When it comes to vitamins, we hear a lot about C, our Bs, and D. But rarely do we ever hear anyone hype up the merits of vitamin K along the lines of, Eat your greens Jimmy. They have lots of vitamin K!
The reason that vitamin K hasnt made it onto the health radar is because we assumed we were getting enough of it. However, recent studies show that it may be time to start giving vitamin K some attention.
We’ve been hearing a lot about fermentation recently, and for a good reason. Fermented foods are linked to a slew of health benefits ranging from improving digestion to providing the body with important nutrients.
There is no arguing that milk is a good source of certain nutrients. The main nutrient milk contains is fat, since it is meant to provide lots of energy for a growing mammal. But what about calcium? On the one hand, we’ve been bombarded with government health messages telling us to drink milk because it is a good source of calcium for growing bones. On the other hand, it is weird that humans are the only animals who drink mmilk after infancy, and also that milk-loving Western countries have so much osteoporosis. Vegan advocates will quickly tell you that milk depletes calcium from the bones.
Calcium doesn’t get as much attention as protein when it comes to vegan nutrition, yet calcium is something that vegans might want to pay better attention to. Recent studies do suggest that vegans had lower bone densities and are at higher risk of fractures. To get an idea of how vegans get calcium, I made six sample vegan meal plans and calculated the calcium in them. Even a healthy vegan diet did not always meet calcium RDAs of 1000mg/day. (see the infographic here)