The ninety-two minerals

Nearly every sea moss listing carries the same number. Ninety-two minerals — sometimes ninety-eight, occasionally a round claim to hold everything a person needs. It is on packaging, in ad copy, in the opening line of most product pages in the category.

We have never found who counted them.

Where a number should come from

A figure like that should have paper behind it. A sample, a method, a laboratory, a date. Ask for one and the trail leads to another product page carrying the same sentence, which cites a third carrying it too. The number has been repeated into the shape of a fact.

That might mean it is wrong. It might mean it is roughly right and nobody bothered to source it. We cannot tell you which — and that, rather than the number itself, is the problem.

What goes on our jars

What we can show. The botanical name, where it came from as far as we can prove it, and how it was dried.

If we ever hold a certificate of analysis with a mineral count on it, we will print the count and name the lab that ran it. Until then our jar says less than the competition's. That is deliberate, and it is the more expensive choice.