Raw and Calcium?

[Morn]

I just told a friend of mine that for the last 3 months I have been on a raw foods diet and she was wondering how I get calcium since I wasn't eating any dairy. I really didn't have the answer for her but told her I was sure that a lot the natural fruits and veggies must have calcium. Does anyone know what fruits or vegtables have calcium in them?

[Rawkinlocs]

Morn,

Tell her that you get your calcium the same way plant-eating animals (including cows) do...from green leafies! :)

Seriously...they are rich in calcium but aside from that, the following was posted by member, Caramba a while back (focus on the raw sources and not the cooked/boiled/baked ones):


http://health.groups.yahoo.com/grou...lk/message/1928

A 100-gram portion of human breast milk (3.5 ounces) contains
33 milligrams of calcium. Human adults need calcium too, but
human adults should not be drinking human breast milk. Let's
compare the amounts of calcium contained in adult foods to
the level of calcium in human breast milk:

Calcium content of foods (per 100-gram portion)
(100 grams equals around 3.5 ounces)

1. Human Breast Milk 33 mg
2. Almonds 234 mg
3. Amaranth 267 mg
4. Apricots (dried) 67 mg
5. Artichokes 51 mg
6. Beans (can: pinto, black) 135 mg
7. Beet greens (cooked) 99 mg
8. Blackeye peas 55 mg
9. Bran 70 mg
10. Broccoli (raw) 48 mg
11. Brussel Sprouts 36 mg
12. Buckwheat 114 mg
13. Cabbage (raw) 49 mg
14. Carrot (raw) 37 mg
15. Cashew nuts 38 mg
16. Cauliflower (cooked) 42 mg
17. Swiss Chard (raw) 88 mg
18. Chickpeas (garbanzos) 150 mg
19. Collards (raw leaves) 250 mg
20. Cress (raw) 81 mg
21. Dandelion greens 187 mg
22. Endive 81 mg
23. Escarole 81 mg
24. Figs (dried) 126 mg
25. Filberts (Hazelnuts) 209 mg
26. Kale (raw leaves) 249 mg
27. Kale (cooked leaves) 187 mg
28. Leeks 52 mg
29. Lettuce (lt. green) 35 mg
30. Lettuce (dark green) 68 mg
31. Molasses (dark-213 cal.) 684 mg
32. Mustard Green (raw) 183 mg
33. Mustard Green (cooked) 138 mg
34. Okra (raw or cooked) 92 mg
35. Olives 61 mg
36. Orange (Florida) 43 mg
37. Parsley 203 mg
38. Peanuts (roasted & salted) 74 mg
39. Peas (boiled) 56 mg
40. Pistachio nuts 131 mg
41. Potato Chips 40 mg
42. Raisins 62 mg
43. Rhubarb (cooked) 78 mg
44. Sauerkraut 36 mg
45. Sesame Seeds 1160 mg
46. Squash (Butternut 40 mg
47. Soybeans 60 mg
48. Sugar (Brown) 85 mg
49. Tofu 128 mg
50. Spinach (raw) 93 mg
51. Sunflower seeds 120 mg
52. Sweet Potatoes (baked) 40 mg
53. Turnips (cooked) 35 mg
54. Turnip Greens (raw) 246 mg
55. Turnip Greens (boiled) 184 mg
56. Water Cress 151 mg

[Morn]

Thanks this helps a lot! :)

[Ariannah]

http://www.rawschool.com/nutrientdeficiency.htm

[Revvell]

Consider this: Since most animals wean themselves from milk at a young age, there must be other ways of getting calcium. As Rawkinlocs says.....

Revvell

[James Smith]

Morn,

Write down what you eat for a day. Then input that food into one of the online nutrition calculators. Are you getting enough calcium? If you are not, think about how you can modify your daily menu. If you want to consider supplementation, that could be one option. Supplements, of course, are not raw, and might not even be vegan.

Many (cooked) people do not get enough calcium. They think they get it from all that "healthy" milk, but how many of them actually calculate how much calcium they get? Ask your friend to perform the same exercise and see how many nutrients she actually gets.

Many raw foods have lots of calcium. But can you / do you want to eat enough of them to get an adequate amount? If you do get an adequate amount from raw foods, let me know what you are eating. Seriously.

For example, almonds look like they have a lot of calcium. 100 grams of almonds have 25% daily value (DV) of calcium. And also 78% DV of fat. So if you are getting calcium from almonds, you are also getting at least 3 times the DV of fat. That's assuming that all the other food you eat is fat-free, which it is not.

Dark leafy greens like spinach have a lot of calcium by calories, but they have very few calories by weight, meaning you have to eat a lot of them to get the calories and the calcium. Spinach is a very nutritious food
http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-C00001-01c20gM.html
100 grams of spinach has just 23 calories and 10% DV of calcium. Which means that you would have to eat a kilo (just over 2 pounds) of spinach to get the calcium. Every day. I am not sure how to do that.

Let us know what you come up with.

[LightLover]

Black sesame seeds contain much more calcium than the white ones.

I buy it as a paste (raw), but real rawfooders will buy the seed and make the paste by themselves.

It is a big mistery to me why this stuff is not so popular, anyone knows?

LL

[mongomango]

It's best to soak sesame seeds for bioavailability of the calcium. The phytic acids in them will keep bind much of the calcium with the seeds until they're neutralized.

[LightLover]

good remarks, mongomango

* I am not sure if the paste I buy is dealt with in the ideal way (soaking) you describe.

LL

[mongomango]

Probably not, LL, but even still, you are getting some calcium from it.

Really the issue is truly not HOW MUCH calcium one receives, because we don't need as much as they say, but getting it in the proper ratios with magnesium and phosphorus. It's pretty easy to do if you incorporate greens into your diet and follow a raw lifestyle. Non raw people have troubles because they drink soda which is filled with phosphorous and even breads will bind calcium, as grains and beans in general, unless soaked and fermented, will tie up many nutrients.

[LightLover]

So better handle the seed by myself in the future.
It is always good to repeat our ratio-lessons MM, and I think you are right, but what do you mean exactly with "fermented grains"?
(fermented beans I do understand, for example unpasteurized miso)
LL

[mongomango]

Indigenous cultures always fermented their grains. In fact even as little as 100 years ago, they were still fermenting oatmeal. How the ancients got the knowledge that this was a necessary thing is beyond the scope of this post, but it was universally done in every culture that has been studied. It is simply soaking the grains until fermentation begins..much like you would do to get rejuvelac...except you would use the grains instead of drinking the water. Both sprouting and fermenting will get rid of the phytic acids and other nutrient inhibitors.

[LightLover]

Great stuff, MM

Must be a big market for soakt, fermented sour dough bread, or not..?

LL

[Sharon in Colorado]

Also important to note that the high percentage of protein in dairy causes the body to pull calcium out of the bones in order to neutralize the acidity in the body. There is probably more info on this at www.notmilk.com

[mongomango]

Great stuff, MM

Must be a big market for soakt, fermented sour dough bread, or not..?

LL

The only sprouted bread I've seen is the Ezekiel brand. The sourdough bread you generally buy, at least in the US, is not usually truly fermented, but that which people make is. It's pretty much one of the last western hold outs to the old ways. Heh heh, even if no one knows it.

[Revvell]

I buy it as a paste (raw), but real rawfooders will buy the seed and make the paste by themselves.
LL

Oh sigh. Guess I'm not a "real" rawfooder then. :(

[mongomango]

Oh sigh. Guess I'm not a "real" rawfooder then. :(





http://www.proxywhore.com/invboard/html/emoticons/stoni2.gif

[LightLover]

http://www.proxywhore.com/invboard/html/emoticons/stoni2.gif

" I was only talking to myself..." :D

LL

[mongomango]

heh heh, not too many of us would be real raw fooders under those conditions. I have only once ground my own sesame seeds, and only cause I didn't have any and I must buy it through mail order. THAT was a nightmare! My food processor kept getting so hot that I'm sure the resulting product was no longer raw at all. I just buy it, but I'll soak seeds and add them to smoothies too.

[PreciousLight]

That list is great that you posted Rawkinlocks. Eating plenty of greens through smoothies and salads definitely meet any requirements of calcium. I also drink banana shakes which include sesame seeds(white seed)-and ginger which up the calcium figures fast. The SAD foods sugar and white flour etc. are what the nutritionists say that drain the calcium and other minerals out of our body.

[LightLover]

* Mongo, I was wondering, after your great info: can you tell me if you do eat fermented grains, and in wich ways/preparations?

* Vitamin D is also important for calcium absorption (as is Vit K, to glue the calcium in your bones, but this Vitamin is available in green vegetables)

thanks, LL

[paradise2]

Another thing to remember is that the RDAs for calcium are for cooked people, because the raw diet is high in vit C, more calcium is absorbed so you to need to eat less. Also, because the raw diet has less protein, you need less calcium to alkalize the body after the protein acidifies it.

The RDAs might also be way too much than we actually need - even on a cooked diet. There is a chart about halfway down this link which lists bone health and calcium intake worldwide, countries with high calcium intake actually had poor bone health. :confused:

http://www.fao.org/docrep/W7336T/w7336t04.htm

Intake

Calcium consumption varies greatly worldwide, ranging from 800 mg per day or more in industrialized countries to 200 to 300 mg in some developing countries (FAO, 1991) (Table 1). The differences are mainly due to variation in the intake of dairy products, which are the richest sources of calcium. In countries where milk is scarce, calcium may be obtained from certain cereals, notably millets. Despite this large variation in calcium consumption, there is no evidence that osteoporosis is more common in developing than in industrialized countries - rather the reverse. In fact, the prevalence of hip fracture, as measured by mortality from fractures in the elderly (Eddy, 1972), is positively rather than negatively related to calcium intake (Figure 5). This paradox, and evidence of adaptation to low calcium intakes in Norwegian male prisoners (Malm, 1958), led a 1960 FAO/WHO Expert Committee to recommend a calcium allowance of only 500 mg (FAO, 1962). This recommendation is now being seriously questioned if not abandoned as the influence of other dietary constituents becomes increasingly apparent (Nordin et al., 1996).

[mongomango]

* Mongo, I was wondering, after your great info: can you tell me if you do eat fermented grains, and in wich ways/preparations?

* Vitamin D is also important for calcium absorption (as is Vit K, to glue the calcium in your bones, but this Vitamin is available in green vegetables)

thanks, LL

I do not. I think grains in general are not the best food for us. The fermented grains are ususally cooked after the fermentation period, and there are many ways to do it..usually just boiling as in oatmeal. I will sometimes have sprouted grains and beans, but I am conflicted on them. They are a food source that offers high calories and quite a bit of nutrition, but they also act as a drug in our system. I do not know if when sprouted that attribute goes away. I do know that the longer I was raw, the harder to digest even sprouted grains became for me, and I know that much of the grains that we have access to now is filled with mold and mycotoxins and those cannot be washed off and are perpetuated into the next generation seeds. This may not be an issue in your country as conditions may be better than in the US as far as farming and storage of grains. But maybe not, lol. Honestly, for myself I think fruits and veggies are ideal maybe 75-80% fruit and 20-25% veggies, with a small amount of nuts. I don't know if you saved the site I linked to. It's no longer up as I guess they don't want links to other places here anymore and so I'm going to respect that and not post it again, but there is a book on their site that can be gotten that has all sorts of that information. Alternatively, you can email me @ Linda@wildglobe.com and we can discuss it off the forum.

On the other hand...I always have sproutable grains and beans in good quantity in my household as I believe that they are a good, cheap, compactly storable food source which needs no refrigeration for emergency situations ala hurrican katrina, a tsunami type experience, or worse.

[Bobbie]

Most leafy greens contain oxalates which inhibit absorption of calcium. The best leafy greens for calcium absorption are apparantly - kale, watercress, collards, turnip greens, parsley.
Also seaweed.

Green juices, green smoothies, seaweed soup, and (soaked for 24 hours) Sesame Seed Milk are the best ways to get calcium.
You should eat some fat with your greens as you need this to absorb the vitamin K.

[Jackie1995]

I too was concerned about the apparant lack of RDA calcium (per my entries in Fitday so I can see what I'm getting, nutritionally, daily).

When I discussed it with my doctor, he said I really did not need to worry about it, because the calcium from natural sources (veggies, raw foods) is better quality.

He thinks I'm a bit of an extremist re: food, but I give him credit for knowing his stuff and not talking down to me.

I'm a big fan of green smoothies, with lots of parsley, watercress, spinach, kale, beet greens, stuff like that. I guess that's where the calcium is coming from!

[LightLover]

Hi Mongo, is it still usefull to soak grains
(for example : quinoa) a few hours before cooking? Is there a bonuseffect, or is it a waste of efforts? (this, while I still advise all people
about nutrition, also the not rawfooders)

Thanks, LL

[luckitri]

Supposedly as we age we absorb less calcium and the type of calcium becomes that much more important. I have had a battle with osteoporosis and would like to know that older raw people have no problem with bone maintenance as I do not believe in supplementation. I totally believe that the SAD diet creates calcium and bone problems and I wonder that our willingness to take Rx also affects much of this. I appreciated the recent news that many of these heartburn medications cause hip fractures as I suspected as much. Also the residue from plastics and so many other unhealthy things in our environment can affect our bodies' utilisation of nutrients.

[mongomango]

Hi Mongo, is it still usefull to soak grains
(for example : quinoa) a few hours before cooking? Is there a bonuseffect, or is it a waste of efforts? (this, while I still advise all people
about nutrition, also the not rawfooders)

Thanks, LL

Yah, very beneficial for the grains to germinate as even that will reduce much of the inhibitors. Quinoa should only be soaked a half an hour and then let to sit several hours at least. Oat and buckwheat groats, 30 minutes to an hour soaking and then left to sit several hours..or overnight with rinsing. Amaranth should not be soaked at all, but should go through a few periods of rinsing. Ideally, one should soak the required time and allow the seeds to sprout somewhat which requires forethought and planning as you have to soak, rinse in 8 hours, rinse again in 8 hrs, etc. These are as a general rule. They can be deviated from. But the germinating of all grains, beans, and seeds is important.

For instance, years ago I also used to have a breakfast drink...I would mix 1 cup of sunflower seeds, 1 cup of sesame seeds, one cup of buckwheat groats, one cup of oat groats, and 1/2 cup of flax seeds (in retrospect I'd have added 1/2 cup of pumpkin seeds), and I'd mix them all up in a bag and take 3 or 4 TBSP and soak them overnight. The next morning I'd rinse them and toss them in the blender with a banana, a few strawberries or blueberries, and enough water or almond milk to make a smoothie. I ate this for a very long time and it did wonders for my health regardless of proper food combining rules and whether the seeds for sprouted optimally.

EDIT: Other grains besides those I mentioned should really soak overnight, but even a few hours soaking is beneficial.

[LightLover]

Great MM, I soak in your information :D

Do you mean with: "Quinoa should only be soaked a half an hour and then let to sit several hours at least"

* That after half an hour I have to throw the water away and then let it sit several hours (only with the water that sticks to it)?

* as you don't mention the word cooking in your answer, are all your guidelines still beneficial for cooking-procedures?

- I think it is a personal phenomenon, but the more I seem to know about
food in general, and especially which cooked foods are the best, and in which ways they are dealth with/treated the best, the more confident I am
towards eating more raw. The reason is that when I fall back to non-raw, I know what to eat that
is the closest to raw, both looking to the food itself and to the way it is processed; my backup just feels stronger.

Anyone recognizing this?

LL