Osteoporosis and calcium and lowcarbing.

There are many old chestnuts that surface regarding lowcarbing, Osteoporosis is one of them. When you look at the foods many lowcarbers drop, they are not overly high in calcium. Bread, pasta, rice and potatoes are amongst the foods a lowcarber drops from their diets. Always remember, lowcarbing, is not no carbing. Get your carbs from non starchy vegetables and fruits. Cheese and double cream are good foods to obtain calcium from, again very low if any carbs. Cheese has around seven times the calcium of milk. Calcium can be got from many non starchy green vegetables as the table below shows.

In the following example 100g of new potatoes boiled in unsalted water is replaced with 100g of broccoli boiled in unsalted water. Table 1 indicates the vitamin and mineral content for some of the more important dietary elements. It can be seen that broccoli in 13 out of 18 of the important dietary elements has a greater or equal amount of the element. In those instances where potato has a greater or equal amount of the dietary element (vitamin B1, vitamin B6, potassium and selenium) the deficit in dietary element is easily made up with side-dishes made up of combinations of one or more of celery, courgette, radish, cauliflower, or mushroom.

It is interesting to consider the possibility of scurvy, osteoporosis, and constipation.

Table 1 Potato versus Broccoli

	Potato	Broccoli	Winner
Vitamin
A	0.00	80.00	+
B1	0.13	0.05	_
B2	0.02	0.05	+
B3	0.40	0.70	+
B5	0.38	N	_
B6	0.33	0.11	_
B12	0.00	0.00	Draw
Folic Acid	19.00	64.00	+
C	9.00	44.00	+
D	0.00	0.00	Draw
E	0.06	1.10	+
Mineral
Calcium	5.00	40.00	+
Iron	0.30	1.00	+
Magnesium	12.00	13.00	Draw
Potassium	250.00	179.00	_
Selenium	1.00	Tr	_
Zinc	0.10	0.40	+
Dietary Fibre	1.10	2.60	+

 

Broccoli contains 8 times as much calcium as potato

Unless an increase in calcium increases the respective possibility of osteoporosis it seems reasonable to conclude that the replacement of potato by broccoli (or numerous other nutrient rich vegetables) provides a viable dietary strategy for the diabetic. 

Eddie

Source http://www.food.gov.uk/science/dietarysurveys/dietsurveys/