"Your Natural diet: Alive Raw Foods"
by T. C. Fry and David Klein
Addressing the charge that fruits are deficient in calcium and fruitarian children have stunted growth and are abnormally small
To explore this charge i made charts of a number of fruits and their compositions. Our fuel needs can be amply met by fruits. Calcium, as well as other nutrients, are components of every gram of fruit. When we need sufficient calories from fruits, how much of our RDA for calcium have we met? The RDA is set at 800 milligrams per day. Of course, we know that this RDA is three or four times too high. For Bantu women in Africa get along very well on 300 to 400 mg of calcium per day and suffer no osteoporosis while their American counterparts may take in 1,000 mg and still suffer osteoporosis (1)!
This is so because so much of the calcium intake in Americans are inorganic as in supplements and deranged to an inorganic state as in cooked foods. Average American eats so many acid-forming foods like meats and grains as to bind, even rob us of much of our calcium intake. Further, the vaunted calcium in milk is mostly unavailable to us because our body is not able to break down the casein and milk has so much phosphorous as to bind it away. And there are really free acids as in vinegars, fermented milks, rotted cheeses, uric acids of meats, phosphoric acids of soft drinks, etc., which also bind lots of calcium and alkaline minerals.
Oranges, when eaten sufficiently to meed caloric needs or about 2,250 calories for a very active 154 pound man, have about 2,050 milligrams of calcium, 2 1/2 times the RDA. Apples have 315 milligrams, apricots 782, cantaloupes 1,078, figs 1,1130 and bananas 224. Be it noted that banana eating societies have exellent bone formation by all standards. Obviously, fruits supply amply our calcium needs.
And the saying that fruit eaters suffer stunted growth does not withstand serious inquiry. Statuesque Greeks were fruit eaters.
Whileit is true that fruit eaters are smaller than their meat-eating, milk-drinking, poison-ingesting counterparts, we must recognize in them the disease called giantism. Our average height today is eight inches more than it was is such ancestors as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, etc. Even seven footers, rather common today, were quite rare a mere 50 years ago.
End Notes:
(1) Read more about the connection of osteoporosis and a high calcium intake here: http://www.rawfoodexplained.com/why-we-should-not-eat-meat/osteoporosis-the-key-to-aging.html
this is really interesting but can I ask; when you list the milligrams in each fruit are you measuring the value for one fruit (as in one apple/one orange). I'd really like to know so that I can make sure I can get adequate calcium from fruit and veg. Thanks
ReplyDeleteIt means that when you eat 2,250 calories (what is normal daily calories) a day from oranges, you get 2,050 milligrams of calcium :) that would mean about 35 oranges.
ReplyDeleteAs said in the article its about 2 and a half time the recommended daily allowance of calcium needs. So to get the exact allowance you can eat 15 oranges. But note that its only 900 calories and you need more calories from other fruit then.
1 orange is about 62 calories, what is approx 52 milligrams of calcium.
You dont have to worry too much about nutrients when you are on a high fruit diet with plenty of greens and vegetables. you will get everything you need. But its always good to make sure :)
thanks for the reply. Appreciate it!
ReplyDeleteIt depends on your nutritional needs. Choose the right supplements.
ReplyDeletehighland park dental group