Building Better Bones
coffee, white sugar, tobacco, alcohol, nutritional yeast, salt.
Fluoride in water or toothpaste.
Fiber pills, bran taken alone, bulk-producing laxatives.
Steroid medications, including corticosteroids such as prednisone and asthma inhalers. (Daily use reduces spinal bone mass by as much as ten percent a year.)
Restricted calorie diets. Women who weigh the least have the greatest loss of bone during menopause and "neither calcium supplements, vitamin D supplements, nor estrogen" slow the loss. Among 236 premenopausal women, all of whom consumed similar amounts of calcium, those who lost weight by reducing calories lost twice as much bone mass as women who maintained their weight. Although chocolate contains oxalic acid, the levels are so low as to have only a negligible effect on calcium metabolism. An ounce/3000 mg of chocolate binds 15-20 mg of calcium; an ounce of cooked spinach, 100-125 mg calcium. Bittersweet (dark) chocolate is a source of iron. Recent research has found chocolate to be very heart healthy. As with any stimulant, daily use is not advised. Chocolate is an important and helpful ally for women. Guilt about eating it and belief that it is damaging to your health interferes with your ability to hear and respond to your body wisdom. If you want to eat chocolate - do it; and get the best. But if you're doing it every day - eat more weeds. Excess phosphorus accelerates bone loss and demineralization. Phosphorus compounds are second only to salt as food additives. They are found in carbonated beverages, soda pop; white flour products, especially if "enriched" (bagels, cookies, cakes, donuts, pasta, bread); preserved meats (bacon, ham, sausage, lunch meat, and hot dogs); supermarket breakfast cereals; canned fruit; processed potato products such as frozen fries and instant mashed potatoes; processed cheeses; instant soups and puddings. To avoid phosphorus overload and improve calcium absorption:- Drink spring water and herbal infusions; avoid soda pop and carbonated water.
- Eat only whole grain breads, noodles, cookies, and crackers.
- Buy only unpreserved meats, cheeses, potatoes.
- Avoid buying foods with ingredients; they are highly processed.
Excess salt leaches calcium. Women eating 3900 mg of sodium a day excrete 30 percent more calcium than those eating 1600 mg. The main sources of dietary sodium are processed and canned foods. Seaweed is an excellent calcium-rich source of salt. Sea salt may be used freely as it contains trace amounts of calcium. Salt is critical for health; do not eliminate it from your diet. Increase hydrochloric acid production (in your stomach) and you'll make
The copyright of the article Building Better Bones in Herbal Healing is owned by Susun S Weed. Permission to republish Building Better Bones in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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