The mineral calcium enjoys an inflated position among the seven macrominerals required by the human body, as a result of very successful marketing by the dairy farmers and dairy boards of the world. In fact, before I started my natural nutrition course, I was quite certain that the only way I could get enough calcium into my body was by drinking milk.
Now, I’m learning differently. And eating differently.
I also realise that how much calcium I digest and retain in my body is almost more important than how much I ingest.
As a result of the dietary habits of North Americans, “[t]he human is the only mammal that has never been weaned.” Interestingly, 70% of humans stop making lactase – the enzyme that is required to convert lactose (the sugar in milk) into glucose – between childhood and adolescence. Presumably, that is when we can stop drinking milk, as designed by nature.
How amazing it is, when you think about it, that humans go from drinking human breastmilk (if they were lucky enough to have a breast-feeding mother) to drinking the milk that is designed to grow a cow or a bull: an animal that is expected to weigh between 400 kilograms and 700 kilograms (880 pounds and 1,540 pounds) at adulthood and to live for twenty years at the absolute most. So while bovine milk suits calves really well, it was never designed for humans.
And now that it’s being pasteurized, homogenized, defatted, and fortified with Vitamins A & D, it’s a long way from the way nature designed it for calves.
In fact, calves given their own mothers’ milk that has first been pasteurized do not live more than six weeks. Just 6 weeks! What if they were given their own mother’s milk that had been pasteurized, homogenized, defatted, and fortified? How long might they live then? I suspect they might not make it even to six weeks.
Before I list the many foods that are excellent sources of calcium for the human body, I would like to continue comparing human and bovine milk.
By natural design,
- human breast milk has 1.1 grams of protein in 100 grams of milk; bovine milk has 3.5 grams of protein in 100 grams of milk;
- human breast milk has 4 grams of fat; bovine milk has 3.5 grams of fat in 100 grams of milk;
- human breast milk has 9.5 grams of carbohydrates; bovine milk has 4.9 grams of carbohydrates in 100 grams of milk;
- and human breast milk has 0.12 grams of minerals and vitamins; bovine milk has 0.406 grams of minerals and vitamins in 100 grams of milk.
Let’s look at that 0.406 grams of minerals and vitamins in 100 grams of bovine milk. The amount of sodium in bovine milk is 50 milligrams per 100 grams compared with 16 milligrams per 100 grams of human breast milk. Cow’s milk has three times more sodium than nature designed us to drink in our milk.
And now for the calcium content. There are 33 milligrams of calcium in 100 grams of human milk compared with 118 milligrams of calcium in 100 grams of cow’s milk. On the face of it, that looks good, and the dairy farmers and the dairy boards of the world have cashed in on that high proportion of calcium in cow’s milk to make us think that we must drink milk to get our calcium.
But – did you hear the “but” coming? – the 118 milligrams of calcium in 100 grams of cow’s milk is not bioavailable because of its ratio with phosphorus.
Calcium and phosphorus are bioavailable to humans when they are in a ratio of two to one or better. In breast milk, calcium and phosphorus are in a ratio of 2.35:1. In cow’s milk, calcium and phosphorus are in a ratio of 1.27:1. As a result, when a human drinks cow’s milk, they cannot access the high amount of calcium, because it all binds to the phosphorus that is present. And, because of the high sodium content of cow’s milk, the human body must go so far as to provide its own minerals – read “calcium” – to digest cow’s milk.
Just as an aside, it’s quite a wake up to realise that there is five times more phosphorus in 100 grams of cow’s milk as there is in the same amount of soda pop!
What else could possibly be wrong with humans drinking cow’s milk? Let’s look at the pasteurization process. Thanks to Louis Pasteur, pasteurized milk no longer harbours germs such as tuberculosis. It also has no enzymes left in it: no amylase, no catalase, no lactase, no lactoperoxidase, no lipase, and no phosphatase. And so it draws on the body’s own digestive organs to synthesize the enzymes required for its digestion. The pasteurization process also depletes some of the vitamins that were present in raw cow’s milk.
Homogenization is a process used throughout North America and less so in Great Britain by which milk fats are blasted through the mesh of a micro screen that is so fine that the droplets of fat are too small to reunite and “rise to the top” of the milk. They are also so small that the human liver does not recognize them and doesn’t really know what to do with them.
Milk becomes a partial food by removing some of that fat that used to rise to the top and selling it separately, so that there is skimmed milk, 1% milk, 2% milk, full fat milk, half and half, whipping cream, etc., etc. The fat content in full-fat milk is one of the last remaining factors to assist with the absorption of calcium from milk.
Fortification of milk with Vitamin A and D is the last confusing thing that is done to cow’s milk. Some scientists suggest that the Vitamin D added to cow’s milk contributes to calcium being deposited in places other than bones in the body.
If you’re still planning to drink cow’s milk, see if you can get it unpasteurized (any cow shares near you?), unhomogenized (Avalon sells an unhomogenized milk), full-fat milk. It will do the least harm to your body. Better yet, consider goat’s milk or nut milks. Goat milk is easier for humans to digest, because the proteins are similar in size to the proteins found in breast milk. Or, just give up the idea of milk altogether.
And it’s the proteins in cow’s milk – the casein and the whey – that most people who are allergic to cow’s milk are bothered by. If they’re not already lactose-intolerant.
So, if humans can’t get their calcium from cow’s milk, where on earth will it come from? Luckily, calcium – and chloride, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, and sulfur - is one of the natural ingredients that makes up a wide range of foods.
Nuts and seeds – especially sesame seeds, almonds, and hazelnuts – are rich sources of calcium. Nut butters are also good sources. Vegetables – everything from carrots to okra – offer quite a bit of calcium. Molasses are a good source, as are tofu, beans, brown rice, seaweeds, and canned fish.
The final piece to the calcium jigsaw puzzle is to understand calcium’s role in maintaining the blood’s pH. When we eat an overly acidic diet – through a high consumption of meat, dairy, and grains – the pH of the blood can only stay within its narrow range of health by drawing calcium from elsewhere in the body, such as from our bones or hair or nails. So, as much as it’s important to ensure your diet has sufficient calcium in it, it’s also important to hang on to what you ingest, by moving toward a more alkaline diet. This is accomplished by eating more raw fruits and vegetables, which are also sources of calcium.
Osteoporosis is a condition in which bones incorporate less calcium than is required for their optimal strength. Here’s a shocker: the highest rates of osteoporosis are in those countries that have the highest rates of dairy consumption.
Best of health, naturally,
Nina