>I apologize in advance for my ignorance, I'm new here, but if you >avoid >nuts, how do you get enough calcium? I'm no expert on this, but while interviewing Dr. Loren Cordain (whose name you'll see here quite often) I learned what's wrong with the calcium consumed by people in the modern, work-a-day world. What follows is taken from an article I wrote. If I posted this earlier, sorry for the redundancy. <snip> Here’s a point to ponder. Early humans did not eat dairy, yet they had strong bones. How can you cut milk and other calcium-rich dairy products from your diet and maintain a strong, healthy skeleton? Good question. “It’s a concept that’s been overlooked by virtually all of the nutritional community and all the popular writers.” Cordain says. Calcium does more than build bones. It also helps the body maintain a good pH balance. If there’s too much acid coursing through your veins, its up to your kidneys to get things in order. But they can only excrete so much acid at a time. Let’s say you drank a liter of Diet Coke, which has a high potential renal acid load, on a hot summer day. “In order to excrete the excessive acidity, you’d have to excrete 33 liters of urine.” Obviously, this can’t be done! “What does the kidney do, then, when it encounters high acid load in the diet? It buffers it,” Cordain says. “It buffers it with alkaline agents in the body. What is the largest alkaline source in the body? One is nitrogen from muscle and two is, ultimately, calcium from the skeleton. And recent studies done within the last two to three years have clearly indicated that the average American diet produces a slight net metabolic acidosis. What foods, then, are producing this slight metabolic acidosis? Guess what! Cereal grains are one of the highest acid loading foods, and paradoxically, dry cheeses are the absolute highest acidic foods. So here you are, thinking you’re doing yourself good by eating some hard cheese to get your calcium intake up, which is correct. But you are increasing the calcium going out because of the high acid load.” <snip> Makes sense to me! Dori Zook Denver, CO ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com