Calcium

[LaurieG]

I need ideas for calcium rich foods. DD (21 months) has intolerances to all milk and soy products and derivatives. She cannot have alternative milks (rice, hemp, or almond) directly but seems to tolerate them in baked goods and if I drink them (she is BF'ed). Not that alternative milks are good calcium sources, but just fyi. She also reacts badly to most supplements and I have recently narrowed it down to magnesium stearate. So far I haven't found a calcium supplement for myself that is mag stearate free. So the result is I'm pretty sure my intake of calcium has been poor for about a yr and a half. I'm getting pretty concerned about bone density in myself. Also, dd has a kidney disorder (renal tubular acidosis) which purges nutrients from her body - calcium in particular. So although I think she is probably getting good calcium from BM, I want to pump up her intake. She also is slowly getting less and less BM and eventually will wean I would imagine , so I need to find alternatives.

DF/ SF suggestions for major amts of calcium that I can do on a daily basis? I will be on the road, reading but not able to respond for a day or 2 so let me say in advance I really appreciate any thoughts.

[tanyalynn]

We use a supplement, it's mostly available through healthcare providers, but also a bit online and it doesn't have magnesium stearate. We use Perque's Bone Guard Forte 20, it's a multi-mineral supplement. I give it to the kids too, I put it in a coffeebean grinder (it's a tablet) and make it into a fine powder, then mix it in with just a tablespoon of juice.

I also recently learned that a lot of herbs (the kind you make into herbal infusions, but that are more nutritious than drug-like) are also good calcium sources. I recently bought a book, Nutritional Herbology, that discusses (with data) nutrition and herbs in detail. And making herbal infusions is easier than making tea--I had no idea.

[kjbrown92]

Bone broth (the 24-48 hour kind)
canned salmon with bones
broccoli
spinach
almonds

[lil_miss_understood]

Green smoothies?
Pacific Rice Milk (for you) is "enriched" with calcium and vitamin D (although it's D2 so pretty useless).

[craft_media_hero]

yes, spinach and banana smoothies. and broccoli. can you eat yogurt? and what about spiruteen? I don't know if it has mag stearate, but you can mix it with just water instead of dairy/dairy substitute---especially good as hot chocolate.

[Ruthla]

The main "traditional food" sources of calcium are milk and bones. Bones can be eaten in the form of fish (canned salmon or sardines with bones, making sure you do eat the bones- I like to mash them all together before eating them) and broth made from red meat, poultry, or fish bones. I've never made a fish broth- I understand it needs to cook for less time and is easier to "ruin" by over cooking than red meat or poultry broth.

I'd suggest eating lots of fish with bones (canned salmon makes for great salmon patties, and sardines are less likely to have mercury because they're lower on the food chain) plus eat some bone broth every day. Drink it as plain broth (also works in sippy cups), use it as the foundation for soups, and use it as the liquid when you cook grains.

[LaurieG]

Thanks for all the ideas!

Tanya - I will definitely see if I can find a source for the supplement you recommend. Thanks for that tip. I ran across some suggestions for herbal infusions while I was researching this so that's something to look in to also.

We do smoothies, spinach, broccoli, almonds, and sometimes canned salmon. We just don't do any of them enough to get the level of calcium I think we need. And DD is very picky and finicky so I often can't get her to eat a lot of anything. The bone broth I make is just so bland.... Maybe that needs to be my focus - make a tastier bone broth so that DD will be as excited about that as the juice her grandmas give her.

[tanyalynn]

I blanked before. I think it's available online at naturamart.com, at least I've seen other Perque products there. They're not cheap, but I've seen in myself that I need a lower dosage than mainstream recommendations, and a) I don't have great calcium sources in our diet right now, and b) my health isn't so stellar that I just don't need it, I probably need more than most people. FWIW, I give each of the kids between 1/2 to 1 tablet per day (35 and 45 lbs).

[LaurieG]

Originally Posted by TanyaLopez

I blanked before. I think it's available online at naturamart.com, at least I've seen other Perque products there. They're not cheap, but I've seen in myself that I need a lower dosage than mainstream recommendations, and a) I don't have great calcium sources in our diet right now, and b) my health isn't so stellar that I just don't need it, I probably need more than most people. FWIW, I give each of the kids between 1/2 to 1 tablet per day (35 and 45 lbs).

Hey Tanya, How do you know how much you need? I have always thought of calcium as being pretty hard to determine. Obviously sometimes it is clear - like when I start getting a lot of leg and foot cramps I figure I must be so low in calcium and / or potassium that there isn't enough for my muscles. But what signs do you look for to determine there is enough to keep your bones strong and healthy, other than a lack of fractures? I'd like to intervene before it gets to that point, kwim?

[tanyalynn]

Originally Posted by LaurieG

Hey Tanya, How do you know how much you need? I have always thought of calcium as being pretty hard to determine. Obviously sometimes it is clear - like when I start getting a lot of leg and foot cramps I figure I must be so low in calcium and / or potassium that there isn't enough for my muscles. But what signs do you look for to determine there is enough to keep your bones strong and healthy, other than a lack of fractures? I'd like to intervene before it gets to that point, kwim?

It'll sound strange, but the guideline I was given by my healthcare provider is to get those pH test strips, the ones that go from about 5-8, with gradations in-between, and you want your first-morning urine to be between 6.5 and 7.5. For most people, this is fairly straightforward, maybe they eat a bit too much sugar, so they'll be closer to 5, and taking out some sugar will increase the pH a bit, and then add in a the multi-mineral supp til you get consistently in that range. It can get a bit trickier for those of us less healthy, a while ago I was testing at 8 all the time and I needed more sodium, my adrenals are really worn down and so my body doesn't use sodium well, it dumps most of it. So I started drinking salt water, and then it went down, and then I could add re-figure how many of the pills I needed beyond that. As a practical matter, I think 2-3 for most people would be fine, but the more stressed we are, the more we'll need. My HCP expected me to need 6/day as a very stressed, unhealthy person, but that should taper down over time as we rebuild stores.

It's part of the acid-alkaline theory of health which I think is partly valid. To me it just looks like plenty of minerals, which fits into the WAPF worldview. And either way, it should help prevent cavities and be overall good for bone health (along with vitamin D).