Gallery: These 10 Minerals Should Be In Your Diet

You know you've got to eat your vitamins and minerals, but what the heck are minerals to begin with? And what's the difference?

The answer is that vitamins are organic substances produced and used by living things, while minerals are natural, inorganic chemical compounds that go into building everything (from all those living things to the rocks and water that make up our planet). There are over five thousand three hundred of these things, and they all have different impacts on the substances they compose.

Minerals can affect everything from your immune system to your energy level to your bone strength, and as many as ninety four percent of Americans don't get enough of the right ones in their diets.

So what minerals do you need to be ingesting to be as healthy as possible?