Eat To Live: FDA and calcium supplements

WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- When I was growing up my mother used to line up my sister and me and check our fingernails.

She wasn't looking to see how much dirt was lodged under them -- though she'd brandish the nailbrush if she found any. She was checking for those white flecks, like little splinters of lard, encased in the body of the nail.

If she found any, it meant we weren't taking enough calcium in our diets. Up went the portions of yogurt, the glasses of milk, the slices of cheese. My sister developed such an aversion, she hasn't eaten any of those since. Instead she gobbles calcium supplements.

Last week the Food and Drug Administration announced a makeover for calcium supplement labels. The agency proposed altering the regulations of calcium health claims, particularly those involving vitamin D in calcium supplements.

Vitamin D increases the body's ability to absorb calcium. If the FDA proposal goes through, calcium supplements can only trumpet their benefits in reducing the risk of osteoporosis or any other health assertions if the level of vitamin D meets or exceeds the set standard.

You need calcium. Not just to produce strong bones and good teeth, but your muscles and nerves need it to function efficiently. Some research shows it may also help curb your weight and keep blood pressure under control. Other research indicates it might even prevent colon cancer.

Children between the ages of 9 and 18 should get 1,300 milligrams daily. From 19 to 50, 1,000 is the recommendation. Fifty and above, 1,200.

Women of all ages can develop osteoporosis. Yet most of us don't really get enough vitamin D or calcium from our diets.

Perhaps it's because when we think of calcium, we immediately think of cheese and whole milk. And when we think of those, we shudder and think of calories. All that dairy, all that fat!

This may explain the market for calcium-enriched foods we don't normally associate with the mineral, like calcium-enriched orange juice -- although whole oranges are, in fact, a good source of calcium.

As are a whole ream of foods that make fine substitutes for anyone who wants to avoid cheese.

Beans have calcium: white, black, pinto and navy. Greens -- such as turnips, mustard and collard greens -- contain calcium. So does cabbage, Savoy and Chinese, and broccoli and rutabaga. Brown sugar and blackstrap molasses contain calcium.

Weird and wonderful key ingredients in Asian cooking, like dried shrimp, dried oyster and dried hijiki seaweed do as well. Buy canned shrimp and oysters: 3 ounces of canned salmon with bones contain 180 milligrams; 3½ ounces of canned sardines twice as much, at 370.

Luckily, none of these is expensive.

If it's going to be of full benefit to you, you also need vitamin D to help your body absorb that calcium.

Canned salmon and canned light tuna also contain vitamin D. Frankly, it's hard to find vitamin D in many foodstuffs. And some of those, like liver and fish and egg yolks, make people go 'Yuck!'

There is vitamin D in soy drinks and tofu. It's in milk and margarine. But watch out that the margarine isn't made with hydrogenated fats.

200 IUs (a measure of potency) of vitamin D are recommended daily for 1- to 50-year-olds, 400 for those between 51 and 70, and 600 for over 70s.

So if you're not getting enough in your diet, you should take a calcium supplement that contains vitamin D.

This is a Greek dish that is full of vitamin D and calcium, and if you don't think you like chicken livers, it will convert you.

-- Serves 4

-- 1 pound chicken livers, washed, cleaned and any fat or stringy bits cut away

-- 2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped

-- olive oil

-- 1 fresh lemon

-- 3 tablespoons dried oregano (preferably Greek) or Herbes de Provence

-- 1 cup plain yogurt, preferably whole milk

-- salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

-- 1 cup long grain rice

-- Put 4 dinner plates somewhere to warm.

-- Boil the rice in plenty of salted water till al dente, drain and set aside to keep warm.

-- Heat a generous amount of olive oil in a sauté pan over medium heat, add the garlic, stir for a minute then add the chicken livers and the dried herbs, tossing them regularly to brown all over.

-- Cut one open to make sure it is rosy, not deep red inside, then squeeze in the lemon juice, add salt and pepper to taste, stir to incorporate, and remove from heat.

-- Press a quantity of the rice into a teacup, place a warmed dinner plate over the top of the teacup, reverse the two and tap to bottom of the teacup to release the rice onto the plate in a mound. Repeat with the remaining plates and rice.

-- Divide the chicken livers into four and surround the rice mounds with them, then pour the juices in the pan around the chicken liver servings.

-- Dollop a couple of large spoonfuls of yogurt on top of the rice mound and serve, encouraging the diners to stir everything together to eat. The yogurt becomes a gravy-flavored sauce.