Ensuring Good Bone Health While Living a Dairy-Free Lifestyle
You may have cut out dairy products from your diet for many common reasons, it could be for your stomach, skin, or even energy. Removing this food group may be making your look and feel amazing but you have the worry in your mind about if you’re getting enough calcium in your diet now. Well, I am here to help you out on diary free calcium sources.
It’s not hard to get more calcium into your diet from other sources due to the fact that dairy products actually contain quite a small amount. There are actually other foods which have a higher calcium content.
100ml of full cream dairy milk provides you with 107mg of calcium. Below is a list of the highest non-dairy calcium foods and the amount that you would need to consume in order to get adequate dietary intake.
Tahini (ground up sesame seeds)- 330mg /100g (approx. 2-3 tablespoons)
Tofu -320mg/100g (approx. 1/2 of a packet of tofu)
Spinach- 75mg/100g (approx. 3 cups)
Almonds- 250mg/100g
Almond butter – 50mg/1 tablespoon
Sardines- 302mg/100g (approx. 1 small can)
Pumpkin – 90mg/ 1 cup
Chia seeds 177mg/28g
Molasses, blackstrap 175mg/1 tablespoon
So as you can see, this shows how easy it can be to get your daily intake of calcium, without ever having to worry about your lack of dairy. If you consume 2 serves of any of the above foods each day you will be probably be getting more calcium than what you were before you took out the dairy.
We know calcium is meant to be good for our bones and bone health. It is also important to note that vitamin D, magnesium and vitamin K play a very important role in directing the calcium into the bones and stimulating new bone cell turnover. So consuming foods rich in these vitamins and minerals is also important and getting that all-important sunlight to absorb vitamin D. One other very important thing that we can do to keep our bones strong and healthy is regular weight-bearing exercises which help to stimulate new bone cell production and help maintain good bone density.