Osteoporosis: Bone-Building Food

June 30, 2018

Did you know that more women die of a broken bone each year than those who die of both breast and uterine cancer combined? Osteoporosis is considered a silent health condition, because you don’t have any signs or symptoms until it is too late. Listen in as we discuss the causes of bone thinning and what habits and foods support strong bones.

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• Is Osteoporosis or Osteopenia in Your Future?
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Transcript

CASSIE: Welcome to Dishing Up Nutrition. I'm Cassie Weness, registered and licensed dietitian and I'm here in studio this morning with Jennifer Schmid, certified nutrition educator. This morning our topic is osteoporosis and those of you that have been with us for a long time know that this show is brought to you by Nutritional Weight & Wellness a company that helps people understand the importance of eating real food for their health. Today we'll be focusing on the importance of eating real food for your bone health, but certainly it's important to eat real food for your brain health, for your heart health, for really all aspects of your health. Today we want to start out the show by talking about some of the causes of bone thinning, some of the causes of osteoporosis, but then Jennifer and I want to spend a lot of time this hour talking about what habits and what foods can you implement in your day to support strong bones. And as I was doing research for the show, I came across this and I want to share it with all of you listeners. I find this fascinating, according to the National Institutes of Health, our entire skeleton is completely regenerated every 10 years. Just think about that. So if you're listening and you're 80 years old, you've had eight fully regenerated skeletons, eight brand new skeletons basically in your lifetime.

JENNIFER:  That's incredible.

CASSIE: Amazing. If you're 30 years old, your skeleton has been regenerated three times. So I think just realizing that our bodies can regenerate all of our bones every 10 years is important and inspiring. Think about the fact that our bones are constantly being broken down and then new ones are being formed throughout our life. So even if right now you've recently been told that you have low bone mass, you can rebuild that to a better place, but we need to provide our bones with the nutrients that they need in order to build them up strong and dense and in order to avoid osteoporosis. Most of you listening know that osteoporosis is a common condition today. The statistics say that more than 53 million people either have osteoporosis or have low bone mass, putting them at an increased risk of developing osteoporosis and possibly having a bone fracture. And a really sobering fact to think about, more women die of a broken bone each year than those who die of both breast and uterine cancer combined. And I know that some of you listening are in and out of the room or maybe you're running errands and you're in and out of your car so I want to say that one more time. More women die of a broken bone each year than those who die of both breast cancer and uterine cancer combined. Oftentimes you'll hear doctors talk about osteoporosis as a silent health condition because you often don't have any signs or symptoms until it's too late and you end up in a nursing home with maybe a broken pelvis bone. So again, today's going to be a great show because we're not only going to talk about some of the causes of osteoporosis, but we're going to talk about how eating real food is probably your best solution to maintaining strong, healthy bones. And as I said earlier, Jennifer Schmid is in studio with me today. I'm going to turn the mic over to her in just a minute. She has an amazing story of her own to share about how her eating disorder in the past affected her bone health. But then the inspiring part of this story is that she has rebuilt her bones by simply eating real food. Jennifer, I am so excited and pleased to be in studio with you today. Welcome to the show.

JENNIFER: I'm excited to be in the studio with you too, Cassie. It's a pleasure. We've taught classes together, but we've never been in the studio together. This will be a great show.

CASSIE:  I know it will.

JENNIFER: Good morning listeners. You know some longtime listeners have heard my story before about how I overcame an exercise addiction and an eating disorder and today I'm going to talk, I'm going to go into more detail of what sets the stage for getting diagnosed with osteoporosis. In the late 90s, I developed an exercise addiction that led to an eating disorder. During my first hospitalization I was diagnosed with osteopenia at the age of 23. And during my teenage years and into my twenties, I was a low fat, no fat eater.

CASSIE: As many were.

JENNIFER: Exactly. That was the message we had.  You know Cassie it is researched and very well known that during those teenage years of puberty, it's especially important to build that peak bone density. And that sets the stage for me even before my exercise addiction started. Now, as we know, Cassie, low body weight in girls and young women can negatively affect bone density and can also cause the body to stop producing estrogen, which can affect the menstrual cycle. Low estrogen also contributes to low bone density.

CASSIE:  It's all connected.

JENNIFER:  It is. I lost my menstrual cycle right around the time that my exercise addiction started and that lasted for many years. Also, with over exercising and under eating, it caused extreme stress on my body which caused the overproduction of cortisol, which is our stress hormone, which also increased not only muscle loss but more bone loss. And in addition to that, I was also a heavy diet soda drinker. Actually, let's be honest, I was addicted to drinking diet soda. As we know Cassie, the ingredient in both diet and regular soda that's harmful to our bones is phosphoric acid.

CASSIE:  And that's an important point that it's not just the full octane high sugar soda that's bad for people, but like you're saying, it's the diet pop that's harmful too.

JENNIFER:  It certainly is. And as we know Cassie, the ingredient or you know all the ingredients for this disease to harm my bones, I had all of them.

CASSIE:  You were the perfect storm.

JENNIFER: I was now fast forward to 2012 after having 2 emergency intestinal surgeries. I was diagnosed with osteoporosis at the age of 38 and this was my rock bottom, if you will. That prompted me to come to Nutritional Weight & Wellness for a consultation. I'd been listening to this very radio show since it first started to air. I knew that I needed lifesaving help, so after a month of eating the Weight & Wellness way, real foods in balanced, I felt tremendously better, but what was more exciting than that was how quickly my thoughts and behaviors started to change that ultimately helps stop my exercise addiction in its tracks within 10 days of just changing my eating.

CASSIE: Isn't that amazing? I mean, today you and I are focusing all about how you can change your eating to change your bone health but you just mentioned it changes our brain health too.

JENNIFER:  Exactly, and so my full intent of going in for my consultation was to help my bones and so I had no idea that my brain health would be helped not only so well, but so quickly. Also, my gut health improved greatly, which helped me to start to absorb those important minerals again and I was able to reverse my osteoporosis into the osteopenia stage within two years and then two years after that I was out the osteopenia stage into healthier bones.

CASSIE:   That is such an amazing story and very inspiring. And let me ask you, before you found Nutritional Weight & Wellness, would you ever have dreamed that a person in this story, you, could rebuild your bones out of osteoporosis and get to a state of strong healthy bones like you have?

JENNIFER:  No.

CASSIE: I was never taught that in college. I mean it was just osteoporosis is the end point.

JENNIFER:  Exactly. And that's why, you know, that's what prompted me because I thought, oh boy, this is serious, and my passion really grew from that, to see, wow, the body can repair itself if you give it the right tools.

CASSIE:   It's an amazing machine if you give it the right tools.

JENNIFER:  Exactly. Cassie, since teenage years are so critical for building good bone density, how can we help our teens to start eating those bone building foods?

CASSIE:  That is a really great question and I think we should spend some time answering it, but first I think we should define what exactly are bone building foods? Now you and I know Jennifer, that there are a couple of key categories of nutrients that help build strong bones and I want to start with protein, but I think we'll start that when we get back from break.

JENNIFER:  That sounds great. You are listening to Dishing Up Nutrition and we are discussing the causes and solutions for osteoporosis, a condition in which bones become less dense and therefore more likely to fracture. This is a serious condition and it is estimated that 53 million people have osteoporosis or low bone mass. Are you wondering what are some of the nutrition connections to osteoporosis? Some of these may surprise you. Low fat eating, daily intake of high sugar foods and processed carbohydrates, drinking soda, and the consumption of polyunsaturated fats such as soybean oil, corn oil, canola oil, or cottonseed oil. If you have questions today about osteoporosis, give us a call in the studio at 651-641-1071. We'll be right back

CASSIE: Welcome back to Dishing Up Nutrition. If you're just joining us, our topic today is osteoporosis. Really the main question we all need to be asking ourselves in relation to this topic is how do you change your nutrition to change your bone health? Well, you could think of it this way, if you decide that you want to learn how to quilt, you would take lessons right? And then you would practice. You might even sign up for more lessons and certainly you'd want to practice some more. Or for the guys out there, if you're going to learn to fly fish, you might sign up for some lessons and certainly you're going to practice. It's the same when we talk about learning to eat, to support your bone health, you might need to take some classes. Two series of classes that I'd like to recommend, one is our Nutrition 4 Weight Loss Series and the other is my personal favorite, our six week Weight & Wellness Series. Both of these series of classes you learn a lot and those pieces of research and things that you learn, motivate you to make the right changes and then you practice. You practice eating to support your bone health and you might even sign up again and take another round of Nutrition 4 Weight Loss or the Weight & Wellness Series and practice some more. After a few months you'll be in charge of the health of your bones and you'll be so much healthier overall, but it's really just all about learning a new skill and practicing, practicing, practicing until it becomes a lifelong habit.

JENNIFER: That's right, and they're fun classes.

CASSIE: They really are. I mean, I still remember the first time I took that Weight & Wellness series 12 years ago and I was a dietitian already at that point, so I thought, I know this stuff. I learned so much and so many things that I learned really have helped me to become a much healthier person.

JENNIFER: I experienced the same thing.

CASSIE:Amazing classes. Okay, so before we went to break Jennifer, we were talking about how do you feed those teenagers, especially because like you said, those teenage years are when you are building your peak bone mass, so it becomes very critical. Exactly. So I mentioned before break one category of food that we'd like to focus on is protein. To build strong bones it is so important that we help our young people, girls and boys eat enough protein. Yet I hear it quite often from other parents statements like, "oh my daughter doesn't want to eat meat." Oftentimes the parent will say, "well, she'll eat a little fish, but not really much else for animal protein." If I hear comments like this, I typically will suggest trying to cook eggs in a variety of different ways for that picky teenager in your house. And if that kid in your house can do dairy products, if you don't have a dairy sensitivity, you could add cheese to the eggs that adds a little extra protein boost or you could serve some cottage cheese on the side. Both of these are good forms of protein as long as you don't have a dairy sensitivity. Full fat yogurt would be another great option to get some protein into those teenagers. And one of my favorites, the whey protein powder, throw a scoop or two of that in a protein smoothie in the morning and you'll sneak the protein into that teenager and they'll think they're kind of getting a treat for breakfast. Oftentimes it just takes being a little creative to help and they don't have to be teenagers. I think of my 10 and 12 year old, I have to be creative with them too to get those essential nutrients into them that their bones need to be healthy and it's not just their bones, their brains are developing so fast too and the nutrition that their brains need is important as well. I know earlier I said cook eggs in a variety of different ways if you have that teenager that is kind of turning up their nose at meat. I'm sure some of you listening thought, okay, seriously, how many ways can I possibly fix eggs that will interest this kid in my house? Well maybe we should help our listeners, Jennifer, with that one.

JENNIFER:   I really think we should.

CASSIE:  I'll start one of my, probably my very favorite way actually to eat eggs is deviled eggs. So any standard deviled egg recipe will do and it doesn't take that long. Mix it up and then when you have those deviled eggs in the fridge it makes for a quick grab and go snack for your teenager or you're 10 or 12 year old for that matter. So like I said, any standard recipe will do, but I do want to caution you on the type of mayonnaise that you use. If you are in your kitchen, I encourage you, go to your refrigerator and pull out your mayonnaise jar and look and see what type of oil is in there. Unfortunately, a lot of the brands on the market today are made with soybean oil. Soybean oil, as you and I know, is a damaged fat and so it's damaging to the bones and we'll be talking more about that later. What I would suggest is a mayonnaise that has either avocado oil in the ingredient list or an expeller pressed safflower oil or sometimes you'll see it listed in the ingredient list as cold pressed safflower oil. These are the best types of mayonnaise to use and if you want to get a little fancy, you could smash up a little tuna or a little salmon in with the yolk and the mayonnaise and that just adds that extra protein boost as well.

JENNIFER:  Absolutely and those know the healthier mayonnaise tastes better too.

CASSIE:  Have you tried the avocado? Everybody just is over the moon about it. Maybe I'll pick some up today, I haven't tried it yet.

JENNIFER: Yeah, it's really good and I really love those Salmon Deviled Eggs too. We actually have the recipe on our website at weightandwellness.com. Sometimes Cassie, if I'm out of mayo I'll just smash up an avocado and use it in place of that.

CASSIE: Oh, that's a good idea.

JENNIFER:  It's really good. Cassie, what about making a quiche with eggs or maybe an egg bake with eggs, heavy cream, grated cheese and some veggies?

CASSIE: I will be over for breakfast when you make that.

JENNIFER:  I think your kids would enjoy that.

CASSIE:  Yes, absolutely. And that's something you can do a big batch and cut it up and freeze individual portion sizes so you have that grab and go.

JENNIFER: In the morning when we're busy.

CASSIE:  Yes. And kids too, you know, especially when school starts up again, if they need a quick breakfast and maybe mom has gone already to work, if you can have things like that that they can pull out. Speaking of easy, another super simple one is just to have hard boiled eggs in the refrigerator. Then you can grab one or two and when you make those hard boiled eggs, so if you do it on maybe a Sunday night when you have a little extra time, once you've cooled them off under the running water, peel them right away and put them in Tupperware in the fridge. Because we've all been there, right? You open the fridge and okay, there's that hard boiled egg but it's in a shell and I just feel too lazy right now to crack that. So it's much more likely that your teenager or your child will grab that if it's peeled and in Tupperware. They can grab one or two of those, add a little mayonnaise for that healthy fat and maybe put a few organic strawberries on the side and you have a healthy snack. Really especially for those kids, it's important to make the healthy snack, the easy snack. They'll be much more likely to eat it.

JENNIFER: Definitely. And another one of my favorites, Cassie, I like to make is a bacon and leek quiche. But my all-time favorite, just to keep it simple, is just scrambled eggs cooked in butter, maybe with some spinach, with a sliced avocado and sometimes I'll add a side of full fat cottage cheese top with blueberries and slivered almonds. And I want to again emphasize full fat, cottage cheese.

CASSIE:Which sometimes it's hard to find. So yes really puts your glasses on. I was going to say, do you have a certain place where you buy it?

JENNIFER:  Well, you know, sometimes it'll say whole milk. And same with yogurt too. Instead of saying full fat yogurt, it'll say whole milk.

CASSIE: Which would be the same exact. We are dairy sensitive in our household, so it's been so many years, over a decade, since I've shopped for a cottage cheese or yogurt. So those are good tips. But I do remember back in the day that it was all fat free and low fat cottage cheese.

JENNIFER:  It's hard to find.

CASSIE: But once you find it, just keep going back to that brand. Another idea, if your teens are not sensitive to dairy, you could make a cottage cheese parfait. You could do that, you know, an individual little parfait cups or I'm thinking ahead to fourth of July, which is coming fast. If you wanted to take a nice dish to pass, you could do this in a big clear glass trifle bowl. You know those big ones on the pedestal that have the straight sides. So you can see all these pretty colors. So here's how to do it. You put down a layer of fresh blueberries first and after that to do that layer of full fat cottage cheese, and then add a layer of either macadamia nuts or slivered almonds. Fourth of July, you need your red color, next you want to add some sliced strawberries and then just repeat another layer of full fat cottage cheese, another layer of slivered almonds or macadamia nuts, another layer of those blueberries. Top it off with one final white layer of cottage cheese, and if you put the biggest, reddest strawberry you can find on the top right in the middle. Wouldn't that be so pretty to take?

JENNIFER: Beautiful and delicious.

CASSIE:And bone building.

JENNIFER: And bone building. I think I'm going to have to make those this fourth. You certainly don't need to be a teenager to enjoy that cottage cheese parfait. You know Cassie, I think it's time for our second break. You are listening to Dishing Up Nutrition. If you have osteoporosis, I want to recommend a supplement that I believed help restore my bones. This bone building product is called Pro Bono and it includes all of the ingredients that our bones need to nurse and restore them. I really like it because it's so convenient and so easy. You take the AM packet of capsules in the morning and the PM packet at night before you go to bed. If you want more information, you can go to our website at weightandwellness.com. Click on the "vitamins" tab, which will direct you to our supplements and product page, or you can give our offices a call at 651-699-3438 to get your questions answered. And if you have questions today for us about osteoporosis p give the studio call at 651-641-1071 and we'll be right back.

CASSIE: Welcome back to Dishing Up Nutrition. Today we're talking about changing your nutrition to strengthen your bones. As we talk about making these changes, it reminds me of something I've realized over the years and that is that in order to learn new information or to change your behavior, for me personally, I need to do it in phases or what I sometimes call baby steps and that's okay. Over time, many little baby steps will lead into that one giant leap that leads to that change that you're trying to make. It makes me think of what 12 years ago now when I gave up diet soda, I was telling Jennifer a little bit about it during the break. My first step when I gave up diet soda, because I knew I cannot do this cold turkey, it's just not my personality. So at first instead of having two 20 ounce bottles of Diet Pepsi a day, I made a commitment to have one a day and I did that for maybe a week or so. And then I made a commitment, okay, now one every other day and after a while I got to a place where I wasn't having any but I needed something fizzy so I would do La Croix sparkling water or Mendota Springs. Then finally, after many months I got to a place where I was able to drink just plain purified water and I can tell you my kidneys are the happiest when I drink plain purified water. I have found over the years in clinical practice that most of my clients learn and change in the same way, they do it in baby steps. There are those exceptions that do well just changing it all over at once, but most of us do best learning and changing in phases and practicing. On that note, a lot of our clients take our classes several times to review the information and just to be able to practice some more and move on to that next phase of change. Many of our clients make continual appointments with their dietitian or their nutritionist to check in, to hold themselves accountable and also just to learn more and to continue to grow in their healthy habits. Certainly at Nutritional Weight & Wellness, we understand that nutrition is not a one time and then you're done experience. The learning and the practicing is continual. So I'm giving you the okay, here I'm giving you the green light to retake our nutrition classes or to relisten to a podcast. I know for me, every time I go back and relisten to a podcast, I hear something that I missed the first time around.

JENNIFER: You do. And with classes you're getting different teachers every time. So you are getting different information.

CASSIE:  Absolutely, because they bring their own personal tips and they all have their own way of describing the different sort of science-y concepts. So you're right with every different teacher you learn a little bit differently. And really bottom line, it's all about learning and practicing.

JENNIFER: That's right Cassie. Before we went to break, we were talking about that delicious cottage cheese parfait, but Cassie, what about our listeners that are dairy sensitive? What are some options for them?

CASSIE:  Right, so if you are dairy sensitive like my family is, I have a couple of ideas that come to mind first instead of serving like cottage cheese alongside those scrambled eggs, like you mentioned for breakfast, Jennifer, you could do on our lower carb gluten free pancake recipe.

JENNIFER: And those are really good.

CASSIE:  Yes. And you know what I do sometimes, and it's not on the recipe ingredient list, but I'll throw a scoop or two of Paleo Protein powder into the batter. And so, you know, we're talking about how protein is so important for bone health, it gives you that little added dose and that's important, especially if you are dairy sensitive. It's a great way to sneak in some great dairy free protein. And on that note that Paleo Protein powder is also great in a protein shake or at our house, we call it a protein smoothie in the morning. My 10 year old, who typically is a very good eater, breakfast time, it's just hard to get her to eat protein like my son and I, we love leftovers at breakfast. So we might have a bowl of chili from the night before, but for Marissa that's just not her thing. So 99 percent of the time I am making her a protein shake in the morning and I use the Paleo Protein powder, which is an excellent source of animal protein, but it's completely dairy free. So if any of you out there are interested in that product, you can go to weightandwellness.com and click on "vitamins" and you can read up on it. If you want a little added dose of nutrition, you could throw a scoop of Fruits and Greens from NutriDyn in there. You'll find more information about that on our products page as well. Basically it's a little scoop of flavored powder that gives you all the great stuff from 20 plus servings of vegetables and fruits. It's an optional thing but it's great if you want to throw that in. I always put coconut milk in our smoothies because we are dairy free, so instead of the yogurt, the coconut milk is the base and then right now we're really into the frozen organic strawberries. They're so delicious this time of year. They make that smoothie tastes great. And then I'll throw a couple of tablespoons of cocoa powder in there so that chocolate strawberry is delicious. You know, another idea, and I just thought of this as I was preparing for the show and I haven't done it yet this summer, but it's great this time of year when it's so hot, make that smoothie recipe and pour it into popsicle molds.

JENNIFER: Oh, that's a great idea.

CASSIE:  Doesn't that sound good on a hot day like today? So then you have a delicious cold treat that's packed full of protein and healthy fat, both of which are so great for building those strong bones.

JENNIFER:  Definitely that fat is so important and I love to use that full fat coconut milk from the can as well. It's great. It takes time to plan and prepare foods that support bone health and the health of growing teens, but you know, the extra time is definitely well worth it. I think you would agree, Cassie. Plus you're teaching your kids good food habits that will last a lifetime. That's so important. Since I don't have much of a sweet tooth, I often have maybe for breakfast, a few turkey sausages with some spinach sautéed in butter, maybe some sweet potato with some more butter, and then I like to add a cup of bone broth along with that because you know that's full of nutrients not only important for my bones, but for my digestive tract.

CASSIE:Do you make your own bone broth?

JENNIFER:  I do.

CASSIE:  You know, and I'm so glad you just said that. That's not only good for your bones, you said, but it's good for your digestive tract and that's so intertwined because if your digestive system isn't healthy, you can eat all the great foods, but you're not going to absorb those nutrients.

JENNIFER: Yes. So important. You know, my digestive system works better when I stick to eating meat, a variety of vegetables and only good beneficial fats such as butter, coconut oil, olive oil, avocados and olives. I've actually reverse my osteoporosis and restored my bones through eating those, you know, the meat, the vegetables, the good healthy fats about five times throughout the day. And because of my full time job as a surgical dental assistance, sometimes I'm in surgery and the time between meals and snacks is longer than I had anticipated and there's not a whole lot I can do about that. I do what I can with the full intent of eating to restore my health issues. We at Nutritional Weight & Wellness tell every client and class participant to do the same as well.

CASSIE:  We absolutely do it. I just want to repeat something you said a minute or so ago, you have completely reversed your osteoperosis. I want that to be a main message today. I mean, we want to give people hope. That is not the end point. As we said earlier in the show, you can reverse your osteoporosis. I think we have a caller.

JENNIFER: You know what we do and I think we should answer that call right after the break.

CASSIE: Welcome back to Dishing Up Nutrition. Before we jump back into our topic of osteoporosis and bone building nutrition, and before we get to these callers, there's something I want to mention before I forget, I want to invite you to tune in next week when Kara and Lea discuss lifestyle connections to infertility. I also want to mention if you're looking to learn how the right bedtime snack can help you get a better night's sleep, check out the Cooking Light article on our website, just go to weightandwellness.com. It's in the section called "In the News" and the title of the article is “7 Bedtime Snack Mistakes That Can Wreck Your Sleep”. One of our registered dietitians, Leah Kleinschrodt, was interviewed in this article and she does a great job explaining, first of all why eating too much protein in the evening can wreak havoc on your sleep, but she also talks about how too little food in the evening can wreak havoc on your sleep and then she gives you a couple of snack ideas that will help balance your blood sugar and help you sleep like a baby. So again, you can go to our website at weightandwellness.com. First, click on "Blog" and then click on "In the News" and you'll find that Cooking Light article and Leah's bedtime snack tips.

JENNIFER: Yes, and that's a great article.

CASSIE:  It is. I kind of, and I thought I had it perfected, but I changed up my bedtime snack a little bit after reading that. I added a little more protein. I'm doing two ounces like she suggests and then a little fat and a little carb, I think I need that to hold my blood sugar. She really did do a great job. Thanks Leah.

JENNIFER: Yeah, thank you, Leah. We have a couple of callers. Mary, welcome to Dishing Up Nutrition. You have a question for us?

CALLER: Hi thank you for taking my call. The question that I have doesn't directly relate to your subject, but in a way it does. This past week there was a double blind clinical study that came out of Boston University that talked about that there's only two classes of vitamins that really make any impact on the body. And the first one was the B complex vitamins, especially folic acid and the second was vitamin D for people that live so many degrees north or south of equator. And of course Minnesota was included in that. What do you think about this study?

CASSIE:  Wow. Without having it in front of me and being able to read it in full, it's certainly is a great question, but I don't know that I can comment too much Mary because just having years of clinical experience under my belt, I've certainly seen a whole lot of other vitamins.

CALLER:There link to the study in the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics under their research.

CASSIE:  Okay, that is easy to look up.

CALLER: I haven't read the entire study yet, but that was like the basic premise.

CASSIE:I am going to look into that. I'm sorry I don't have a better answer for you, but I can say I can say that the B complex vitamins, if you get a good one, are excellent. You know, B vitamins do so much for our body, that could probably be a whole show in and of itself. And certainly vitamin D, as you alluded to, most of us especially in Minnesota are low and we do need to supplement

CALLER: And really the only vitamins I take are those two plus fish oil. So it was kind of interesting that those were the ones that were saying that did have an impact on the body and they just couldn't prove any of the other effects with the study.

CASSIE:Okay. Thank you for sharing that with us because I do want to look into it. Maybe that topic will come up in a show coming up here.

CALLER:  All right. Thank you.

CASSIE:Thank you Mary. Like you and I were saying off air, Jennifer, when you're passionate about a topic as we are about this topic, we wish it could be longer. It made me think we don't even have time or didn't have time to throw in vitamin D today, but certainly that's great for bones. And I was reading recent research here not too long ago that omega-3s help your body absorb calcium.

JENNIFER: Interesting. And not know that.

CASSIE:  I had never read that in all my years of reading research. But right away I thought of that Pro Bono product that you mentioned that is so great for rebuilding out of osteoporosis. It has omega-3s in the AM or PM packet. I forget but how about we go to caller two?

JENNIFER:  Sure. Ruth, welcome to Dishing Up Nutrition. You have a question for us? 

CALLER: Yes, you didn't say anything about plant sources of protein, so I'm kind of interested in like the dried peas and beans or lentils and also I had a question because someone was saying yesterday, that's what it's going to see if you agreed with this or whatever, that when you drink milk, it produces an acid in your stomach and it takes the calcium from your bones to help to kind of neutralize that. Is there, is there any truth to that?

CASSIE:  When you drink milk it makes?

CALLER: An acid that creates an acid situation in your stomach and then it takes calcium from your bones to neutralize that.

CASSIE:  There might be validity to that. I can't say that I've ever read that in particular, but I do know that if you have a body that is more acidic that it will leech calcium right out of your bones because calcium is a mineral, so it's a base. It will help to neutralize the acid. So the science behind that statement is there. Whether or not milk actually makes us more acidic, I'm not exactly sure. But I think you bring up a good point Ruth, that we should make and that is that 70 percent of the world's population cannot digest dairy, so people always think of milk and cheese and yogurt right away for a great calcium source for your bones. But many of those people aren't digesting it properly and they don't even know it. And if you're not digesting it, it's not getting into your bones. So either way there's a good point to be made there. If you want to hang up and listen, we can talk about the plant sources too.

CALLER:Perfect.

CASSIE: All right. Thank you for listening to Dishing Up Nutrition. That was a great question. So what about plant sources? And she mentioned like beans and lentils. For some people that can work to combine maybe the beans and the rice and get what we call a complete amino acid profile. But if you are a meat eater and you're willing to eat meat, it makes life so much easier. Meat has in it the complete amino acid profile that we need for building strong bones, for building an immune system, for making our brain chemicals. So we don't have to worry about, okay, which two plant proteins really complement each other and are going to give me that full panel of amino acids are building blocks that I need.

JENNIFER: It is more bioavailable.

CASSIE: Right it's more bioavailable when it comes from meat, meaning it's better absorbed. The nutrients from the meat are better absorbed. So if you are strictly into eating plants as your protein source, I think it can be done, but I would recommend that you work with a nutritionist to make sure you're getting the right combinations. But if you're willing to do some meat, whether it's steak or fish or eggs, that's just the easier and more absorbable route. Alright. So, oh, this show is flying by. I wanted to share some more research. I love to read the research, if you can't tell already. And so something I came across here recently and I'm going to tie it all into the topic here, but I will start by saying this recent research that I came across is stating that our bodies were built to run on fat and not sugar.

JENNIFER:  That's right.

CASSIE:  It's so interesting when you read through this, it says that fat is the optimal fuel for humans. Now we all know sugar and processed carbs taste great, but our bodies and our bones, were not meant to run on glucose, or what we call blood sugar, as a primary source of fuel. It's really the opposite because a sugar filled diet, as you and I know Jennifer, can create a number of problems, and the science behind that is that when you burn sugar for energy, instead of burning fat for energy, it generates a lot of free radicals in our body and our long time listeners know that free radicals create damage from the inside out. Also burning sugar for energy instead of burning fat leads to more inflammation, and one more thing we've discussed several times on previous Dishing Up Nutrition shows is that cancer cells feed on sugar and so they're going to grow when they're fed sugar. So remember that our bone cells need healthy fat. They need healthy protein, and they need a variety of other nutrients to become strong and dense. Sugar is not one of them. I'm sure some people could argue that sugar meets the definition of a nutrient, but I'd say it's a pretty lame nutrient because it just gives you calories and not much else.

JENNIFER: It creates a lot of inflammation too. You know we need that healthy fat to create that strong bone mesh.

CASSIE: Absolutely we do and we have more bits of information we'd love to give out, but as we look at the clock, our time is fast coming to an end, it goes so fast. As our show draws to a close, I do want to remind all of you that our goal at Nutritional Weight & Wellness is to help each and every person experience better health through eating real food. Yes, it's a simple message, but it's a powerful message. Eating real food is life changing. Thank you for tuning in and have a healthy day.