Vital Wellness

Daily Value: 18 milligrams

Good Food Sources: Beef, Cream of Wheat cereal, baked potatoes, soybeans, pumpkin seeds, clams.

Description:

There’s no doubt that many of us can use more iron than we’re getting. Roughly 20 percent of Americans are deficient in this mineral. The group most likely to be coming up short: women in their reproductive years.

Iron, which is absorbed in the intestines, comes in two forms: heme and non heme. Found in meats, the heme form is well absorbed. Men get about two-thirds of their iron needs met by heme iron; the amount varies for women. Nonheme iron is found in vegetables and isn’t as well absorbed. Read the rest of this entry »

Daily Value: 1,000 milligrams

Good Food Sources: Skim milk, nonfat yogurt, cheeses, collard greens, mustard greens, kale, broccoli, canned salmon with bones, sardines with bones, corn tortillas processed with lime, calcium-fortified orange juice

Calcium Sources

Description:

By now, just about everyone knows that getting enough calcium helps prevent diseases such as osteoporosis. Less well known is just how cal­cium goes about doing this.

When you eat cheese or drink milk, the calcium in these foods is absorbed through your small intestine and into your blood. The amount of calcium in your blood is regulated by a substance called parathyroid hormone. When calcium intake is low, parathyroid hormone signals for bone to be broken down, releasing calcium into the bloodstream. “Diets with adequate calcium intake produce less parathyroid hormone, so that we conserve more calcium and more bone,” says professor of nutrition. Read the rest of this entry »