There is one question that has come up more often than others lately. People keep asking me where vegans get calcium if they don’t eat cheese, milk, or other dairy products. The answer is simple … there are many foods high in calcium that have nothing to do with animals. And then an educational opportunity ensues.
Why is calcium important?
Obviously kids need calcium because it helps their bones grow. After puberty, bone growth ends but bone density increases until roughly age 30.1 So that means if you don’t eat your calcium, you may fall apart! But literally, many people suffer from weak bones as they get older and you can imagine that having weak bones means they break a lot or impede functioning. Women are at a greater chance of calcium depletion especially during pregnancy when calcium shifts from the mother to the fetus.
The recommended level of calcium for adults age 19 through 50 years is 1000 mg per day.2 You can increase or maintain bone density by choosing foods high in calcium, taking vitamins with calcium, and exercising to preserve bone mineral content. Of course here were going to talk about getting calcium from food since food is one of my favorite topics.
Why not get calcium rich foods from animals?
As with many food ideologies we tend to have as a culture, I think it is such a tragedy that people think they can only get calcium from animal sources. However as a communications professional, it consistently shows me the power effective marketing can have over time. Marketing, lobbying and misinformation, have all worked together to increase profits in the dairy industry and make food cheap for people. What does that mean? It means in the end as consumers we are being told that dairy products come from happy cows and that we need them to grow up big and strong. Ahem …. I have to disagree.
In fact research shows that dairy products can actually leech (that is a nice word for “suck out”) calcium from your bones. According to milksucks.com, “both clinical and population studies show that milk-drinkers tend to have more bone breaks than people who consume milk infrequently or not at all.”3 I know! Hard to believe after what we’ve been taught for generations. According to Michael Greger, MD, milk does indeed come with a lot of calcium but it also comes with a lot of baggage like cholesterol, saturated fat, and even puss and feces. Overall it is harmful to humans. It is the number one source of artery clogging fat in the United States diet. It is also one of the top allergens in the US diet. Dr. Greger says “the calcium found in leafy green vegetables like kale and broccoli is absorbed about twice as well as the calcium in milk.”4
What are vegetarian calcium sources?
So what are vegetarian calcium sources? Below are some of my favorite vegan sources of calcium:
More information on foods high in calcium:
http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/calcium.htm
What are your favorite calcium-rich foods? Make a list and pass it along to your friends.
Notes:
(1) Preserving Bone Density, Julian Huang, MD, http://www.spine-health.com/treatment/pain-medication/preserving-bone-density, accessed 6-24-09.
(2) Standing Committee on the Scientific Evaluation of Dietary Reference Intakes, Food and Nutrition Board, Institute of Medicine: Dietary Reference Intakes for Calcium, Phosphorus, Magnesium, Vitamin D, and Fluoride. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1997.
(3) Milk Sucks: Got Osteoporosis?, www.milksucks.com/osteo.asp
(4) Dr. Michael Greger, Latest in Clinical Nutrition 2008, www.drgreger.org
As a new vegetarian, I am having a difficult time obtaining the required daily intake of protein. Is there any way you could post a list of Vegetarian Protein Sources? That would be amazing!
@Newbie Veggie … yes, great question. Absolutely! I will work on it. The more I talk to people the more I realize I need to start at the beginning … veganism 101 … how to get started step by step. I will start working on a series. Thanks for the idea!
I still have a friggy full of tofu products such as Morning Star sausages, corn dogs, burger patties, etc. However, very recently I have been reading that this typical kind of tofu has a high level of phyic acid which binds to minerals such as calcium, reducing one’s intake of the necessary mineral. I was quite taken aback. In fact, of all the legumes, soy has the highest level of phytic acid. However, fermented soy has very little. So now I am shopping only for fermented soy which comes in products such as tempheh, natto, and miso. These products are very popular in Japan. They take a little getting used to for a typical American. You can find them in health food stores in the US.
I’ve been a longtime customer of Morning Star which makes a host of tofu products –their sausages are so tasty even my male, meat eating Republican friends rave about them, so I sent Morning Star an email about my concern regarding phytic acid and calcium depletion as I am a female approaching my 50s and osteoporosis/calcium is a major issue for ladies in my group. I asked them to ask their researchers and also to let me know if they plan on starting to market fermented soy products. It’s been about two weeks and I’m disappointed to say they never answered my email. Usually companies get back to me within 72 hours.
This info has been researched widely and is pretty scarey. Unfermented tofu depletes other minerals as well such as magnesium and especially zinc which performs highly important functions in the body. Third world countries that have diets based on legumes can contribute some of their malnutrition to the phytic acid action if their major legume staples is soy.
Forgot to mention that the creator of the Zone Diet, which focused on upping protein and lowering carbs, did a special book for vegetarian–which I bought and followed for a while–however, virtually every damn recipe in the book uses unfermented tofu!
If you google soy and phytic acid, you’ll find many pages. Here’s just one spooky article:
http://www.mercola.com/article/soy/avoid_soy.htm
Osteoporosis is very common specially in old persons. Food supplementation with calcium and magnesium helps a lot to slow down osteoporosis. -,”
osteoporosis is very common among the elderly, calcium and magnesium supplements help a lot in osteoporosis.:-*
i take calcium lactate to prevent osteoporis~~.
osteoporosis can be alleviated by taking lots of calcium and magnesium supplements`-;
when you reach the 40’s you need to take calcium supplements to prevent Osteoporosis;.’