Brenda Davis, R.D. weighs the pros and cons of a whole food diet vs the paleo diet and why the paleo diet gains popularity over other alternatives.
Internationally acclaimed dietitian Brenda Davis explores the health benefits of vegan diets compared to other dietary choices; explains protein and amino acid requirements at various stages of life; describes fats and essential fatty acids and their value in plant-based diets; investigates carbohydrate facts and fallacies; reveals the truth about wheat, gluten, and grains; pinpoints where to obtain calcium, iron, zinc and other minerals without animal products; clarifies the importance of obtaining vitamin B12; and shows how to attain optimal nutrition during pregnancy and lactation and how to achieve and maintain healthy weights and exceptional fitness on a vegan diet.While much of the emphasis is on the health advantages that vegan diets offer. Plant-based nutrition truly benefits the entire planet, and every bite makes a difference.
Brenda Davis, registered dietitian and nutritionist, is a leader in her field and an internationally acclaimed speaker. She has worked as a public health nutritionist, clinical nutrition specialist, nutrition consultant and academic nutrition instructor. She is currently on a diabetes intervention research project in Majuro, Marshall Islands. Brenda spent 8 months in Majuro in 2006 and returns for 4-6 week periods every year or two. Brenda is a past chair of the Vegetarian Nutrition Dietetic Practice Group of the American Dietetic Association. In July 2007, she was inducted into the Vegetarian Hall of Fame. A co-author of nine books – award winners, Becoming Vegan: Comprehensive Edition(2014) and Becoming Vegan: Express Edition (2013), and the best-sellers, Becoming Vegan (2000), Becoming Vegetarian (1994, 1995), The New Becoming Vegetarian (2003) and Defeating Diabetes (2003), Dairy-free and Delicious (2001)and Becoming Raw (2010) and Raw-food Revolution Diet (2008). Brenda lives in Kelowna, British Columbia with her husband Paul. She has two grown children, Leena and Cory.
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so just because cows mummy see every species produces a milk to support the growth of their offsprings and if they’re large animals with big bones of course their milk can be very rich in calcium you need a lot for building bones and so it doesn’t you know we’re not saying cow’s milk isn’t a rich source of course it is but it’s not an essential source of cow you know it’s not any central food for humans anymore than moose are doing deer milk as I said
but what you need to know is during the Paleolithic period from for millennia human beings seemed to amble along reasonably well without a single drop of milk they were consuming between 1 and 2 thousand milligrams of calcium a day and they were getting most of it from leafy greens which they ate constantly and and so we can – it’s just you know to get enough calcium from kale you’d need to eat 11 cups and so not everybody would eat 11 cups of kale so we need to be looking at what are all the sources
and so you can get calcium from low oxalate leafy greens so you get a little bit from high oxalate greens but you only absorb about 5% so if you look on a chart and you see you know 200 and whatever milligrams of calcium and spinach you’re only getting about 5 percent of that so spinach is not a good source of calcium nor is Swiss chard nor our beet greens these very high oxalate greens are not reliable calcium sources because you can’t absorb this stuff it’s bound to oxalates
where’s the low oxalate greens like the kale and and the the Chinese greens and the broccoli and all of those greens the turnip greens and so fourth you can absorb 40 to 70% of the calcium now we absorb about 32% of the calcium from cow’s milk some would say 34 somewhere in there you absorb about the same amount from tofu you absorb just a little bit less from soy milk from beans you absorb you know maybe 25% so we absorb but you know varying amounts from from different plant foods
but generally you can get enough when you include a variety of those foods eaten throughout the course of the day and for people that have a really hard time getting up to the sort of a thousand or you know with the the RDA is a thousand milligrams up to the age of 50 for women and 70 for men after 50 for women after 74 minutes 1200 and and so for for for that age category to meet those rdas some people what they do is add a cup or two of a non-dairy milk Fitz fortified and so that’s an option of boosting your intake quite easily
so one cup has the exact same amount of calcium as a cup of cow’s milk about 300 milligrams and and so that’s that’s an option for people that just want to boost their intake a little bit but it is absolutely possible to get enough without doing that but you do need to be conscious about your choices
so for example if you’re eating fruit oranges dried figs are better calcium choices then would be an apple or you know some other dried fruit so so if you’re looking at you know with the calcium rich foods within each group the legumes and then within the nuts and seeds the more calcium rich choices would be almonds or sesame seeds and and so it’s you know just choosing carefully within each food group and you can do it oh and I have to say know that we’re talking what Cassie might like to tell my little story because I we have a lot of osteoporosis in my family my mom developed osteoporosis by the time she was 50
and so when I was nearing 50 I thought you know I wonder if I should see where I stand and and my doctor said absolutely we need to do a complete you know the gold standard bone-density complete DEXA scan or whatever and and so he said you’ve been vegan for many years you don’t you know you’re not drinking milk you’ve got the family history your small Caucasian female your very high-risk and when my results came back I I can still remember his face when he opened my chart to give me the results and and his jaw dropped
and he went oh it’s best he couldn’t believe it he said I’m absolutely stunned your bone density is two and a half standard deviations above norm for your age and and it’s you know for your I think was for my femur and two standard deviations above norm for my age for my for my spine and he said it’s that’s almost unheard of he said I don’t know what you’re doing but whatever you’re doing keep doing it
and the the moral of that story is is even as a vegan you can have exceptional bone health if you’re conscious about I’m conscious about and and bone health isn’t just about calcium by the way it’s it’s about vitamin C and vitamin K and it’s about vitamin E and it’s about essential fatty acids and and and many other nutrients magnesium and potassium and all of these things come play a role in building strong even protein we need to get enough protein to build the bone matrix all of that matters
but what may matter even more than all of that is exercise weight-bearing exercise and I’ve been an exercise enthusiast Oh since I was a teenager I do exercise pretty much every day unless I’m really sick or on the plane somewhere but even if I’m traveling so so I’m I’m you know taking a flight somewhere I don’t use the escalators I use the stairs and I try to walk as much as I can within the the airport and and so there are ways that you can kind of build exercise into your day
when I’m at hotels I I walk the stairs and instead of taking the elevators as much as possible so I think there are ways of doing that and that’s I really think that’s what has helped my bones to be to be what they are and so I I’m grateful for that but just know that you can do it being vegan doesn’t mean that you’ll be sacrificing your bone