Calcium Source

Calcium source

Chief calcium sources are:

Cheese
Raw milk (especially goats’ milk)
Cultured butter-milk, and yoghurt
Dried skim-milk powder

Minor calcium sources are green leafy vegetables, lettuce and watercress, carrots, peas and beans (fresh or dried), almonds, black treable, and black molasses. Cream contains little calcium, it is, therefore, not a good enough calcium source.

The body requires at least one gram of calcium a day. It is particularly important for children and for pregnant and nursing mothers.

Its deficiency leads to improper building of bones and teeth, nervous excitability, and an inability to relax and to sleep properly; skin irritations; disturbance of the heart-beat and of neutrality of the blood.

The British nation appears to be deficient in calcium. This apparent deficiency may be due not so much to a diet deficient in calcium-containing foods as to a lack of vitamin D in the diet, for the body is unable to utilize the calcium in foods if the diet is deficient in vitamin D. This apparent calcium deficiency may also be due to eating too much animal fat which coats the lining of the intestines and so prevents calcium absorption through the intestinal lining.

Calcium, phosphorous and vitamin D are interdependent and work in close chemical combination with each other. They are essential each to the other. Calcium cannot be absorbed by the body unless the diet contains some vegetable fat and some vitamin D. Calcium in the form of bone-meal tablets should be taken with orange juice or lemonade. The acid of the fruit helps absorption.

Calcium is a wonderful remedy for pain of any kind – for headaches, period pain, migraine, pain of arthritis, muscle cramps, and even labor pains; also for nervous tension, irritability, insomnia, poor circulation and chilblains, and as a nerve sedative before ordeals.

The richest sources of calcium are milk, powdered skim-milk, buttermilk, yoghurt, cheese, almonds, soya-bean flour, etc. The calcium and vitamin A content of milk varies with the cow, the pasture it feeds on, and the season of the year.

A pint of summer milk may contain 1 gram of calcium, but a pint of winter milk may contain as little as 1/2 gram or even less. Dried skim-milk, which is made from summer milk when the pasture is green and lush, contains more calcium than liquid winter milk; so, in winter, it is a good idea to supplement your daily milk with a tablespoonful or two of dried skim-milk powder, and to eat a little more fat in the form of butter, vegetable oil, nuts, yoghurt and buttermilk.

Calcium containing foods (milk, cheese, buttermilk and yoghurt) should, strictly speaking, never be eaten with starchy foods (bread, etc). This is because if calcium reaches the intestines when starch digestion is going on there, little of it will be absorbed because it will combine chemically with the starchy food to form compounds that are not absorbable. Our calcium-containing foods, therefore, if we are relying upon them for our calcium supply, are best eaten alone, or else with protein.