTERVIEWER: You rely on the sun to do the evaporation?

AMENA: Absolutely. After many months of solar concentration, a dense mixture rich in all manner of minerals is formed, remarkably low in sodium (about 2 percent). This mineral-rich, antimicrobial and antibacterial solution is then tanked and shipped to our facility, where it undergoes a special proprietary process to ensure its efficacy and suitability for human consumption.

Throughout this time-consuming procedure, the solution is constantly monitored, and samples are repeatedly collected for analytical testing in a NATA-accredited laboratory, to ensure the consistency and concentration of minerals are within an acceptable range. In fact, this 100 percent ocean-derived, ionic-minerals liquid solution is naturally balanced, and that is not a loose term that we use. As the minerals are slowly concentrated, excess levels of minerals such as sodium are naturally precipitated out of the solution. This is not the result of human processes — it is the natural result of solar evaporation and gravity.

INTERVIEWER: Are those commercially available or were they at the time you needed the help?

AMENA: Yes, they had just started to come in and someone gave me a sample. I bought it for my garden, not for myself. But I could hardly walk anymore and after I tried the sea minerals, it started getting better and better. I gave some out to other people for free — I have a big organic garden, and they used to come and buy vegetables from me and they would say, “Hey, you look a lot better. What happened?” I told them, and they would try it and found they got better. From there on it started to develop. After three or four years, I started making creams as well that have the minerals in.

INTERVIEWER: What kind of preparations do you have?

AMENA: One we call Super Blend, which has six different herbs in it.

INTERVIEWER: Let’s back up a little bit.  Do you deal directly with the ocean or do you have some other source for your minerals?

AMENA: No. Ocean only.

INTERVIEWER: You go out in the ocean and collect the water?

AMENA: Yes, there’s a pump house and it’s pumped up on the land, or in some areas there are tidal flats 20 or 30 acres in size around which they construct little dikes around it, they’re about 4 feet tall with gated openings. As the tide comes in, these flats fill up and they close the gates on the dikes. The seawater stays inside and then the separation process starts with the sunlight.  Eventually the salt starts floating to the surface, and then the minerals that have settled to the bottom are pumped out into another pond.  The remaining salt is gathered and used for as a cooking salt or for caustic soda--those sort of things. Quite a big business with them.

INTERVIEWER:  This is your raw material then, the material part?

AMENA: Yes and the raw material stays raw material.  We don’t alter it. 

INTERVIEWER: You said you use certain Herbs in conjunction with these raw materials. Can you tell us what you do?

AMENA: You know nasturtium flowers?  They are the best antibiotic in the world. Traditionally, if you got sick you would salad or make a tea or other preparation from it, and within a couple days, you’re completely better.  They didn’t have antibiotics in those days. After you cut the plant, though, within half an hour there are no antibiotic properties left. The substances oxidize and are completely destroyed by nature. That’s why we emulsify it, and in 10 minutes it goes straight to the minerals, which stabilize it totally. It’s been tested in the United States the beneficial properties of the nasturtium do not alter at all. I’ve had some that’s six, seven years old, still just as good as the day it was made.

INTERVIEWER: Do you encapsulate that material?

AMENA: No. No. It would melt the capsule in 30 seconds. It’s potent.

INTERVIEWER: So you take it as a liquid?

AMENA: One teaspoonful during the evening meal. That’s the dosage I take and it has been enough to alleviate my arthritis totally. And a scar on my arm from a smallpox vaccination when I was in Indonesia — even that has disappeared!

INTERVIEWER: How many different preparations have you figured out now with the sea minerals?

AMENA: We’ve got three. The Super Blend, the True Heart for the heart, thyroid and the brain — it appears to work very well with brain tumors as well. We also have the Ocean Pure — the mineral as it comes from the ocean.

INTERVIEWER: Are any of these products for animals?

AMENA: Yes. Animals are not essentially different from us.

INTERVIEWER: You know they’re killing birds by the millions in order to control his avian flu. That’s the big approach to disease in veterinary medicine: depopulate the herd, kill them, in other words. How would you administer this to chickens or other fowl?

AMENA: You put it in the food. But the treatment would probably be too expensive for poultry producers, unless they had really rare, expensive breeds. When money’s involved, life doesn’t matter much, unfortunately. To me it does, but…

INTERVIEWER: Is there any hydrogen peroxide in these preparations?

AMENA: No, only the minerals and the various herbs. Speaking of which, another herb we use is sheep sorrel — they dry it and make tea from it. That’s also in the Super Blend.

INTERVIEWER: You don’t make a tincture or tea out of it then?

AMENA: No, with a tincture — alcohol destroys all the herbs. But in our experience, sheep sorrel — when rendered fresh the way we do it.

Four years ago we were at Dr. Alexander Shelf’s’ cancer clinic in Los Angeles. He’s a very knowledgeable man with minerals and he had a look at the sea minerals. He’d never heard about them and he was very impressed. He gave my partner who was in Los Angeles one of his books, Minerals in Human Health, to give to me. When I read it, I phoned and complimented him on his ability to write in a way that normal people could understand it, not scientific rubbish, but I pointed out that he had made three mistakes. Two were minor points about trace elements, but I took issue with his statement that patients with osteoporosis need calcium. That’s the worst thing you can give to people with osteoporosis because it’s not lack of calcium, it’s the lack of the ability to absorb the calcium from the blood. For that you need magnesium, vitamin B12, lithium and fatty acids such as butter.

INTERVIEWER: But everybody prescribes calcium for these people. What happens to them?

AMENA: It cannot be absorbed into the system. Cells cannot take it up, so they take it from the bones.

INTERVIEWER: Then what happens to the calcium?

AMENA: In the blood, it sets in your joints and spurs begin to grow, along with kidney and gallstones. I explained that to him. Oh boy! He was fuming. I said, “You’ve got something from another book and you did not check it.” He said he would get his scientists — he’s got a big laboratory — to check it out immediately. He called me four-and-a-half weeks later. He said:

 “Gerry you were right — my scientists told me after researching it that you were totally right. You don’t give calcium when you have osteoporosis.”  Three weeks later, he flew over from the United States with a couple of his friends. They hired a film crew, came over here and talked to me for quite a number of hours about natural health and they filmed it all. He was impressed. He said, “No one in the world can make a product like you have — no scientist can do that.” That’s right, I agree. I’m not a scientist — I’m a farmer who lives with the creative forces of nature and that’s what I use.

INTERVIEWER: I wrote a little book called Fertility from the Ocean Deep, which describes how farmers were using sea solids and diluted ocean water as fertility for pastures, among other things.

AMENA: Oh yes! We’ve used it in Australia for 20 years. For cotton pests they spray with chemicals, which are not very good. Instead they’ve learned to use seawater, diluted 10 to 1, spray it once a month over the cotton, and it kills all the grubs. It also drops on the ground, where it fertilizes the soil and the plant — they get 50 percent more in crop yield. They have the crops sold for 10 years ahead — Germany buys a lot because it’s all organic. The government and the chemical companies warn cotton growers not to try it, that they might lose a crop and lose their whole place. Chemical companies don’t like natural things. Two years ago, a gent came here from Sydney, and he wanted to buy my formula — offered me $2 million. Turns out he was with a multinational pharmaceutical company — he said he wasn’t allowed to tell me which one. I said, “Well, for a little bit like that, why should I do that?” He said, “How much do you want? Start at $2 billion. Will you sell it?” I said, “No, I’ll kick you off the place. Get in your car and go and don’t come back. This is for people.”

INTERVIEWER: It wouldn’t be for people if they got hold of it — they’d shelve it.

AMENA: They’d bury it, yes.

INTERVIEWER: How much trouble are you having getting this product into the United States?

AMENA: No problem at all. No problem whatsoever.

INTERVIEWER: You say you’re a farmer. What kind of an operation do you have?

AMENA: I’ve got 174 acres, with about three acres under cultivation — herbs, such as the sheep sorrel. I’ve got them all here. Now sheep sorrel does not usually grow in warm climates and we have a warm climate here, but I grow it because I use the sea minerals in the soil. It’s unbelievable what they do. Nasturtium, the flower we use for its antibiotic properties, I grow all year round. With the minerals from the ocean it’s unbelievable how much more product you can grow — you can double your crop on the same area.

INTERVIEWER: How do you apply that?

AMENA: You must dilute at least 10:1. We had a dealer, bought the property years ago, and we sprayed his citrus fruit trees — they had become quite black, they hadn’t been looked after in a long time. One application of the sea minerals, and the soot never came back. Five years later I had the trees growing, the fruit is excellent, unbelievably tasty. No minerals — no health for our bodies. No minerals — no health for plants. All these minerals are the basics of nutrition and health. Seawater and our blood plasma are 98 percent identical. The only difference is, the blood plasma collects the molecule iron, and sea minerals have an extra molecule of magnesium. Otherwise they’re the same. But the only place you find every mineral and trace element of this world is the ocean. You don’t find it anywhere on land. You’ll find some here, you’ll find some there; you never find the whole lump in one place.

INTERVIEWER: You know down in Florida they’re cutting down citrus trees, literally clear-cutting them because they’ve gotten certain funguses in the wake of the hurricanes. And you say that’s not necessary at all — all they need to do is treat those trees with diluted seawater once?

AMENA: Yes. Hit them once, if necessary hit them again. If there’s an excess of fertilizer the leaves take it up, and what they don’t take up will wash off with rain, runoff to the soil and be absorbed by the roots.

INTERVIEWER: Back to your farm. You grow all the herbs you use in your preparations?

AMENA: All except hawthorn berry. That’s grown in higher elevations — it doesn’t grow in a hot climate. Sheep sorrel doesn’t grow in hot climates, either, but I grow it successfully.