i believe that the only way to know if you're getting enough mineral is a bone density test.
then retest in a year of two and compare.

too many peop have relied on mineral level testing only to be very surprised later.....a break/fracture is not a nice way to find out.

Hmm...I don't eat dairy at all, and yet somehow - I'm just not all that concerned with calcium. I keep hearing that dairy isn't as great a calcium source as it's made out to be, but who knows?

I did find this:



from: http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=george&dbid=14

And no, I am not interested in tofu ...

and this bit:



from: http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tnam...=45#foodsources

In that second link, there's also a chart of the "World's Healthiest Foods ranked as quality sources of calcium."

Interestingly - greens, sardines, fish, nuts and seeds feature prominently on the chart of foods containing the most calcium.

Certainly, dairy is a good source of calcium in some cases, but it's not necessarily the only source or even the best source of calcium.

I eat a lot of greens, fish, a few nuts and seeds, and I'm honestly not concerned about my calcium intake.

A couple of favourites:

Canned wild Alaska salmon - just mush up with the bones, include some green onion ends, some mayo or what have you - delicious. Make salmon burgers out of canned wild Alaska salmon and leave those soft bones in there. Mash up a 14-ounce can of wild Alaska salmon with one egg, some diced onion if you like - turn into four or five 'patties' on a cutting board, transfer carefully into a frying pan and pan-fry for 14 minutes per side, being careful not to turn any of the patties over until at least 14 minutes have elapsed, so as not to have them crumble apart. Add homemade low-carb tartar sauce if you like (mayo, dry mustard powder, lemon juice, dill relish, onion bits if you like).

Same deal with sardines - mush them up, don't worry about what they look like, once mashed up with chopped cornichons, lemon juice, mayo - quite tasty.

But how much calcium are you actually absorbing from those foods with lots of phytates and saponins. Not much from what I've read.

okay, so i gave into having some dairy around again... I'm pretty sure it's causing a stall. go figure! the only dairy I have left is some butter.... do you think this as troublesome as the cheese and heavy whipping cream that got me into trouble??

butter is totally fine for me I am sure - I really don't get any bloating from it or tiredness, but I do seem to react to other forms of dairy. Maybe try some ghee? What other fats do you eat? I'm still struggling to find decent replacements for dairy.

I do have lard for cooking eggs, meats and vegetables in, but often I forget to use it and instead use olive oil! oops.

I'm feeling a bit discouraged at finding my sweet spot of carbs, proteins, fats etc.... have been a bit stalled and wondering what the culprit is! could be a slip up I had last weekend (hard apple cider! so good, but so bad!) wondering if I am retaining water again, usually seems to be the pattern when I have booze :/

The Whole Health Source has some interesting posts on vitamin K. It is supposed to help your body put calcium where it should go and not where it shouldn't.

Links please

I don't know those particular articles, but here's Whole Health Source:

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/search?q=k2

And this is my go-to article for K2:

http://www.westonaprice.org/abcs-of...vitamin-k2.html

I'm surprised I didn't mention this when it came up, but as Nancy pointed out, many sources of calcium have antinutrients that prevent its absorption. Nuts and leafy greens have oxalates, which she didn't mention. Calcium oxalate is what kidney stones are made of, if that gives you an idea of what they do to you.

Antinutrients are my major complaint about the whfoods website. They're not taken into account in the calculations, and they're only briefly glossed over in the text. Nutrient availability is all but ignored on the site, which makes the data, and especially the rankings, nearly useless. Not to mention the ridiculousness of measuring nutrient content against calories instead of weight, volume, or typical serving size. That's an instant anti-fat bias, despite the fact that many fats are themselves essential nutrients, and fat improves absorption of a great number of nutrients.

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.c...enone-mk-4.html

This discusses the Weston Price work referenced above

Mike & WFL112 thanks for the links.

Mike AFAIK - oxalate interferes with calcium absorption, but doesn't prevent it totally, right? Maybe I got that wrong?

We were just discussing that on another thread, where someone mentioned that nut consumption is associated with lower heart disease risk. I can't give you a real answer, but I suspect it depends on the amount of calcium and the amount of oxalate.

Just don't eat raw rhubarb or raw taro, mmmkay?

Seems Gywneth Paltrow has announced she is suffering from early sign of osteopenia - its linked to very low levels of vit D

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20100626...on-ea4616c.html

Last year I went looking for gluten-free celebrities. I found a few articles describing a "gluten-free" diet that Paltrow went on, but it included barley miso! Ick.

Yes she is well known for the macrobiotic diet, which is opposite of ZC /carnivore(with no dairy), however, the thing the two diets have in common is both woes exclude dairy, there has been a case a couple of years ago of a lady from the UK who was on strict raw vegan and forced this on her kids, her kids developed rickets because she didn't give them milk which is fortified with vit D.

I am not really pro dairy, and frankly I never liked milk, but I think the subject it worth looking into.