Soil-to-crop mineral transmission was first investigated in the 1960s and 1970s, and a large body of evidence now documents transmission of minerals from soil to crops. A smaller group of papers illustrates that soil concentrations of zinc, selenium, and iodine impact human intake of these important minerals, and even human mineral status. Despite this fact, estimates of human mineral intake or human mineral deficiency rates often rely on nutrient composition tables that assume a single mineral concentration for every crop or food worldwide. Public health policy-makers rarely discuss the role of soils in driving human mineral deficiencies, and scientists who study soil degradation tend to focus on the yield and production consequences of macronutrient depletion, ignoring the health consequences of micronutrient depletion. By reviewing and re-considering four decades of literature on soil-to-human mineral transmission, we may realize new points of intervention within the food system for addressing mineral deficiency in human populations.