Vegan Nutrition with Brenda Davis

Brenda Davis is a registered dietitian in private practice. She is the past Chair of the Vegetarian Nutrition Dietetic Practice Group of the American Dietetic Association. Brenda is co-author of the international best seller, Becoming Vegetarian, and highly acclaimed Becoming Vegan. Brenda is an internationally recognized speaker. She has worked as a public health nutritionist, a clinical nutrition specialist, nutrition consultant and academic nutrition instructor.

Question:

What are good sources of calcium to give my toddler? Sometimes it seems she'll only eat spaghetti and toast for days at a time.

Answer:

Adequate calcium intakes for toddlers 1-3 years of age are about 500 mg per day and for children aged 4-8 about 800 mg/day. The easiest way to insure sufficient calcium is to use a combination of calcium-rich plant foods and calcium-fortified foods and beverages. The foods listed below are excellent choices. Each serving provides approximately 120-150 mg calcium. A 1-3 year old will need about 4 servings per day and a 4-8 year old will need about 6 servings per day. (Note: this is generous as about 100 mg/day will come from other foods).

Calcium-rich plant foods: one serving equals

½ cup fortified soymilk or other fortified non-dairy milk.

½ cup fortified orange juice

¼ cup calcium set tofu

¼ cup almonds

3 Tbsp. almond butter

1 cup cooked/2 cups raw calcium-rich greens (kale, broccoli, collards, Chinese greens, okra)

1 cup high calcium beans (soy, white, navy, Great Northern or black turtle), cooked

1 cup hummus

1 Tbsp. blackstrap molasses

5 figs

With a fussy toddler, fortified beverages are especially handy. Just two cups of fortified soymilk will do the trick. If your little one resists drinking it, try getting her to eat it instead - use it in oatmeal (instead of water), pancakes, muffins, "cream soups" "ice cream" (just blend with frozen bananas and berries) and puddings. Toddlers also generally love scrambled tofu and tofu fingers (dip tofu in Braggs or tamari then in nutritional yeast mixed with spike)(Use a tofu made with calcium). Add almond butter, molasses and fortified soymilk powder to baked goods. If you give your child fruit juice, select varieties that are calcium fortified. If necessary, you can get sneaky and fortify homemade bread and other baked goods with powdered calcium. Don't worry too much about food jags - they generally pass quite quickly. Good luck!

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