Hidden Sources of Calcium: Milk is Just the Beginning

Calcium is an essential component in the vitamins and minerals your body needs to stay healthy.  It keeps bones and teeth strong.  Bones are not just there to keep your skin and muscles in place.  Bones are living organisms that require food like the rest of your body in order to work to it's fullest potential.  It takes more than a couple glasses of milk in your diet to get sufficient quantities of calcium in your diet.  Furthermore, in order for calcium to absorb into your body properly, you need vitamin D.  These two components work together to ensure that you have optimal calcium intake.  

Typically, when we think of calcium, dairy products come to mind such as milk and cheese.  Expanding to other food groups as a source of calcium is not something that is typically thought of when planning a meal.  In order to know what kinds of foods to incorporate into the diet, it's helpful to know how much a person needs.  

Infants - 600 mg per day
Children up to 10 years of age - 800 mg per day
Teenagers - 1200 mg per day
Adults to age 35 - 1200 mg per day
Adults 35-50 - 1000 mg per day
Post menopausal women - 1500 mg per day

For children, in addtion to milk, cheese and yogurt, which they all love, sneaking in some additional calcium sources is a good way to make sure they have all that they need.  

Teenagers require more calcium than children because they grow so much during their teen years and their bodies are going from childhood to adulthood, having the added boost of calcium is essential in healthy growth.

There are some amazing sources of calcium that you may not have thought of.  For instance, 1 cup of 1% milk contains 300 mg of calcium and 1 oz of cheese contains 204 mg of calcium.  As you can see, that's not even enough for an infant so how do you get more calcium into your children?  Here is a list of calcium rich foods you may not have thought about that kids will eat.

1 cup of baked beans - 127 mg
1 cup of broccoli - 74 mg
2 oz of almonds - 150 mg
1 cup of calcium fortified orange juice - 300 mg