Vegan for Life - Jack Norris [22]
Regular, prepared with calcium sulfate and nigari 100
Soft, prepared with calcium sulfate and nigari 60
Soft, prepared with nigari 30
Other soyfoods
Soybeans, ½ cup cooked 87
Tempeh, 3½ ounces 55
TVP, ½ cup cooked 85
Soymilk, 1 cup fortified 250–300
Soymilk, 1 cup unfortified 61
Soynuts, ¼ cup 60
Nuts and seeds
(2 tablespoons)
Almonds 24
Almond butter 86
Brazil nuts 15
Sesame seeds 140
Sesame tahini 128
Vegetables
(½ cup cooked)
Bok choy 79
Broccoli, fresh 31
Broccoli, frozen 43
Butternut squash 23
Collard greens, fresh 133
Kale, fresh 47
Kale, frozen 90
Mustard greens, fresh 52
Mustard greens, frozen 76
Sweet potato 45
Turnip greens, fresh 98
Turnip greens, frozen 125
Fruits
Dried figs, 1 cup 241
Orange, 1 medium 60
Raisins, ½ cup 41
Orange juice, calcium-fortified, 1 cup 300
Other foods
Blackstrap molasses, 1 tablespoon 80
Corn tortilla, 6-inch 50
English muffin, made with calcium propionate 92
Fortified almond or rice milk, 1 cup 300
Quinoa, ½ cup cooked 16
Tips for Getting Enough Calcium
• Follow the recommendations in the Vegan Food Guide in Chapter 7.
• If you use calcium-fortified soymilk, give the carton a good shake before pouring since the calcium can settle to the bottom.
• Look for calcium-set tofu, which is tofu that includes calcium-sulfate as an ingredient.
• Learn to love greens! The ones that are low in oxalates—collards, kale, turnip, and mustard greens—are good sources of well-absorbed calcium as well as other nutrients that are important for bone health.
• Make your own trail mix using soynuts, almonds, and chopped figs and keep it on hand for snacks.
• Choose calcium-fortified brands when you drink fruit juices.
• If your intake falls short, make up the difference with a supplement.
VITAMIN D
Adequate vitamin D is every bit as important as calcium for maintaining bone health. But is vitamin D a nutrient? Not exactly, since we can make all we need when our skin is exposed to ultraviolet rays from sunlight. In fact, for most of human history, this is where people got their vitamin D since it occurs naturally in very few foods. But as people moved away from the equatorial zones and began to spend more time indoors, vitamin D deficiency became a problem. In the early 1900s, rickets (soft bones that don’t develop well in children) was a significant public health problem that led to fortification of cow’s milk with vitamin D.
While the focus has long been on bone health, more recent research suggests that suboptimal vitamin D levels are linked to fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, depression, muscle weakness, diabetes, hypertension, and cancer. The current AI for vitamin D in adults is 600 IUs (vitamin D is also measured in micrograms; 1 microgram equals 40 IUs). But many experts believe that it may take as much as 1,000 IUs or 25 micrograms to maintain ideal blood levels of vitamin D.17 While this continues to be a controversial area, we favor the higher recommendation.
Dietary Sources of Vitamin D
The only significant, natural sources of vitamin D in foods are fatty fish, eggs from chickens who have been fed vitamin D, and mushrooms treated with ultraviolet rays. Many people think that milk is a good natural source of vitamin D, but it isn’t. Milk contains no vitamin D unless it has been fortified and is no more natural a source of this vitamin than any other fortified food.
There are two types of vitamin D used in fortified foods and supplements. Vitamin D3 or cholecalciferol is derived from animals, usually from sheep’s wool or fish oil. Vitamin D2 or ergocalciferol is usually obtained from yeast and is vegan. The evidence suggests that the two types are absorbed equally as well but that blood levels of vitamin D2 decline more quickly when megadoses of the vitamin are consumed.18,19 At the smaller dose that we recommend—1,000 milligrams per day—vitamin D2 appears to be as effective as vitamin D3.
Getting Enough Vitamin D for Optimal Health
Concern about skin