Known as ‘the silent disease’, osteoporosis often goes unnoticed until the first break, but what it means in general is that your bones are weakened by a series of tiny holes so are more susceptible to fracturing.
I was given the depressing news recently that despite eating cereal or porridge with milk almost every day of my life, I have low bone density. Apparently, it’s all down to the body’s ability to assimilate calcium, and to do this you need a good intake of vitamin D alongside the calcium. I was advised by my doctor to eat a yogurt a day, any type, from now on.
I have also been looking into calcium-rich foods, and there are some surprising revelations in the table on the International Osteoporosis Foundation website, which looks at calcium content in average food serving sizes:
Cheddar provides 296mg when it comes to calcium, with Edam containing 318mg. However, sardines provide 500mg, while fried whitebait gives you a stunning 688mg.
Steamed tofu has 510mg, lasagne 420mg and if you have any leftover Christmas figs, these contain a healthy 506mg. And I never thought I’d be pushing pizza, but apparently an 8-10in cheese and tomato pizza weighing 410g contains 873mg!
‘Strong women make stronger women’ was the tagline for the foundation’s World Osteoporosis Day in 2013, which asked everyone to nominate a strong woman in their life. A neat idea and one that helped promote the cause and its solutions via social media.
You can also do an online one-minute risk test to check your chances of suffering from osteoporosis, and if you are likely to be in this category, there are all sorts of diet and recipe tips to help add calcium to your diet. Time to spread the word to make stronger women, and men too.
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