The Most Important Reasons To Get Calcium From Non-Dairy Sources – By Author Brenda Davis

uh calcium many people ask isn’t calcium or isn’t cow’s milk necessary for strong bones i can remember when my son was in grade two some people kids at school were saying well if you don’t drink milk um you’re just going to be a pile of blood and skin on the floor you’re not going to have any bones he came oh boy

so it’s there’s this very strong prejudice in our society that that milk cow’s milk is necessary for strong human bones and i would say it is no more necessary than moose milk cow’s milk has a lot of calcium it’s got about 300 milligrams per cup but moose milk actually has 600 milligrams per cup and we don’t call it an essential food uh you know if you look at pre-agricultural human history humans averaged one to two thousand milligrams of calcium per day without a single drop of cow’s milk and and in my opinion it really defies rationality to assume that this that that the that that he that any species would require the milk of another species for its survival you know each species designs its milk uniquely to help their offspring achieve the growth they need to achieve you know a 65 pound calf or whatever uh we’re blowing up into however many three or four hundred pound cow in in a fairly short order and that you know that milk is is uniquely designed to achieve that task human milk is designed for human infants and to me it just is is uh you know doesn’t make logical sense that any species would need the milk of another species and calcium rich we can get our calcium from plants and calcium-rich plant foods offer some pretty impressive advantages over dairy so they’re generally low in total fat they’re low in saturated fat and the rich sources of vitamin c and k and folate the rich sources of magnesium potassium and boron they’re rich in antioxidants and phytochemicals and so all of these things to me make plants a preferable choice if we look at our recommendations

recommendations for calcium are quite variable around the world so they’re they’re lower in the uk i think it’s about 700 milligrams there versus a thousand to twelve hundred in north america and so it’s a thousand for for most adults and for females 51 to 70 and males over 70 it’s 1200 so if we look at calcium intakes and so again the red is the non-veg the blue is the lacto-ovo and the green is the vegans you can see the lacto-ovo vegetarians are well above that thousand milligrams a day in both the adventist health study 2 and epic oxford the omnivores are are pretty close to that thousand as well in adventist health study 2 and epic oxford but in the taiwanese buddhist health study they they’re actually only at 542. then if you look at the vegans well in the adventist health study too they’re very close to the thousand but in epic oxford it’s only 582 and in the buddhist taiwanese study at 644 so it’s actually higher than the omnivores in the buddhist health study why would you think that would be of course in asia dairy is not a staple and so intakes would be lower but they would be higher in the vegetarians because they’re probably eating more tofu and more dark green leafy vegetables and things that are relatively high in calcium if we look at the studies on vegans and bone health we have about 15 studies that have assessed mineral density in vegans and 8 actually reported lower about 10 to 20 percent lower total bone mineral density among vegans and seven found little difference in the bone health of veg of vegans compared to other dietary groups so about half and half saying you know they have worse and and or there’s little difference and if we look at fracture rates or fracture risk we have three studies one showing increased risk rates one showing increased fracture risk and one finding no difference so this is a little concerning for people who are eating entirely plant-based diets but here’s what’s interesting this is the epic oxford study and you can see over here i don’t have a laser pointer but the 1.3 means 30 percent more fractures so this is fracture rates in vegans compared to meat eaters however when they looked only at the vegans eating at least 525 milligrams of calcium a day look at this there was absolutely no difference between the meat-eaters the fish eaters the lacto-vegetarians and the vegans no significant difference whatsoever but 45 percent of the vegans had intakes under 525 milligrams and 76 of the vegans had intakes under 700 milligrams and and so basically the take home message here is that bone health of vegans can be compromised when calcium intake is very low and vegans need to consider seems like they need to consume at least 525 milligrams of calcium per day and probably preferably should try to meet the the rda for calcium and this is my personal show-off picture but anyway this is me and this is my personal experience so i’m 61 years old i have a very strong family history of osteoporosis my mom had osteoporosis in her 50s and i’ve been a vegan for about 31 years i had a bone mineral density done i haven’t had one for about 10 years but i had one after about 20 years being vegan when i was in my 50s because that’s about when my mom got osteoporosis and my bone mineral density was two to two and a half standard deviations above expected for my age my doctor said the he showed me my chart my bone density was too high to plot on the graph there was an arrow at the top of the chart and he said i’m absolutely shocked he said i don’t know what you’re doing but whatever you’re doing keep doing it and i can tell you what i’m doing i make sure i get enough vitamin d i make sure i get enough calcium i make sure i get enough boron and magnesium and potassium i make sure my diet is well well planned but i also exercise because exercise is a message to your bones to stay strong and so that’s really really important i love this cartoon it’s this this guy here is saying to this uh this guy who works for the uh for the government good good and now the dairy he’s removing meat from the food groups and and he’s asking him politely to uh remove the dairy and i thought isn’t isn’t this funny because that’s exactly what the canadian government just did i wonder

if he was behind it so there are lots of reasons to get calcium from non-dairy sources lactose intolerant 70 percent of the world’s population is lactose intolerant milk is one of our richest sources of saturated fat which has been strongly linked to cardiovascular risk it increases risk of prostate cancer of ovarian cancer it increases risk of acne it it there are a lot of people that are allergic or sensitive to it it it um often contains hormones and pesticides it has been associated with increased risk of type 1 diabetes and then of course there are all the concerns about what we do to cows to get their milk and this is uh everybody knows the story in this room i’m sure but it is not a very pretty story and then of course there are huge environmental concerns as well with you know the number of of cows to produce uh this milk for the human species so but we do need to make sure we include sufficient calcium-rich plant foods in our diet so the low oxalate leafy greens like kale and broccoli and turnip greens things like almonds and chia seeds and and sesame seeds figs and tofu that’s made with calcium and and the blackstrap molasses and we can include a lot of legumes are fairly rich sources and the non-dairy milks that are fortified with calcium are also very rich sources so you know 300 milligrams in a cup often can get people to where they’re they’re aiming to be in some of the books i’ve written like becoming vegan uh comprehensive and express editions we developed a food guide that i think was pretty much foolproof so if you follow the guide you get what you need and in the middle of the guide you can see we we actually illustrate the calcium-rich foods within each food group and and and so that’s helpful for people too and then there are things you can do that to make sure you’re getting sort of the bone builders in your diet it’s not just about calcium it’s about potassium magnesium boron and zinc the richest source of boron in the diet is flax seeds the key vitamins vitamin b12 cdk and folate and vitamin k a lot of people say you need k2 for your bones you do but k1 from kale is converted to k2 in your in your intestinal tract if you have a healthy gut microbiome which most people eating plant-based do isoflavones from soy may help with bone health fruits and vegetables are strongly associated with better bone health essential fatty acids are needed and sufficient protein do you remember the days when we used to say protein causes bone loss don’t eat you know keep your protein as low as possible now we know actually we need to make sure we get sufficient protein they’re really two phases of protein we had we had some things right but not all things right back then protein does increase urinary calcium excretion and it increases acid production especially certain types of protein those have negative effects on bone health the positive is protein promotes calcium absorption and it enhances bone building activities it maintains muscle mass and bone structure and the net effect tens of protein tends to be somewhat favorable except when you have inadequate calcium intakes and very high protein intakes like a paleo diet so paleo diet no dairy lots of meat and so they would it could definitely work against them with the amount of protein they eat sufficient protein in plant-based diets is important for bone health and we have a study this is the seventh-day adventist health study 2 with over 33 000 participants showing that people eating legumes at least once a day had 64 percent fewer hip fractures than those eating legumes less than once a week and those eating meat analogs even this is salty things and we know salt increases calcium excretion so this was a surprise to me but even those eating meat analogs had 49 percent fewer hip fractures than those eating meat analogues less than once a week you need to be aware also of bone robbers so the factors reducing calcium absorption or bone building capacity are oxalates phytates excessive preformed vitamin a from supplements excessive alcohol intake and caffeine factors that that enhance calcium excretion too much salt high metabolic acid load and piles of protein like people eating 150 grams or more a day especially so i remember the the advertisements in women’s magazines back in the 80s by the dairy industry there was one advertisement that said oh sure plants have calcium but it’s not bioavailable only the calcium from cow’s milk is bioavailable and so that was how they were trying to sell their products but is the is the calcium from plants bioavailable well actually we absorb about 32 to 34 of the calcium from dairy products it’s about the same for tofu that’s made with calcium but we actually absorb about 20 to 30 percent from things like sweet potatoes legumes and soy milk and we absorb the most from low oxalate green vegetables like broccoli and kale and chinese greens and turnip greens and mustard greens we absorb the least from greens that are high in oxalates like spinach and beet greens and swiss chard there’s so much oxalates that the calcium is bound to the oxalate and it just goes right through so we can’t get we still get about five percent maybe 10 percent of the calcium from these foods so then some people say well what if i eat a salad that has spinach and kale will the spinach inhibit the absorption of calcium from the kale and no it doesn’t in fact that we still absorb some of the the calcium from the spinach but but there’s no problem with it negatively affecting uh the calcium absorption from the kale so bone-wise choices in terms of diet we want to meet our rdas for calcium we want to include some calcium and vitamin d fortified foods and we want to design the diet to ensure optimal intakes of all of those bone building nutrients but perhaps most important is getting a lot of weight-bearing exercise and maybe for people who are at risk who are starting to have low bone density to even consider wearing a weighted vest around the house to give you that extra weight bearing my recommendation would be 60 minutes of exercise six to seven times a week so daily exercise an hour a day every day you