The Importance Of Minerals In Our Diet
Health, Fitness & Nutrition
Calcium
Calcium works alongside vitamin D in helping to build healthy teeth and bones, in addition to this calcium can help with:
- Lowering the blood pressure and regulating the heartbeat
- Regulates the contractions within our muscles
- Helps the blood to clot
- Maintains the cell membranes
- Helps the body to absorb vitamin B12
All dairy products are rich sources of calcium and growing children need 4 servings per day and adults need about 3. The foods listed below contain about 400 milligrams of calcium.
- 3 ½ oz of sardines including the bones
- 12 ounces cup of café` latte coffee
- 1 cup of plain low fat yogurt
- 1 ½ to 2oz of cheese
Foods containing 100 milligrams of calcium
- ¾ of a cup of cottage cheese, this can either be low fat or full cream
- 1 cup of cooked broccoli
- One small taco
- 1 English muffin
- 1/3 of a cup of almonds
- 4 dried figs
- ½ a cup of frozen yogurt
How much calcium do we need?
As a general rule most adults will need roughly 1000 milligrams a day of calcium, adults over the age of 50 will need slightly more, around 1200 milligrams per day.
Children need calcium to help build strong bones and teeth and should have about 1300 milligrams of calcium per day. Certain factors such as medical conditions, lifestyle and medications can all affect the calcium intake, for example calcium from sweet potatoes, beans and spinach can sometimes be absorbed poorly into our body.
Drinking a lot of coffee can have an affect as this contains caffeine, which reduces the absorption of calcium. If you smoke then you may not get enough calcium as smoking can decrease the absorption of calcium.
If you think you may not be getting enough calcium in your diet then you can take extra supplements, taking supplements will not have the same effect as receiving calcium through food as they cannot provide the same nutritional benefits of food but they help.
If you do take supplements of calcium there are certain guidelines that should be followed:
- If you take high amounts of calcium supplements then be sure to get at least 18 milligrams of zinc per day.
- Take your calcium supplements with meals and don’t take them all at once spread them out throughout the day.
- Make sure you know the dosage as not all supplements contain the same amount of calcium .