Hello again. I hope you are keeping well and enjoying the Summer season. My post is a little different this month but hopefully helpful to anyone whose diet contains no gluten, dairy or animal products.

I had a bit of a dietary come-uppance a few weeks ago. Having a background in food and nutrition, I know what I should be eating to keep me fit and healthy. It happened when I switched from my regular plant-milk to an organic version. After a few days I Happened to notice that the organic milk was not fortified. This raised my concern as fortified plant milk was one of the main sources of calcium in my diet. Once I had reviewed the other foods I regularly consume, I realised that my daily intake of this vital mineral was coming up short.

As part of my work as a recipe writer, I am used to working out the calories and other nutritional content of my recipes, and I have some comprehensive nutritional books and tables to help me do this. I studied the calcium content for lots of foods and worked out some useful dietary calcium boosters which are easy to include in my meals on a daily basis.

Poppy seeds	1580mg calcium/100g
Sesame seeds	670mg calcium/100g
Chia seeds	631mg calcium/100g
Flax seeds	255mg calcium/100g
Whole almonds	269mg calcium/100g
Brazil nuts	170mg calcium/100g

Source: McCance and Widdowson’s: The Composition of Foods

As you can see from the chart above, poppy seeds are by far the super-hero of the calcium world but like other small seeds, not necessarily the easiest of foods to eat, so I ground them up in my coffee grinder to make a fine “flour”.

Combined with ground sesame seeds, chia seeds and unblanched almonds the resulting “flour” makes a perfect sprinkle over breakfast cereals and salads and as a nutrient-rich addition to smoothies and baking mixes.

The blend is made up with 50g poppy seeds, 25g each sesame and chia seeds plus 75g unblanched almonds to make 11-12 servings. One heaped tablespoon or 15g of this mix will give you a very useful 115mg calcium (81 calories). Don’t be tempted to make up too much in one go, it is better to consume the mix as fresh as possible; keep it in an airtight container, in the fridge for maximum freshness.

I have gone back to fortified plant milk (around 120mg calcium/100ml) for the time being, so with the smaller amounts of calcium in my breakfast cereal and some fresh berries (blackberries contain a useful 33mg calcium/100g) my breakfast now gives me over one third of my daily recommended intake (700mg) 🙂

I’ll be making up some more calcium-boosting recipes in the future so watch this space if your interested. Thanks for stopping by and see you again next time.