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Comment by vfc1 | Hacker News Reader

Calcium can be easily obtained from plant foods without any problem as well, and in a better form better managed by the human body - https://nutritionfacts.org/topics/calcium/

> "A meta-analysis of cow’s milk intake and hip fracture studies showed no significant protection"

> "milk may sometimes increase bone and hip fracture rates"

Milk and all it's derived products have lactose, so they should be avoided by people that can't digest them properly, which includes, for example, most African Americans and Native Americans among many others.

It's a gradual thing that gets worse with age, you become more and more lactose intolerant. If you find yourself having frequent diarrheas say once a month or so, consider cutting on dairy and see if it improves, you might be slightly lactose intolerant without realizing it.

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You make it sound easy, but let's look at the facts. The link you posted, says you need at least 600 mg of calcium per day. 100g of brocolli has 47mg. So, you would need to eat 1.3kg of brocolli EVERY single day.

Who does that?

You don't have to that at all, of course. First of all, nobody really knows how much calcium you really need per day, all those estimates are ballpark estimates at best.

The estimates of 1000mg or more have been pushed for decades by the dairy industry.

You can get calcium from greens like kale etc. eat a bit of brocolli, eat pulses like beans and lentils, use tahini as a sauce, drink fortified plant-milk.

Just eat a well-balanced plant-based diet and you will be absolutely fine. Studies show that plant-based diets don't cause brittle bones at all on the contrary.

You can get all the nutrients that you need, calcium included from a plant-based diet. The only thing you need to supplement is B12, which is produced by bacterias in the dust.

And as everything is so clean, we don't eat a lot of dirt anymore so that its advised to supplement. Animals don't have it too on factory farms, they get injected with it together with the anti-biotics for health reasons.

So might as well take it directly, otherwise calcium is not an issue at all in a plant-based diet and this can and it has been easily shown.

Edit: Check this YouTube playlist on bone health for more info - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5TLzNi5fYd_ACcY8TDQC...

“ drink fortified plant-milk”

“ You can get all the nutrients that you need, calcium included from a plant-based diet. The only thing you need to supplement is B12”

Plant based milk is fortified with calcium carbonate. You just told us to take a calcium supplement added to a liquid.

That’s admitting it’s not possible to get enough calcium from plants.

With that logic there’s a lot of food we don’t need.. everyone just needs a multivitamin.

I don't think you need fortified milk either, but if you are worried about it you can take it, that's what I meant.

There is no indication of lack of calcium in vegetarians or vegans, many studies have shown it.

Most likely, its your expectation of how much calcium is actually needed and how essential dairy is that has been shapped through years of advertising and missinformation.

Actually, its the opposite vegetarians and vegans have usually stronger bones. Dairy has been actually linked to more bone fractures in general - https://nutritionfacts.org/2017/01/31/why-is-milk-consumptio...

Eat a balanced whole food plant-based diet and you will be absolutely fine and actually much healthier in general than with a standard diet.

An RCT for lactose would be good to check those results but I'd also like to see an analysis of possible confounding variables

> Just eat a well-balanced plant-based diet and you will be absolutely fine.

Well that settles it then. Now all we need is to get everyone to do this.

And growing green things is in general more efficient than cows. There was a lot of lobbying going on to get the milk industry to what it is now in western countries.

US is not the world, you know.

You think the dairy industry is unique to the US?

Lobbying is done in the whole world though, where do you see US? Swedish milk lobby is very strong too.

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