7 ms·

You are completely wrong. There are many quality sources of calcium in plants. For example legumes, nuts, seeds, dark leafy greens including spinach.

by cesnja 3y ago

adrian_b 3y ago
Most living beings contain calcium, including all plants, but in quantities that are too small for the needs of anyone who has a calcium-based skeleton, unless you eat daily larger quantities of plants than are practical for most humans (e.g. eating between 1 kg and 2 kg of nuts each day, depending on what kind of nuts they are). Dark leafy greens are not "quality sources of calcium". One would need to eat several kilograms per day. No human does that. The quantity that needs to be eaten is greater than it could seem from the elemental analysis, because a part of the calcium will be lost during cooking and another part will remain bound in insoluble compounds that will not be absorbed in the intestine. Moreover, eating many kilograms per day of dark leafy greens is guaranteed to cause health problems due to oxalic acid and other substances that are present in excess. All the studies that I have seen have shown that the vegans who do not take calcium supplements have significantly less amounts of calcium in the body than non-vegans and are more prone to osteoporosis. This kind of false information about plants that are "quality sources" of substances that are really deficient in all plants is very dangerous for vegans. Any vegan must take up to a dozen supplements to maintain optimal health and those who are not aware of this develop sooner or later various health problems and many go back to a traditional diet, without understanding what they did wrong.
- hombre_fatal 3y ago
  I'd encourage you to go to cronometer.com and put in reasonable servings of the food items they listed (not several kilograms of just one food and washing your hands of the conversation) and seeing what nutrients you end up with. You may be surprised. Add some nut milks in there, too. > Any vegan must take up to a dozen supplements to maintain optimal health This is some bottom tier anti-vegan flame bait. Had I seen this sooner, I wouldn't have even responded.
  - adrian_b 3y ago
    I happen to be a vegan myself, so it is weird to be accused of "anti-vegan flame bait". Precisely because I am a vegan and I am aware of the difficulties that I had to surpass when switching to a vegan diet and also of the health problems encountered by some relatives who followed a vegan diet, but without adequate supplementation, because they believed the bad advice that is easy to find on the Internet, I felt the need to reply to these comments that perpetuate myths. Much of the advice for vegans that can be found on the Internet is completely BS, some of which must have been written by false vegans who have never followed their own advice, while the other suggestions must have been written by rich vegans who do not care whether they pay $5 or $50 for a meal, so they believe that e.g. buying plant protein extracts that are 5 times more expensive than animal meat is a rational food choice. Now I am happy for switching to a vegan diet, but this change took several years, until I have found adequate methods to ensure the correct daily intake for all nutrients, without paying more for food than before and without gaining weight rapidly.
    - hombre_fatal 3y ago
      > they believed the bad advice that is easy to find on the Internet I'm with you 100% on this. But vegans needing a dozen supplements for optimal health is a different claim than bad internet nutrition advice leading people astray from optimal health. If you personally feel like you need a dozen supplements even as an informed vegan, I would give you some resources or at least refer you to a dietitian. A controversial point of my own to some people is that vegans should and often must embrace "processed foods" to hit optimal protein goals. Foods like seitan, textured vegetable protein, tofu, and ultra-processed vegan products have the highest protein density. Yet the fear of processed foods is vogue on social media, and there are plenty of green mommy vegan blogs that will list a cup of lentils as a protein heavy-hitter yet never mention TVP, seitan, etc. There is also plenty of other vegan cringe online like the no-oil vegans who minimize dietary fat. But that wouldn't mean you can't get sufficient protein on a vegan diet. Social media and Youtube nutrition advice is horrible for everyone, I think. My own father has been convinced that butter is a superfood by Youtube quacks. They also convinced him to quit his blood pressure meds and that the carnivore diet is so healthy that you can dispose of any cautionary blood panel markers—they simply don't apply to you anymore.
mminer237 3y ago
You would have to eat like 5 cups of legumes every day to get enough iron that way if you're a woman. That's almost two pounds. Nuts or greens would be an even higher amount.
- hombre_fatal 3y ago
  They were talking about calcium. But let's plug some iron sources into cronometer: - 100g lentils: 3.3mg iron, 116cal - 100g spinach: 2.7mg iron, 23cal - 100g cooked tofu: 2.7mg iron, 110cal That's more than 50% of the day's iron recommendation for women in about 250 calories or about 1/8th of the day's calories for the average woman.
  - postmodest 3y ago
    100g is a large volume of loose spinach and dry lentils. That's a hearty entree for a hungry lass once cooked.
    - hombre_fatal 3y ago
      That's 100g of cooked lentils and 100g of raw spinach. 100g of raw spinach cooks down to about the size of a deck of cards. Though I don't see the point of quibbling here. My point only gets stronger and stronger as I add in more foods and calories, even packaged grain foods that are incidentally fortified with iron.
  - burmanm 3y ago
    Isn't iron in spinach insanely difficult for humans to actually absorb? Quick googling says it's around ~2% of total iron in spinach which we can absorb, so instead of eating 100g to get 2.7g you'd need to eat 5kg of spinach per day.
    - DropInIn 3y ago
      The topic every vegan refuses to discuss: Biolavailability
  - 3y ago

You are completely wrong. There are many quality sources of calcium in plants. For example legumes, nuts, seeds, dark leafy greens including spinach.

by cesnja 3y ago

You are completely wrong. There are many quality sources of calcium in plants. For example legumes, nuts, seeds, dark leafy greens including spinach.

adrian_b 3y ago

Most living beings contain calcium, including all plants, but in quantities that are too small for the needs of anyone who has a calcium-based skeleton, unless you eat daily larger quantities of plants than are practical for most humans (e.g. eating between 1 kg and 2 kg of nuts each day, depending on what kind of nuts they are). Dark leafy greens are not "quality sources of calcium". One would need to eat several kilograms per day. No human does that. The quantity that needs to be eaten is greater than it could seem from the elemental analysis, because a part of the calcium will be lost during cooking and another part will remain bound in insoluble compounds that will not be absorbed in the intestine. Moreover, eating many kilograms per day of dark leafy greens is guaranteed to cause health problems due to oxalic acid and other substances that are present in excess. All the studies that I have seen have shown that the vegans who do not take calcium supplements have significantly less amounts of calcium in the body than non-vegans and are more prone to osteoporosis. This kind of false information about plants that are "quality sources" of substances that are really deficient in all plants is very dangerous for vegans. Any vegan must take up to a dozen supplements to maintain optimal health and those who are not aware of this develop sooner or later various health problems and many go back to a traditional diet, without understanding what they did wrong.

hombre_fatal 3y ago
I'd encourage you to go to cronometer.com and put in reasonable servings of the food items they listed (not several kilograms of just one food and washing your hands of the conversation) and seeing what nutrients you end up with. You may be surprised. Add some nut milks in there, too. > Any vegan must take up to a dozen supplements to maintain optimal health This is some bottom tier anti-vegan flame bait. Had I seen this sooner, I wouldn't have even responded.
- adrian_b 3y ago
  I happen to be a vegan myself, so it is weird to be accused of "anti-vegan flame bait". Precisely because I am a vegan and I am aware of the difficulties that I had to surpass when switching to a vegan diet and also of the health problems encountered by some relatives who followed a vegan diet, but without adequate supplementation, because they believed the bad advice that is easy to find on the Internet, I felt the need to reply to these comments that perpetuate myths. Much of the advice for vegans that can be found on the Internet is completely BS, some of which must have been written by false vegans who have never followed their own advice, while the other suggestions must have been written by rich vegans who do not care whether they pay $5 or $50 for a meal, so they believe that e.g. buying plant protein extracts that are 5 times more expensive than animal meat is a rational food choice. Now I am happy for switching to a vegan diet, but this change took several years, until I have found adequate methods to ensure the correct daily intake for all nutrients, without paying more for food than before and without gaining weight rapidly.
  - hombre_fatal 3y ago
    > they believed the bad advice that is easy to find on the Internet I'm with you 100% on this. But vegans needing a dozen supplements for optimal health is a different claim than bad internet nutrition advice leading people astray from optimal health. If you personally feel like you need a dozen supplements even as an informed vegan, I would give you some resources or at least refer you to a dietitian. A controversial point of my own to some people is that vegans should and often must embrace "processed foods" to hit optimal protein goals. Foods like seitan, textured vegetable protein, tofu, and ultra-processed vegan products have the highest protein density. Yet the fear of processed foods is vogue on social media, and there are plenty of green mommy vegan blogs that will list a cup of lentils as a protein heavy-hitter yet never mention TVP, seitan, etc. There is also plenty of other vegan cringe online like the no-oil vegans who minimize dietary fat. But that wouldn't mean you can't get sufficient protein on a vegan diet. Social media and Youtube nutrition advice is horrible for everyone, I think. My own father has been convinced that butter is a superfood by Youtube quacks. They also convinced him to quit his blood pressure meds and that the carnivore diet is so healthy that you can dispose of any cautionary blood panel markers—they simply don't apply to you anymore.

mminer237 3y ago

You would have to eat like 5 cups of legumes every day to get enough iron that way if you're a woman. That's almost two pounds. Nuts or greens would be an even higher amount.

hombre_fatal 3y ago
They were talking about calcium. But let's plug some iron sources into cronometer: - 100g lentils: 3.3mg iron, 116cal - 100g spinach: 2.7mg iron, 23cal - 100g cooked tofu: 2.7mg iron, 110cal That's more than 50% of the day's iron recommendation for women in about 250 calories or about 1/8th of the day's calories for the average woman.
- postmodest 3y ago
  100g is a large volume of loose spinach and dry lentils. That's a hearty entree for a hungry lass once cooked.
  - hombre_fatal 3y ago
    That's 100g of cooked lentils and 100g of raw spinach. 100g of raw spinach cooks down to about the size of a deck of cards. Though I don't see the point of quibbling here. My point only gets stronger and stronger as I add in more foods and calories, even packaged grain foods that are incidentally fortified with iron.
- burmanm 3y ago
  Isn't iron in spinach insanely difficult for humans to actually absorb? Quick googling says it's around ~2% of total iron in spinach which we can absorb, so instead of eating 100g to get 2.7g you'd need to eat 5kg of spinach per day.
  - DropInIn 3y ago
    The topic every vegan refuses to discuss: Biolavailability
- 3y ago