Your bones: vitamins, minerals and healthy foods for your health

Calcium is a mineral that we immediately associate with healthy bones, and although this element is essential to their welfare, there are many other factors involved for the proper development and functioning. For example: Did you know that if you do not drink vitamin C your bones can have deficiencies? Did you know that those elements have to match with a good formation of skeletal system? Have you ever heard of the importance of sunlight in the overall health of your skeleton?

An adult has approximately 206 bones, which have the primary function to sustain the body and protect soft organs like the heart, brain, lungs, and so on. Without the bones, we almost could not move, would be a kind of gelatin without force, because neither our muscles could be strengthened. However, our happy and wonderful body was designed for movement, and there are many things we can do to keep it in optimal conditions and fully enjoy all the functions out bones provide, avoiding pain, weakness and deformities which certainly can be prevented and healed if we decide to move with determination and with the appropriate knowledge.

Then here is a useful list to consider in your diet. The foods that we offer are the healthiest. Before reading this list, take into account that:

• The refining of food loses from 80% to 99% of the minerals and vitamins in foods.
• The cooking loses between 50% and 80%.
• Sunlight and air can oxidize the food, making it lose the vitamins contained. Such is the case of vitamin C.
• Time ago, foods were richer in minerals and the farmers used natural fertilizers to nourish the earth. Currently, the chemical fertilizers cause food to reduce their nutritional quality.
• Organically produced foods are certainly the highest in nutritional properties.
• Excessive stress prevents proper absorption of nutrients from food.
• The consumption of refined sugar and its derivatives demineralize body.

List of vitamins, minerals and essential food for the health of the skeletal system:

Calcium

Its consumption at different stages of growth is crucial for the proper development and maintenance of bones and teeth. The contribution of calcium should be done from the earliest stages of life and must be contained in sufficient quantities in the diet of children, as well as in the diet of adults and seniors. Its deficiency in the diet can lead to severe consequences, such as weak bones and frequent fractures (osteoporosis), joint pain or bones, general weakness, skeletal deformities (rickets), and so forth.

Food containing calcium:

• Fruits and vegetables: spinach, onion, lemon, orange, kale, watercress, cardoon, broccoli.
• Legumes: beans (white beans), chickpeas, beans, lentils, soybeans.
• Healthy Dairy Calcium: curd, tofu, soy, goat cheese, homemade yogurt, kefir, cream, fresh cheese, soy milk, soy yogurt.
• Meat: salmon, tuna, sea bream, sardines, fresh anchovies with bones, mussels, prawns, octopus, oysters, shrimp, clams.
• Dried fruit: figs, apples, apricots, pineapple, etc.
• Oilseeds, seeds and other: almonds (3 of them equal one glasses of milk), sesame(in 100 grams of sesame is 670 milligrams of calcium), amaranth (a major source of calcium)
• Daily dose: the requirement in an average adult is about 1000 milligrams, but take into account that this may vary according to sex, age and health conditions.

Vitamin C

A vitamin necessary for the health and strength of bones is vitamin C, essential for the formation of collagen in joints, tendons and tissue.

Food containing vitamin C:

• Fruits and vegetables: lemon, kiwi, oranges, onions, plums, pineapples, guavas, etc..
• Phosphorus: indispensable for the bones must be in perfect balance with calcium for bone health. However, it should not be exceeded in this mineral because it may cause the opposite effect, i.e., loss of calcium.
• Cereals and some others: oatmeal, whole wheat flour, brown rice, pasta, rye bread, amaranth.
• Legumes, vegetables: peas, artichokes, mushrooms, seaweed, cabbage, soybeans, parsley, soy grain, lentils, beans, broad beans, chickpeas.
• Fruits and nuts: raisins (dried grapes), dried plum, dried figs, dried dates, coconut, pistachios, almonds, peanuts, walnuts, hazelnuts, pine nuts, chestnuts.
• Dairy: cheeses.
• Meat: crustaceans, dried cod, shrimp, salmon, sardines, mussels, tuna, sea bream, megrim.
• The egg yolk

Magnesium

This mineral penetrates the bone and gives hardness; it is also of great importance to the hormones that regulate calcium levels and facilitates the absorption of vitamin D.

Food containing magnesium:

• Nuts: sunflower, almonds, sesame seeds, pistachios, peanuts, hazelnuts and walnuts.
• Cereals: wheat germ, yeast, millet, rice and wheat.
• In legumes: soybean, beans, chickpeas and lentils.
• Vegetables: the sprouts and green leafy vegetables, and that chlorophyll contains magnesium.

Vitamin D

It helps your body use calcium and muscles and nerves to function properly. Without enough vitamin D the body cannot use the calcium you eat, and this can cause rickets (soft bones) and osteoporosis (fragility and weakness of the skeletal system).

Sources of vitamin D:

• Sunlight: 15 or 20 minutes walking under daily light is sufficient to obtain the necessary amount in a day.
• In the winter is difficult to get enough vitamin D. So you should include in your diet cereals, yogurt, cheese, fish such as salmon and tuna, and so on.
• Pills and supplements: These are very useful and beneficial to give the body enough vitamin D. Something you should consider is to exaggerate the intake of vitamin D can be harmful. In average, and adult needs 10 mg (sometimes written as 400 IU) of vitamin D each day.

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