Omnis maybe not getting enough calcium?

[muchluv]

I was just thinking about when I was an omni, and probably the average omni diet.

RDA in UK for calcium is 800mg, 1000 in the US.

cereal with milk - 200mg, cheese sandwich.. maybe 250... yoghurt after dinner..less than 250 probably. That's less that 700mg. Yes, they may be getting extra from other stuff. But how many Omnis have that much dairy every day? Not all of them. Plenty could have toast for brek, something else for lunch..etc and basically get no calcium.

Since going vegan I think one thing that is englightening is that I pay more attention to nutrtional needs rather than really not thinking about them much when i was an omni.

[Konstantin]

I've always felt I was OK for calcium thanks to green veg, seeds, chick peas and in particular broccoli and spinach. How do the stats for these compare?

I'd also heard that statistically lacto veggies were more likely to be calcium deficient than vegans because milk is so acidic. Is that right?

[muchluv]

The highest calcium green leafy veg are 'collard greens' I think. Sold in Tesco just as 'greens'. WHfoods say 226mg for 190g (boiled, so water weight added). Tesco have 100g down as having 210mg.

So that's like 400g worth. If you get the type with the stalky bits in, not sure if they have the same calcium content as the leaf or not.

156g of steamed broccoli = 74mg calcium.

So really need to be eating a lot of green veg to get enough.

50mg of calcium in an orange though! Blackstrap molasses is good too. Off the spoon or in with some hot water! Tastes like liqourice. Lot of sugar though.

I think it's spinach that has quite a bit of calcium but for some reason it's not taken in or something.

don't know about the lacto veggie thing..

Also read that calcium supplements are absorbed too quickly which can lead to calcification of the arteries and heart attack. Think that's a very small number of cases though.

[mabli]

sort of related http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/ ... 615211.htm

[xmikeyx]

I had a lecture on nutrition a few months ago, and the sports nutritionist who gave the lecture was adamant that it was not possible to be vegan and get enough calcium. Which made me really wonder how it was that so many cultures in the past went without dairy and survived.

I did a little bit of research, and it really isn't all that hard to get sufficient calcium to reduce the risks of osteoporosis. A lot of tofu contains a fair amount of calcium, combine that with some greens, nuts, seeds and some fortified soy milk and you should be all good.

My assumption is that the RDAs for calcium are rather high. I'm a bit doubtful about the methods that have been used to determine RDAs personally.

The other thing is that osteoporosis is all about bone density. Your bone density increases according to the muscle mass surrounding the bones. So, assuming you're on this forum, and you're consuming sufficient calcium, chances are you're doing sufficient exercise for your bones to uptake the calcium, you should have no problems.

Osteoporosis is really a product of poor diets and no exercise.

[muchluv]

Tasty high calcium drink:

1 tblspn blackstrap mollasses. Put in cup. Add boiling water. Stir.
Add tea bag. Leave.
Perhaps dash of rice/soy milk etc.

A voila!