calcium

[Guest guest]

Regarding my previous post, it should be noted that it was not just PCRM calling

for an end to racial bias in the National School Lunch Program and other federal

food programs. They were joined by: The National Council of Negro Women, Inc.,

and the League of United Latin American Citizens joined the NAACP, the

Congressional Black Caucus, and more than 350 organizations, politicians, and

health advocates. More info: http://www.pcrm.org/news/lawsuit.html

 

Plant sources of calcium:

 

*vegetables:

parsley, turnip greens, turnips, rutabaga, parsnips, watercress, collard greens,

mustard greens, watercress, kale, Chinese cabbage, okra, broccoli, alfalfa,

cucumber, celery, carrots, lettuce, vegetables & herbs rich in silicon increase

calcium absorption

 

Wild Greens and Herbal sources of calcium:

red clover, raspberry leaf, nettles, cleavers, horsetail, coltsfoot, plantain,

chamomile, shepherd's purse, borage, chicory, dandelion, chickweed, oatstraw,

sage, comfrey leaves, yellow dock leaves, mugwort, peppermint, spearmint,

lambswort. Many of these can be eaten as greens, some of them raw others cooked.

You wouldn't want to eat nettles raw, but you can cook it in any way you would

cook spinach.

Chickweed is a great salad green and it grows through the winter. Parsley is

helpful in regulating the calcium balance in the body.

 

*seaweed: hijiki, wakame, kelp, agar-agar, nori, kombu, dulse

 

*nuts & seeds: almonds, filberts, brazil nuts, hazelnuts, sunflower seeds,

pistachios, walnuts, sesame seeds, tahini, sesame salt [gomasio], cold pressed

sesame oil

 

*beans: garbanzo [or chick peas], kidney beans, black beans, pinto beans

 

*grains: amaranth, quinoa, oats, oatmeal, corn tortillas, brown rice, buckwheat,

millet), soy products (unpasteurized miso, tempeh), spirulina, molasses, carob

powder, dried fruit (dates, figs, raisins, prunes), fruit (papaya, elderberries,

lemons, oranges, strawberries, apricots, fresh coconut juice), ginger, rice bran

syrup.

 

[These are not in order of most potent source.]

 

What depletes calcium or interfere with its absorption and what to avoid:

caffeine in its many forms including chocolate (it causes a high urinary loss of

all the electrolytes and can lead to having kidney or gallbladder stones),

anything containing phosphorus acid (often used as a preservative in " enriched "

white flour, preserved meats, processed mashed potatoes, nutritional yeast, or

it is used as a bubble producer in soda pop, cider, Perrier, sparkling fruit

juices -- because it is so frequently used we get an overabundance of it in our

typical diets and it pulls calcium out of our bones), excess salt (draws calcium

out of our bodies through our urine), white sugar, tobacco & smoking, alcohol,

bran, lack of exercise, stress, excitement or

depression, too rapid flow of food through the intestinal tract (such as

diarrhea or enemas), soy that has calcium carbonate added to it (often tofu is

made with this ingredient), greens that are high in oxalic acid (spinach, chard,

and beet greens), and mineral oil (this is often found in cosmetics and can

cause loss of not only calcium but vitamin D).

(My summary: exercise, don't smoke, avoid excess animal protein, salt, caffeine

and carbonated drinks. Eat kale, drink calcium fortified orange juice, get some

sun, and forget the rest.)

 

'Calcium in Foods' chart (in milligrams)

(http://www.pcrm.org/health/VSK/VSK5.html

 

---------

Calcium: White Gold

by David Siegel

 

You may be interested to know that after I stopped eating chicken and fish, for

the first six months I felt like I wasn't getting enough protein. I felt tired

and out of gas. How can one feel protein-deficient? Weight loss that isn't

caused by starvation is basically a loss of water and fat. Muscle deterioration

comes with disuse, not protein deficiency--anyone who's ever worn a cast knows

that. Feeling tired has to do with fuel, not parts. If your car is out of gas,

do you drive to an auto parts store?

 

This feeling of not getting enough protein shows how strongly I was brainwashed

into thinking protein was fuel. My mother, my school, and everybody else had

always told me to get enough protein. But now I know why I felt so run-down. I

had become the dreaded lacto-ovo vegetarian: one of the most misinformed groups

in town. I was trying to eat complete proteins to replace those I thought I was

missing. I was concocting meat-substitutes to get that all-important protein the

government said I needed. So I was drinking milk and eating cheese. Lots of

cheese. Have you noticed how many vegetarian cookbooks rely on dairy products to

make their recipes taste good? Even more important, I wasn't getting the

carbohydrates I needed, so my muscles were starved. I was drinking two or three

glasses of milk a day.

 

Sorry, Rudy, but milk is a concentrated source of protein, fat, and sugar,

designed to help babies grow at the time in their lives when they need the most

protein.

 

Can you think of one other species on the planet that drinks milk after infancy?

Cow's milk is great, if you are a calf. In humans, even skim milk does more harm

than good. Of course, the more saturated fat a dairy product has, the worse it

is. A woman's risk of getting breast cancer rises with her intake of

saturated fats. Breast cancer affects 2.8 million women in this country,

accounting for $6 billion in health-care bills. According to the Physicians'

Committee for Responsible Medicine, milk has no place in anyone's diet,

especially pregnant and nursing mothers.

 

I gave up dairy about five years ago. At first, it was " difficult. " Then I

realized it was all in my head. I could just let go of all that protein

brainwashing. After a few months, I stopped craving cheese and my face stopped

looking puffy. Your face will look less puffy, too, after you give up dairy

products completely.

 

Milk is only good for one group of people. Dairy farmers and their families. To

them, milk is white gold.

 

The Calcium Connection

 

We all need calcium. Every cell in our bodies needs calcium. Would you be

surprised to learn that this goes for all mammals? Where do you think elephants,

especially pregnant or nursing elephants, get enough calcium? Calcium is an

element, like iron. You can't turn it into anything,and you can't destroy it.

The

amount of calcium going out always equals the amount coming in, unless there is

a deficit or a surplus. There's more than enough calcium in the grasslands

of the African savannah to support all the animals living there. All animals

need calcium, because we naturally lose it, but humans on high-protein diets are

especially good at losing calcium, which is why they have to consume so much

just to stay even.

 

At the Mayo Clinic, a four year study conducted by Dr. B. Lawrence Riggs

concluded: " There is a large body of evidence indicating no relationship between

calcium intake and bone density; We found no correlation at all between calcium

intake levels and bone loss, not even a trend. "

 

Any diet with more than ten percent of its calories as protein will contribute

to calcium and bone loss, leading to osteoporosis in older people. The more

dairy in your diet, the more calcium comes in, and the more calcium goes out.

Drink as much milk as you want-you'll lose calcium. Osteoporosis is a

rich-person's disease. Osteoporosis and consumption of dairy products go

hand-in-hand.

 

What is it about excess protein that causes loss of calcium? Your kidneys, which

did not evolve to handle more than ten percent of your calories as protein,

especially after you are weaned, get rid of calcium as a reaction to excess

protein in a process called " buffering " . Your kidneys eliminate calcium

through the urine. Too much protein also triggers the release of iron,

magnesium, zinc, potassium, and many other minerals. By now you won't be

surprised

to learn that people with high-protein diets get kidney stones, and vegetarians

rarely do. The trick is to use what you get, not pour more in just because

you've found a leak.

 

When you think of calcium, think of elephants and cows. There is plenty of

calcium available in a fresh, green, low-protein diet. Dr. John McDougall-a

doctor who's written several books I think are helpful-writes: " Calcium

deficiency, caused by an insufficient amount of calcium in the diet, is not

known to occur in humans. " The minimum daily requirement (thanks to our pals at

the NRC) is completely skewed from data presented in the '50s and '60s.

 

Osteoporosis

 

Nathan Pritikin studied Bantu women in Africa and found that they bear nine

children and breastfeed them for an average of two years on a strictly

vegetarian

diet with about one-third of our Recommended Daily Allowance of calcium. They

are not calcium deficient, never lose a tooth, and rarely break a bone.

Bantus who move to affluent countries develop osteoporosis just as the local

populations do. Pritikin studied the Bantus to come up with his low-protein,

no-fat diet.

 

Eskimos, on the other hand, get almost twice the recommended daily requirement

of calcium (over 2 grams per day) and have one of the highest-protein

diets in the world. Eskimos also have one of the highest rates of osteoporosis

in the world.

 

Don't we need calcium supplements? Do cows or gorillas need calcium supplements?

Where do cows and elephants get all their calcium? You think it's different in

cows and elephants than in people? How would you know? It's not. The calcium

mechanism is common to all animals, some are just better at getting rid of

excess calcium than we are.If we take the blinders off, the Dairy Council and

the Tobacco Institute are about the same, only the Dairy Council is doing a

better job.

 

The most recent studies on osteoporosis, show that calcium loss and osteoporosis

are due to 1) a high-protein diet, 2) inactivity, 3) smoking, and 4) excess

salt. Most books on osteoporosis are based on outdated studies. Those authors

never suspected a protein connection. The keys to having strong bones all your

life are to eat a low-protein diet with lots of green leaves and get daily

weight-bearing exercise. If you want to avoid osteoporosis, you will have to

learn to reduce your calcium intake, not increase it.

 

Last year I had a neck operation. I had a diskectomy, which is removal of a

disk. This is also called a fusion, because the two vertebral bodies rest on

each other and fuse bone-to-bone. I took no supplements, ate a starch-and-salad

diet, and my surgeon said, and I quote: " I've never had a patient heal this

fast. " I was skiing six weeks after the operation. No joke.

 

Bones and muscles respond to mechanical stress. Normal walking isn't strenuous

enough to build bones. If housework did the trick, we'd know about it.

Strenuous, weight-bearing exercise--the equivalent of a short hike or an

aggressive, vigorous walk every day--adds bones and muscle. Not exercising loses

bone mass. Bones are built the same way callouses are built up. One of the

biggest problems astronauts have is bone and muscle loss. Vegetarians who run

and hike into their eighties generally do not get shorter or break hips-they

hardly lose any bone. People who take hormones and calcium tablets still have

problems.

 

Where do you get your calcium? I get maybe 300-500mg per day (who's counting?)

from leafy greens, preferably raw. Salad. Dark green and dark yellow

vegetables are loaded with calcium. If you don't lose much, you don't need much.

Contrary to what you may have heard, spinach has tons of available,

absorbable calcium. Go for the dark greens and chalk up on calcium.

 

http://www.dsiegel.com/wiwd/diet/diet.html

----------

 

--

 

 

_____________

Free email services provided by http://www.goodkarmamail.com

 

 

powered by OutBlaze