Posted by kathryn in The Micronutrients and A Balanced Diet

I realised after blogging about calcium losses in sweat I was so busy talking about the extra bit you need, I didn’t give the overall Recommended Daily Intake (RDI) . . .

The RDI of calcium

Basically the new RDIs give a range of values for each nutrient, depending on age, sex and so on. For calcium that range is 1,000mg – 1,300mg per day. The higher second value is for men and women over 70 and females under 18 that are pregnant or breast feeding.

This figure is debated by a number of scientists and nutritionists. I would recommend aiming for at least 700mg per day. For more on this take a look at the calcium debate and how to ensure you have strong and healthy bones.

What foods contain calcium?

Calcium is in more foods than just dairy and it’s good to use a variety of sources, I’ve tried to give useful serving sizes in the following list:

• 250ml milk (290mg of calcium)
• 100g ricotta cheese (223mg)
• 50g cheddar / tasty cheese (400mg)
• 100g cottage cheese (70mg)
• 100g low fat natural yoghurt (260mg)
• 100g low fat fruit yoghurt (173mg)
• 100g tin salmon or sardines, including bones (320mg)
• 30g almonds (65mg)
• 1 tablespoon tahini (70mg)
• 200g chickpeas (90mg)
• 50g dried figs (100mg)
• 1/3 cup muesli (80mg)
• 1 slice rye bread (20mg)
• 50g cooked spinach (35mg)
• 100g tofu (170mg)
• 100ml fortified soy milk (116mg)

How to get enough calcium in your diet?

An example of how you might put this together to get the 1,000mg of calcium would be:

• Breakfast: 1/3 cup muesli with 1/3 cup skim milk and 2 tablespoons yoghurt (227mg of calcium)
• Snack: piece of fruit and 30g almonds (65mg)
• Lunch: salmon and salad sandwich with a skim milk coffee (650mg – more if you have rye bread)
• Snack: 2 vitaweats with hummous and tomato (50mg)
• Dinner: chicken stir-fry with vegetables (including spinach), almonds and rice followed by fresh fruit (130mg)

This gives a total of well over 1,000mg. If you don’t want to have salmon for lunch, then you could add some tofu to dinner in the evening and have a few dried figs with the afternoon snack.

18 August, 2006