Which Food Naturally has the most Calcium?
As I am advised to stop Milk by my Doctor, what are the best foods to cover Calcium in my diet?
So if you are asked by your doctor to stop using milk products for a while, then relax, you shouldn’t worry so much about your calcium requirements.
We just get a track that’s free from the dairy aisle and find new ways to attain our requirements. There might be a number of reasons why milk intake should be kept on a hold as more than calcium, dairy and alike produces are sources of high saturated fat. Moreover, milk and dairy products are just a stripe amongst the wide range of calcium sources from nature.
So if you have a heart issue which you are trying to sort out for a while, or if you are suffering from lactose intolerance or if you are someone with troublesome PCOS, then it’s better to follow the advice and reduce your milk consumption!
And you can quite easily disentangle and replace the tonifying effects of dairy with other diet plans. Do you think it’s not as easy as it sounds? Well it is actually easy!
What makes calcium an important mineral for our body?
How do we perceive things around us? How do we react to external stimuli?
How do we identify and distinguish something?
How do we move around via muscular contractions?
All of that takes place via the nervous impulses. And for the record, impulses wouldn’t be transmitted efficiently without calcium ions in our body.
Platelet aggregation and clotting is another important process inside the human body and calcium being the clotting factor helps in the same without which the coagulation process wouldn’t be active efficiently. Bones, our teeth, our nails and our joint health depend upon calcium ions.
Calcium and Bone Health
Basically our bones contain osteoclastic cells and osteoblastic cells. Amongst which, the osteoclasts cause calcium reabsorption from the bones and the osteoblastic cells are responsible for the new bone formation as well as for the deposition of calcium into the bones from the circulation.
So once you go under a low calcium level corresponding to Vitamin D deficiency or malabsorption and similar conditions, the body reverts back to the low calcium levels by releasing calcium ions from the bones to meet other requirements like muscular contraction or blood coagulation.
And by this process, eventually the calcium levels inside our bones too depletes leading to a low bone density making them fragile for easy fractures (Osteoporosis). It leads to impaired bone mineralisation resulting in conditions like osteomalacia as well.
Symptoms of Calcium deficiency
Confusions over simple things in our daily life or an impaired memory, spasms inside our muscles which you might have ignored for some time thinking it’s okay, or the numbness and tingling sensations which often occurs around the feet, face or hands could all be related to disrupted calcium levels in the blood. Hallucinations and depression, brittle nails which are weak, muscle cramps and most importantly easily fracturing bones are all indications of low calcium levels in the body.
So why dairy? and why not dairy?
In Ayurveda, we focus on the goodness of any food by accompanying its effect over the three bio energies along with its physiological pace in the formation of Ama (endotoxins) and the following pathogenesis. And according to contemporary science, it is said that the vital force which milk offers depends upon its freshness.
So considering the case of cow’s milk, it is Vata-Pitta pacifying in nature. Both it’s cool potency and sheeta guna (property to cool) aggravates the already cool Kapha dosha within the body which when under balance blesses the body with ojas, immunity, stability, healthy anabolic reactions and energy flow, when gets aggravated brings quite the opposite effect. Milk is also heavy to digest and it is a laxative along with its mucus forming character.
Cow’s milk, or that of goat’s, or sheep’s, dairy is a potential source of around 280 milligrams of calcium and is also a rich source of protein. But this doesn’t always mean that we need to get milk into our diet necessarily to get these nutrients to flourish inside of the body. We got some alternate options which you must definitely have a look on!
5 food articles enriched in Calcium that can replace dairy
Everything you are looking for could be found inside nature. Depending on your dietary preferences and depending on your health provider advice, every mineral your body aches for could be found inside a suitable plant based diet. So here are some suggestions regarding calcium sources!
Sardines and their Calcium content (35% RDI)
Something we should definitely be looking forward to.
Sardines are a sublime source of the mineral which are eminent enough to meet about one third of calcium in our body. The Vitamin D essential for the absorption of calcium into our tissues is stored inside Sardines. They are thus an excellent reservoir of Vitamin D and of phosphorus, known as the third bone boosting mineral, both of which together count to be more than enough to meet calcium requirements of the body.
Always get high on those green leaves.! (1 cup ~ 200 mg)
Green leafy vegetables including collard green, spinach, kale serves around 266 mg of calcium in a single cup and what more should we really look at while they not only provide calcium but also keeps your body rich in vitamins, minerals and fiber.
Oranges and Soybeans
One whole orange has the capacity to serve around 55 mg of calcium into our body. At the same time, one cup of cooked soybeans contributes around 175 mg of calcium into the body. So if you are someone searching for natural calcium supplements which are lactose free, and which is friendly to your dietary restriction chart, then these two might come out to be the real gems for your calcium needs.
The slender greens of Amaranth ! (12% RDI).
Amaranth is a pseudocereal with high nutritional value, containing a very good source of calcium among other nutrients, minerals and vitamins. The calcium content in Amaranth is retained even after cooking and one cup of cooked amaranth provides 12% of the RDI which amounts to about 116 mg of calcium.
Not to be missed dietary contents
Fig (5% RDI) and Almonds (8% RDI)
Among the tasty and healthy dried fruits collections which most of us love immensely, figs have the maximum calcium content.It is amongst the most calcium containing natural food items on earth! As little as 28 grams of fig (1 ounce) would provide 5% of recommended daily intake of calcium, making it an ideal natural calcium supplement.
Almonds too are no less when it comes to calcium content. It tops the list of nuts with the highest amount of calcium delivering 8% of the recommended daily intake from an ounce of the nut.
It’s high time we trust the perks of following a natural plant based diet for attaining all our essential nutrients and minerals. There are alternate options for each and every food article in nature and if not dairy, there are plenty of options you can find to meet your mineral requirements without having to go to the stage of deficiency. You just got a search and you shall find.
Dr. Vikram Chauhan
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