Calcium Fallback Of Diet

[Dido]

The one thing that I have a problem with in this diet is getting enough calicum without diary products. Vegtables and fruits have less vitamins and minerals in them now than they had back in the Paleolithic, so it would be hard to get calcium from just that. I can tolerate milk in small amounts, but other diary products make me have headaches and itch. Would it effect my health if I just drink some milk everyday? I don't think it effects me because I drank some without any other diary products and I wasn't constipated or anything the day after. I could go off milk but my doctor said it wouldn't be a good idea. Or I could did like I did this week, only drink milk every few days.

[Nancy LC]

My suspicion, confirmed by reading Taubes, is we don't need as much calcium when we're not drinking dairy and eating grains. I take a calcium supplement.

[HunterMan]

Hello there Dido, :wave:

Drink milk for it is natural and good for you, recent conjectural research suggests humans consumed significant amounts of milk from animal sources as far back as humans existed. Not only does it contain the mineral calcium but it also contains the saturated fat and fat soluble activators Vitamin A and D critical for its absorption. Milk should be consumed in non excessive amounts. You seem to describe symptoms of milk digestion gene inactivity, so to avoid unpleasant symptoms try to drink high quality raw or cultured milk if it agrees with you, also adding some raw honey or ginger will help neutralize milks side effects. I feel so called supplements aren't worth the dirt their made of.

Drink up and have a nice day :)

[Kristine]

Two words: bone broth. (http://www.westonaprice.org/foodfeatures/broth.html) :thup: :yum:

[Nancy LC]

Hello there Dido, :wave:

Drink milk for it is natural and good for you, recent conjectural research suggests humans consumed significant amounts of milk from animal sources as far back as humans existed. Not only does it contain the mineral calcium but it also contains the saturated fat and fat soluble activators Vitamin A and D critical for its absorption. Milk should be consumed in non excessive amounts. You seem to describe symptoms of milk digestion gene inactivity, so to avoid unpleasant symptoms try to drink high quality raw or cultured milk if it agrees with you, also adding some raw honey or ginger will help neutralize milks side effects. I feel so called supplements aren't worth the dirt their made of.

Drink up and have a nice day :)
Do you actually believe this or are you pulling our legs? Paleo man did not drink milk. If this is a joke then you need to say so somewhere. If it isn't a joke then you need to realize that a very large chunk of the world's inhabitants don't drink milk past weaning and their bones aren't crumbling. Asians as a rule don't drink milk.

[Dido]

The funny thing is that when I didn't drink milk three days before my period my cramps lessened. So I guess milk is full of unnecessary hormones. I have decided to go buy a calicum supplement with added Vitamin D because I've also noticed that if I drink milk over a period of a few days I itch alot and have insomina. I am just going to drink milk once a week for the fat.

[Nancy LC]

Don't count on the vit. D in your supplement to be worth anything. Get a separate Vit. D, preferably oil based.
http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/vitamin-d-disappointment-ahead.html

You can get fat from lots of places, why do you have to get it from milk? That itching is telling you something.

[ProteusOne]

Two words: bone broth. (http://www.westonaprice.org/foodfeatures/broth.html) :thup: :yum:
Here, here, I agree. I have it for breakfast nearly every day.

[MeatGood]

Wasn't there an article in the main Paleodiet.com site that talked about this very same concern. I thought they mentioned that calcium loss was more about our lack of magnesium or potassium in our diets than the calcium itself. It mentioned something about a needed ration of of something to calcium so that our bodies would actually hold on to the calcium. Otherwise they said we just end up passing through the extra calcium, even if we drank 50 gallons of milk a day.

Anyone recall what the name of that article was?

[Heidihi]

sardines have lots of calcium

and as mentioned above any broth made with bones ..if you add acid of some kind like vinegar or citrus to your stock it further pulls calcium from the stock bones into the broth so you get more bennies from it

when I make chicken or other meat soup I also add dark leafy greens to it

soup is for sure a great way to get more calcium in your diet

I agree about supplements being a huge waste of money and mostly crap..you pee what you dont need off with the water soluble and the fat soluble are not good for you in massive doses because you dont pee them off they build up.... ...and the supplement industry is a notoriously bad one..playing off our desire to be healthy and natural they compress things and process them as well ..so what is the point of that? ..I keep thinking I need a Vit and have been known to take a bucket full just because ..of what I am not sure but because.....but my father is a brilliant MD and told me "eat well from a wide variety of healthy natural foods.. and you dont need a pill"

so yeah sardines and good home made soups made with the stock made from bones and you are good to go imho!

[Nancy LC]

I would argue with you about Vit. D3 though in many latitudes with our current lifestyle of being inside all day. Most people in America and further north a deficient in D3. And lots of research is showing that it is linked to cancer and autoimmune deficiencies. Those who are severely overweight or elderly also have difficulty creating D3 from sunlight.

You might want to take to eating fish livers to get more of it, or seal livers, if you're against taking pills.

[HunterMan]

There are other sources of calcium besides milk but for me like others i assume it is not very practical, I don't really like to eat fish bones and bone broths are good but require certain preparation and lack to fat and carbs to make it taste like a refreshing beverage, milk is easy to drink and refreshes quickly, bone broths are more like a food and have a relatively strong acidic taste.

So called man made Supplements are by far the most un-paleo substance consumable, for we don't know exactly what paleo people did or didn't eat, but we can be sure pills, supplements and the like never passed through their mouths, it seems to me like the pharmaceutical corporations have fooled people into thinking they are natural or effective.

Nancy,Nancy,Nancy, my dear bunny thief, you said Asians as a rule don't drink milk, c'mon we both know thats not true, Chinese and Japaneses people have begun to introduce those into their diets. Furthermore, historically the most physically robust Asians were the nomadic Mongol and central Asian Turkic populations who not only had the superhuman physical endurance to travel thousands of miles but also to defeat all the numerically and technologically superior empires of the world,Chinese, Persians, Russians, Germans and polish amongst others. The most important aspect of their diet was milk, that magical substance in its pure form gives the body vigor, the mind intelligence and the spirit the will power required to achieve feats that defied imagination. When the Mongols retained their simple meat and milk diet they were virtually invincible but when they became complacent and adoped the sub-optimal foods of their conquered subjects they too fell in decline physically as individuals and as people as a whole.

[Nancy LC]

Mongols, modern Chinese and Japanese (most of whom still don't drink milk) are not practicing paleo diets. And why would you even use them for an example when they're starting to get the same diseases of Western Civilization?

A reminder, paleo times precedes written history so all these things you're citing are after the invention of agriculture and wouldn't exactly be role models for someone trying to follow a paleo diet.

Use dairy if you want but don't try to rationalize that it is paleo and even worse, don't be telling other people it is.

[HunterMan]

The thing is it is not important what time scale 'Paleo' occurred, what matters most is the people, who we believe were healthy, hence we try to follow their way of eating, heck there could have been tribes of people who up till now practiced food consumption the same way it was 10,000 to a million years ago. This thread is about calcium needs, and I feel milk is a superior source because of the additional minerals and vitamins and macro nutrients that help its absorption and utilization, where unmitigated grains were introduced stature decreased and bone problems occurred, where milk was consumed stature increased and bone problems including cavities decreased. Reduction of stature indicates lack of calcium, consumption, absorption, utilization and balance. Tribes who consumed milk were always the tallest, an indication that milk is a superior source of such body building minerals and factors. There are many sides to the same story and just because a few people cant handle the milk doesn't mean they have to bash it and without any evidence claim it wasn't consumed by the acme of human health the 'paleo people' to aid their theories. Unlike their dogmatic fanaticism I understand that different people have different needs and accept them for that, I am simply putting up an alternative view for those who feel milk was consumed by such paleo people, many cant handle fish and bone broths aren't nearly as effective as milk in my opinion because of the various factors lacking, besides i dont think paleo people had steel pots to make their precious broths, and their is no way paleo humans could maintain good teeth if they gnawed on bones all day to get the calcium they didn't know existed. So what I am saying is that there is never only one way to do something and I feel milk was an important component in certain paleo peoples diet.

[ProteusOne]

Use dairy if you want but don't try to rationalize that it is paleo and even worse, don't be telling other people it is.
Nancy, watch out, you're beginning to sound like me. :D

[Wifezilla]

sardines have lots of calcium

If you are in the Midwest near one of the Great Lakes, I think smelt would work too. (I miss smelt. While I can occasionally get it here in Colorado, it's just never as good if you didn't freeze your a$$ off dipping it out yourself.)

As for bone broth, you don't just have to use the broth alone if you don't want to. I would think that any soup made out of bones that have had a good long cook would do the trick. I do this when I make soup out of the turkey carcass every Thanksgiving.

[HunterMan]

Are you supposed to eat the spinal cords in large fish, its orange in color and very wobbly? Hmmm I know I would, but is it Right? Hmmm

[Nancy LC]

Nancy, watch out, you're beginning to sound like me. :D
I noticed that. :) No I have no problem with people knowing that they're doing something unpaleo. But doing something unpaleo and trying to pretend otherwise deserves pointing out, even worse when they're trying to spread the misinformation.

Hey, I still use artificial sweeteners sometimes. I'm not going to try to convince anyone that Mongols used them and because they did were able to conquer much of Asia!

[Heidihi]

If you are in the Midwest near one of the Great Lakes, I think smelt would work too. (I miss smelt. While I can occasionally get it here in Colorado, it's just never as good if you didn't freeze your a$$ off dipping it out yourself.)

As for bone broth, you don't just have to use the broth alone if you don't want to. I would think that any soup made out of bones that have had a good long cook would do the trick. I do this when I make soup out of the turkey carcass every Thanksgiving.

ABSOLUTELY bone broth with stuff in it is called SOUP! :D all the carbs you want can be added

if you want it cold and refreshing make gazpacho with beef broth that is fantastic and very refreshing

or just drink milk and enjoy life as it works for you paleo or not

but who cares what I think anyway :p

[HunterMan]

but who cares what I think anyway :p

I want you to always remember, Hunterman cares. :there:

[Heidihi]

I want you to always remember, Hunterman cares. :there:

thank you that is so nice :D

[HunterMan]

I like to goof around a lot, but when I say I do care, it is not in jest and I speak nothing of falsehood, for I am aware that the people here are a truly exceptional lot to whom I harbor great respect and whose concerns are my concerns as well. We may disagree on some trivial matters but always my deepest concerns are that of the happiness and well being of my fellow people, the human race (and of course the cute animals of the world.) :)

[PlaneCrazy]

... but always my deepest concerns are that of the happiness and well being of my fellow people, the human race (and of course the cute animals of the world.) :)

Especially the tasty ones!! :yum: I care about them sooooooo much! :)

Plane
Who, for once, is not getting into this discussion.

[HunterMan]

Plane I too care about the tasty ones, or should I say my lips, mouth, esophagus, stomach and duodenum care about the tasty ones, frankly the tasty ones only effect such tissues.

Also Plane, you better jump your rear end into this discussion and reinforce me, I've seen at the bottom of your posts that charming old lady who talks about using butter and cream.

But seriously,we welcome anyone's ideas on how to get calcium or minerals from sources besides seafood (hard for me to get), Dairy (already covered that) or supplements ( I just simply abhor and detest anything in pill form)

[PlaneCrazy]

I wonder how Stefansson and Anderson got their calcium on their famous year-long, meat-only diet (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,731702,00.html?iid=chix-sphere)? In their time in the arctic, you might be able to make a case for getting it from stewing the fish they ate, like the natives. But when they did their experiment in Bellevue, what did they eat that would have given them the calcium they needed? Perhaps on a meat-only diet, just like other vitamins and minerals, you don't need as much of them as you do when you eat other foods, particularly carb-rich foods. Perhaps you get enough calcium from meat itself, even in the very low levels found in it. It's not clear, but I have a suspicion that with very low levels of carbs you need far less of the nutrients we're so used to taking supplements for.

Gary Taubes addresses this in a teasingly few pages, but there is still so much left unknown.

Plane

[kallyn]

Cordain claims that what is important is not the total calcium ingested, but rather your calcium balance - calcium ingested vs calcium excreted. He says that on a balanced paleodiet (whatever that is), you excrete less calcium than a person on SAD and therefore your need for ingested calcium is less.

FWIW.

[Rachel1]

I'm not Paleo per se, but as a 50-something female I like to make sure I get enough calcium (whatever "enough" is). I eat the soft ends of chicken bones. That Paleo enough for y'all?

Rachel

[jono]

Put an eggshell in the coffee grinder, add to food or beverage and you're good to go.


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=15018022&ordinalpos=5&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

Eggshell calcium in the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis.
Rovenský J, Stancíková M, Masaryk P, Svík K, Istok R.

National Institute of Rheumatic Diseases, Piestany, Slovak Republic.

In this paper the most significant biological and clinical aspects of a biopreparation made of chicken eggshells are reviewed. Eggshell powder is a natural source of calcium and other elements (e.g. strontium and fluorine) which may have a positive effect on bone metabolism. Experimental and clinical studies performed to date have shown a number of positive properties of eggshell powder, such as antirachitic effects in rats and humans. A positive effect was observed on bone density in animal models of postmenopausal osteoporosis in ovariectomized female rats. In vitro eggshell powder stimulates chondrocyte differentiation and cartilage growth. Clinical studies in postmenopausal women and women with senile osteoporosis showed that eggshell powder reduces pain and osteoresorption and increases mobility and bone density or arrests its loss. The bioavailability of calcium from this source, as tested in piglets, was similar or better than that of food grade purified calcium carbonate. Clinical and experimental studies showed that eggshell powder has positive effects on bone and cartilage and that it is suitable in the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis.

PMID: 15018022 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=15632478&ordinalpos=4&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

[Hen's eggshell calcium.]
[Article in Japanese]

Masuda Y.

R&D Division, Q.P. Corporation, Japan.

In Japan, insufficient calcium (Ca) intake is serious problem for health which may be associated with the high prevalence of osteoporosis among the aged. The intake of most nutrients has been sufficient, however, the Ca intake has never been sufficient. Eggshell Ca has as much as 38% of Ca and low phosphorus content. Eggshell Ca was more soluble than Ca carbonate and was as much as milk products. Eggshell Ca has been shown to exhibit higher absorptivity and availability than Ca carbonate. Furthermore, it has been reported that eggshell Ca is more effective in increasing bone mineral density in ovariectomized osteoporotic rats. These results suggest that eggshell Ca could be beneficial for bone and we propose Ca fortified foods which contain eggshell Ca as a nutraceutical.

PMID: 15632478 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=13129316&ordinalpos=8&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

Chicken eggshell matrix proteins enhance calcium transport in the human intestinal epithelial cells, Caco-2.
Daengprok W, Garnjanagoonchorn W, Naivikul O, Pornsinlpatip P, Issigonis K, Mine Y.

Department of Food Science and Technology, Faculty of Agro-Industry, Kasetsart University, Bangkok 10901, Thailand.

Chicken eggshell powder has been proposed as an attractive source of calcium for human health to increase bone mineral density in an elderly population with osteoporosis. However, factors affecting calcium transport of eggshell calcium have not yet been evaluated. Chicken eggshell contains about 1.0% (w/w) matrix proteins in addition to a major form of calcium carbonate (95%, w/w). In this study, we found that soluble eggshell matrix proteins remarkably enhance calcium transport using in vitro Caco-2 cell monolayers grown on a permeable support. The total calcium transport across Caco-2 monolayers showed an increase of 64% in the presence of 100 microg/well soluble eggshell matrix proteins. The active enhancer with a molecular mass of 21 kDa was isolated by reversed phase high-performance liquid chromatography and did not correspond to any previously identified protein. The N-terminal sequence was determined to be Met-Ala-Val-Pro-Gln-Thr-Met-Val-Gln. The possible mechanisms of eggshell matrix protein-mediated increase in calcium transport and the potential significance of eggshell calcium as a nutraceutical are discussed.

PMID: 13129316 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

[PlaneCrazy]

Ask and ye shall receive. I found one of the reports on Stefansson and Anderson's all-meat diet! It's from the Journal of Biological Chemistry (http://www.jbc.org/cgi/reprint/87/3/651.pdf), Feb. 13, 1930.

Here's what they ate:
The meat used included beef, Iamb, veal, pork, and chicken. The parts used were muscle, liver, kidney, brain, bone marrow, bacon, and fat. While on lecture trips V. S. occasionally ate a few eggs and a little butter when meat was not readily obtainable.
75-85% of their calories were from fat, and the only carbohydrates were from the glycogen in the meat. They found that when they would lower the fat levels, then they would get sick. No where does it talk about calcium sources beyond the meat itself. It does mention on page 658 that the meat contained about 25% of the calcium of a normal diet while phosphorus and sulfur were found in higher proportions. It does mention a daily intake of liquid including coffee, black tea, meat broths and water. Interesting.

Under the heading Vitamin Deficiency it says:
No clinical evidence of vitamin deficiency was noted. The mild gingivitis which V.S. had at the beginning cleared up entirely, after the meat diet was taken.
What I also found interesting is that the two men went into ketosis on the very first day of a meat-only diet. (p. 664) I'm wondering if this is because they had previously lived on a meat-only diet for years and their bodies were already tuned to that kind of diet so were able to respond quickly. There seemed to be no evidence of "induction flu" even though they were coming off of a "balanced" diet. It could also have been because their "balanced diet" of the time was still lower in carbs than today's. They immediately left ketosis once the percentage of their calories from carbohydrates went from 5 to 30%.

All very interesting.

Anyway, enjoy.

Plane

[ProteusOne]

Put an eggshell in the coffee grinder, add to food or beverage and you're good to go.
That's a damn good idea. And something to do with those eggshells!

[Wifezilla]

Duh! I forgot a good calcium source.....CHIA SEEDS! I add them to scrambled eggs, smoothies, use them to make sugar-free strawberry jelly, onion dip, whatever.

"Chia seed contains large amounts of B vitamins and calcium. By volume, one ounce of chia contains two percent B-2 (riboflavin), 13 percent niacin, and 29 percent thiamin, and trace amounts of all B vitamins. In roughly two ounces of chia (100 grams), there are 600 milligrams of calcium, contrasted with 120 milligrams of calcium in the same amount of milk."

[Nancy LC]

I seem to remember seasame seeds are high in calcium too.

I thought chia seeds were for chia pets. :p I didn't know they are edible. :D

[Nancy LC]

I'd propose that the Japanese eat rice and other grains which keep them from absorbing, and actually cause excretion, of the calcium they do have. I think Loren Cordain has written about this in his newsletters. Also dairy calcium is extremely badly absorbed.

As Taubes points out in his new book, these deficiencies exist in the context of a high carb diet and are unheard of in hunter/gatherer populations -- who don't drink milk (in case that isn't obvious).

In fact it is in his FAQ. I rather disagree with his theory of acid/akaline load though. Somehow the inuit get by without fruits and veggies.

Calcium and Bones

How can I get enough calcium to build strong bones if I cut down or eliminate dairy foods and replace them with fruits and vegetables?

I heard or read recently that high-protein diets are detrimental to bone health. Is this true and how does it occur? Will The Paleo Diet damage my bones or give me osteoporosis?

In the U.S. calcium intake is one of the highest in the world, yet paradoxically we also have one of the highest rates of bone de-mineralization (osteoporosis). Bone mineral content is dependent not just upon calcium intake but upon net calcium balance (calcium intake minus calcium excretion). Most nutritionists focus upon the calcium intake side of the calcium balance equation, however few realize that the calcium excretion side of the equation is just as important.

Bone health is substantially dependent on dietary acid/base balance. All foods upon digestion ultimately must report to the kidney as either acid or base. When the diet yields a net acid load (such as low-carb fad diets that restrict consumption of fruits and vegetables), the acid must be buffered by the alkaline stores of base in the body. Calcium salts in the bones represent the largest store of alkaline base in the body and are depleted and eliminated in the urine when the diet produces a net acid load. The highest acid-producing foods are hard cheeses, cereal grains, salted foods, meats, and legumes, whereas the only alkaline, base-producing foods are fruits and vegetables. Because the average American diet is overloaded with grains, cheeses, salted processed foods, and fatty meats at the expense of fruits and vegetables, it produces a net acid load and promotes bone de-mineralization. By replacing hard cheeses, cereal grains, and processed foods with plenty of green vegetables and fruits, the body comes back into acid/base balance which brings us also back into calcium balance.

The Paleo Diet recommends an appropriate balance of acidic and basic (alkaline) foods (i.e., lean meats, fish and seafood, fruits, and vegetables) and will not cause osteoporosis in otherwise healthy individuals. Indeed, The Paleo Diet promotes bone health.

[HunterMan]

Milk is poorly absorbed, at least pasteurized milk because the enzymes required for its absorption are absent and the vitamins and probably minerals are usually synthetically added. I feel raw or cultured milk is much better.

I feel that at least since nomadic herding tribes in most cases didn't adopt farming agriculture they were at least a splinter group of the paleo people who retained good health and whose practice I feel arnt harmful and a good compromise to the unhealthy grain and sugar eaters.

The reason why I prefer milk is that I usually can't get fish, primarily for minerals and unfortunately sometimes I cant get meat for protein and fat, so I feel milk is a good alternative compared to junk foods and refined carbs. Plus drinking milk really helps you gain muscle easily, its highly anabolic, at least for me, I could just drink milk and grow muscle without exercising and lose a little fat at the same time, drinking large quantities of raw milk in addition to using heavy weights was the old time lifters secrete to building phenomenal strength, their muscles were extremely dense and their physiques highly aesthetic with low body fat percentages. They were far stronger and had more admirable physiques then the steroid filled balloons of nowadays, you can check them out at http://www.sandowmuseum.com/ where my personal picture is featured.

[Heidihi]

boy do I like looking at those bodies!!! wow ..thanks for the link!!! I bookmarked that one so I can look at that between patients ..will make for a nice day I think :)

milk did that huh?

[Nancy LC]

Milk is poorly absorbed, at least pasteurized milk because the enzymes required for its absorption are absent and the vitamins and probably minerals are usually synthetically added. I feel raw or cultured milk is much better.
Which enzymes are those, I seem to have forgotten their names.

[ProteusOne]

boy do I like looking at those bodies!!! wow ..thanks for the link!!! I bookmarked that one so I can look at that between patients ..will make for a nice day I think :)

milk did that huh?
The mustaches are nice, eh?

[Wifezilla]

They had mustaches?

[ProteusOne]

...that's what I get for trying to be funny...

[HunterMan]

Hi Nancy,

Raw milk contains amylase, lactase, lipase and phosphatase to break down starch, lactose , fat and phosphate compounds, making milk more digestible and freeing up key minerals thus sparing the pancreas the extra work of having to use up its enzymes to digest it, with that there would be more availability of enzymes responsible for mienral absorption.

The fat soluble vitamins A and D are in their natural forms aswell and also contribute to easy mineral absorption.

Cultured dairy products usually have a higher enzyme value thanks to lactic acid, this may suggest why fermented raw products were traditionally considered health foods of easy digestibility.

Heidihi,

Yes the physiques of the old timers are very interesting and one could easily spend more time than they should admiring them ;) One thing that I found interesting about those weight lifters was their strong sense of character, in those days they built their bodily strength not just for artistic value ( just a wee bit over exposed sometimes), but because they believed it would help them provide for their families better and make them useful members of society, especially during hard times. Now many people turn to weight lifting because of personal insecurities or to unjustly dominate others, too bad for them.

It is interesting to note that while the diet of the early weight lifters varied, they all believed in an ideal very similar to ours, whole, unprocessed, natural, fresh foods, they were fairly low carb and relatively quite paleo. They ate lots of meat, fat and veggies and avoided starchy foods like potatoes. However many suggested that the best way to gain size and strength for the average joe was by drinking raw milk and especially raw cream.

[waywardsis]

I use eggshell powder for my kitties - rinse and bake them for maybe 10 minutes in a 300 deg. oven, cool, grind. Baking dries them out and they grind up better/finer. My cat health book says that 1 tsp has about 1800-2200mg of usable calcium carbonate.

For me I go for bone broths - tasty! Use them in soups and stews, chilis, sauces, etc.

[Wifezilla]

LOL...me too... I was being silly...implying that I was so focused on other things, the fact that they had mustaches didn't register.

[HunterMan]

Sorry dido for taking over your thread with off topic but highly informative info, I will redirect my weight lifting postings to my personal dairy thread where anything goes.

[Nancy LC]

None of those enzymes have anything to do with digesting calcium. Amylase breaks down starches, lactase breaks down lactose (milk sugar), phosphatase works on phosphates. I don't see how any of these help the body absorb calcium. I keep seeing a lot of unsubstantiated claims about enzymes in raw milk doing all kinds of amazing things but haven't ever seen anything cited that'd be remotely credible.

Is there anything you can point to that has been published in a peer reviewed journal about how raw milk provides more calcium than pasteurized milk?

[CVH]

The one thing that I have a problem with in this diet is getting enough calicum without diary products. Vegtables and fruits have less vitamins and minerals in them now than they had back in the Paleolithic, so it would be hard to get calcium from just that. I can tolerate milk in small amounts, but other diary products make me have headaches and itch. Would it effect my health if I just drink some milk everyday? I don't think it effects me because I drank some without any other diary products and I wasn't constipated or anything the day after. I could go off milk but my doctor said it wouldn't be a good idea. Or I could did like I did this week, only drink milk every few days.

Chew soft bones after being cooked, or in bone broth, drink it and eat the bones, they become very soft with that method, adding 1/2 cup of apple cider vinegar helps.

Or, you can just buy Bone Meal powder for $6. www.nowfoods.com

Serving Size: 1 Rounded Teaspoon

Servings Per Container: 151

Supplement Facts for Bone Meal, 16 oz Amount %DV Calcium 1.0 g 100% Iron 1 mg 6% Phosphorus 500 mg 50% Magnesium 25 mg 6% Bone Meal Powder 3 g

I mix 1 tsp in with 1lb of raw ground beef.

[HunterMan]

Dear Nancy,

I could easily point to a definitive published study on how raw milk enzymes help calcium absorption by simply raising my hand to my head, then delicately unravel my demented digits to point directly to my brain where all the studies and proofs you desire lye. You too can possess the answers you seek by doing the same, all you gotta do is think, after all were not baboons who follow the rigid dogma of whatever the alpha monkey tells us to do.

According to what I gather, there must be an enzyme to help calcium get from the bowels of your small intestines through your villi and microvilli and eventually to your liver and blood stream. Now listen to me closely my good bunny thief, when you don't have to spend so much resources making the enzymes to help the absorption other stuff you will have more resources to digest the calcium stuff. Beeeesides,if there is even an obscure chance that raw milk contains some far flung enzyme to lower the rate of energy to catalyze a calcium absorbed reaction, I can guarantee that there is ZERO chance anything else would have it, at least close to Zero. Nature should have made something in milk to help it get digested because babies don't have well developed enzyme capacity and research will only prove me right one day, you can but shouldn't mark my words.

[Sagehill]

The mustaches are nice, eh?Yeah, I have a real weakness for mustaches! ;)

Jenny

[Heidihi]

Yeah, I have a real weakness for mustaches! ;)

Jenny

me too :D

but those abs holy cow ...what was the topic of this thread again? oh yeah calcium or something..sorry :p

[Nancy LC]

Dear Nancy,

I could easily point to a definitive published study on how raw milk enzymes help calcium absorption by simply raising my hand to my head, then delicately unravel my demented digits to point directly to my brain where all the studies and proofs you desire lye. You too can possess the answers you seek by doing the same, all you gotta do is think, after all were not baboons who follow the rigid dogma of whatever the alpha monkey tells us to do.

According to what I gather, there must be an enzyme to help calcium get from the bowels of your small intestines through your villi and microvilli and eventually to your liver and blood stream. Now listen to me closely my good bunny thief, when you don't have to spend so much resources making the enzymes to help the absorption other stuff you will have more resources to digest the calcium stuff. Beeeesides,if there is even an obscure chance that raw milk contains some far flung enzyme to lower the rate of energy to catalyze a calcium absorbed reaction, I can guarantee that there is ZERO chance anything else would have it, at least close to Zero. Nature should have made something in milk to help it get digested because babies don't have well developed enzyme capacity and research will only prove me right one day, you can but shouldn't mark my words.Ok, I see. Lets make up a bunch of stuff and say it applies to me, therefore it must apply to everyone else. That's great! With science like that we truly would still be hunting and gathering.

You're a nice guy, friendly, funny, and all kinds of good things, but the stuff you say about dairy products I'm afraid isn't quite good enough to wear the label of junk science, since there's simply no science to be found. It is wishful thinking.

PALEO PEOPLE DID NOT DRINK DAIRY. That's all. If you want to drink dairy, more power to you. If you even have yourself convinced that it is healthy for you, I have no problem with that. Personally I can live with things in my life that are unpaleo, I don't try to fool myself or anyone else into believing they are paleo. I might argue that they're good additions to a paleo diet because they're healthy or enjoyable but they're not paleo by definition of the fact they weren't something we are evolved to eat over a long period of time.

But please, stop trying to rationalize your beliefs as being paleo. There's no evidence to back it up so therefore your belief is simply faith and wishful thinking, which is what makes a good religion but lousy science.

[Heidihi]

I am curious how do we know really what exactly paleo people ate/drank? I thought it was basically unknown but there are many theories?

[Nancy LC]

Look at their bones and remains for certain isotopes. For example, you can tell if someone has eaten corn by looking for a particular (I think carbon) isotope that has a certain number of atoms in it. It is peculiar to corn. You can actually tell how much corn someone eats this way. I don't know if it can be applied to other foods, I'm guessing it can be.

You can also look for settlements and look for the skeletal remains of dairy creatures.

They had piles of trash you can sift through for clues as to what they ate (middens heaps).

See what modern hunter and gatherer people eat (before they're tainted by civilization).

I bet Kallyn can answer this question much better than I can.

[ProteusOne]

I am curious how do we know really what exactly paleo people ate/drank? I thought it was basically unknown but there are many theories?
I don't know what they ate, exactly, but logic tells me this: Hunting and following meat seems to have to have been a priority. Along the way, I believe that Hs&Gs would not have gone hungry if there were edible leaves, nuts, twigs, lizards, and berries along the way. I can imagine, knowing what I know about hunting, that sometimes there is a long wait, or travel; thus it only makes sense that the "gathering" part come into play during those times.

I tend to have a take on diet that goes back throughout primate evolution. We're talking millions of years. The Native Americans, for example, as the Europeans found them, were hunters and gatherers, but this lifestyle is but only a small part of the total evolution. I can imagine primates as opportunist omnivores - that is, eating anything and everything, including insects, scavenging, and.... each other. Catching and milking an animal seems laughable from this perspective.

[Nancy LC]

I bet they did more fishing than hunting though.

[Heidihi]

amazing I never thought about food this way ..it is kind of making my brain hurt however :P almost like my job here making me think ...

[ProteusOne]

I bet they did more fishing than hunting though.
I suppose that was dictated by environment.

[HunterMan]

You're a nice guy, friendly, funny, and all kinds of good thingsAlas I am truly honored.


Fair enough Nancy, I wont claim that dairy products are paleo, but I wont say they aren't either because apples were not eaten in those days yet are considered paleo, I am setting out to challenge this double standard. You have brought up some very interesting points about paleo eating which I will address in an upcoming thread, how should a person nowadays eat in a paleo way and why.

[kallyn]

I bet Kallyn can answer this question much better than I can.

You got most of the important stuff, Nancy. You're right, the bone isotope analysis doesn't apply to just corn. You can use it to determine what percentage of the diet was meat and what percentage was green vegetation, which is particularly useful because you can then compare the isotopes in human bones to those of known carnivores and herbivores. Human remains in general show omnivorousness, but the percentages of the meat/veg isotopes of course vary depending on locale.

Dental remains are really good clues too. Herbivorous animals have very robust jawbones and large flat grinding molars to deal with the large amounts of fibrous material that they eat. Carnivores OTOH have small jaws and smaller, pointed teeth. Also, you can use microscopic analysis to look at wear patterns on the teeth to see how the creature chewed (like up-down {like a carnivore} or side-to-side {like an herbivore}) and also to get an idea of the diet (vegetation wears down teeth more than meat does). Human dentition tends much more towards carnivory than towards herbivory. In fact, it's one of the best markers of the shift to our species - as hominids evolved, the jawbones and teeth kept getting smaller and smaller as more meat was added to the diet. Cooked foods as well - you don't need a big jaw to eat cooked plant food.

You can examine stone tools and their microscopic wear patterns and try to determine what the tool was used on. You can also examine animal remains that have obvious signs of human butchery which (presumably) meant we were eating them.

If you're really lucky you can find coprolites, which are fossilized human excrement (yummm). Some places in the SW in the United States even have non-fossilized coprolites - they are just really really dessicated. Those are the best for examination, but unfortunately they are also the youngest - I think you can't really find any older than about 13k years.

Midden heaps like Nancy mentioned are great. You can find all kinds of goodies like butchered bones, discarded nut shells, etc.

Some sites can be examined microscopically for pollen residue, but whatever you're examining has to be preserved in such a way that it wouldn't have been contaminated by modern pollen. The pollen residues can tell you what plants there were in the area, which again would presumably have been exploited as a natural resource.

You can also examine modern hunter-gatherer tribes to see what kinds of subsistence patterns they have. The environments they live in today are pretty marginal and are probably not what we evolved on, but it's still useful to observe how humans in the wild exploit every natural resource that they can. It makes it much easier to hypothesize about how ancient resources would have been exploited by our ancestors.

That's all I can think of right now but I'm sure there's more. I've been out of the anthro loop for like 2 years now. :)

[Nancy LC]

Fair enough Nancy, I wont claim that dairy products are paleo, but I wont say they aren't either because apples were not eaten in those days yet are considered paleo, I am setting out to challenge this double standard. You have brought up some very interesting points about paleo eating which I will address in an upcoming thread, how should a person nowadays eat in a paleo way and why.
Yes, yes. We know the foods we eat are not exactly as they were in paleo times, they've been bred to be sweeter, bigger, etc. Nothing new and startling in that bit of news. But there was food similar to that being eaten back then. Apples didn't materialize out of thin air when people started agriculture, something preceeded it that was probably pretty tasty. Even if humans never existed, fruits would probably evolve to suit someone's taste. For instance, many things need to be eaten to properly propagate and spread the seeds over a wide area. So survival dictates the fruit of that plant needs to appeal to some fruit eater. The fruit eater is going to prefer some plant over others due to spontaneous mutations, so that fruit will get propagated more successfully and will spread more of its genes. Eventually the tastiest fruit gets even tastier.

This is why we have to be careful with fruit and not over consume it, it has a lot more fructose and other sugars as well as starches than it probably ever started out with. The difference here is that dairy products have been around 10,000 years at best (and only in some areas -- other places it is brand new), while some form of the same fruits and vegetables we currently eat have been eaten far longer than that.

There is no evidence that paleo people ever ate dairy products other than the tall tales you dream up.

The paleo diet is a simulation, not an exact replica. Simply because we can never unevolve the plants we eat that have evolved along with us, or because of us. But at least they're close.

[ProteusOne]

The paleo diet is a simulation, not an exact replica. Simply because we can never unevolve the plants we eat that have evolved along with us, or because of us. But at least they're close.
Personally, I'm trying to de-evolve to make up for the difference...

[Wifezilla]

:p

I think some of my customers are trying to do the same. Hee hee hee