Do We Need Cows Milk To Get Enough Calcium And To Get Strong Bones? by Brenda Davis

[Music] so the question do we really need cow's milk for calcium you know we are taught from the time we're very young that milk build strong bones and there is no question that cow's milk is a very rich source of calcium you get about 300 milligrams of calcium per cup of cow's milk interestingly you get about 600 milligrams from a cup of moose milk or a cup of deer milk it doesn't make them essential foods for humans 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 [Music] you [Music].