Confusing Calcium!

"Healthy eating" can be a tricky maze. None more so, than an awareness of needing calcium.

A few years ago, I was informed that I should consume 1200 mg of calcium daily, in food or supplements...

I immediately doubled my calcium supplements, from 300 - 600 mg a day.

Then recently I learned that I'm taking too much calcium in supplement form. Too much can cause plaque build-up in the arteries. Health guidelines now cap calcium supplements at 500 mg a day...

This information sent me hunting for a list of  calcium-rich foods to eat: milk, yogurt and cheese, of course. But how much of these do I need to eat in order to consume 1200 mg of calcium a day?

A glass of milk has 300 mg. Yogurt has about the same amount... Four 8-ounce glasses of milk or yogurt. What else?

I hunted online for a list of calcium-rich foods and came up with this, entitled: Top 15 Calcium Rich Foods.

As I look it over, I have a question: Isn't "calcium fortified" the same as adding calcium supplements to the food?

One surprise on the list was sesame seeds.

Eat Halva! my daughter suggested, half seriously. Halva is made of sesame seeds... 

(Sweetened with honey... sometimes with chocolate added!) But I did go out and get some!

It's hard to gauge how much calcium-rich food I need to consume, to reach my daily recommended amount, because calcium content is not included in nutritional information.

This nutritional fact chart (for eggs), for example, only states that one egg makes up 2% of a person's dietary calcium needs. (So one would need to eat 50 eggs to make up a day's recommended amount of calcium?!)

To complicate matters, children, adults and seniors all have different calcium needs... Which segment of the population is this percentage referring to?!

How unhelpful is that?!

The more I read, the more confused I get. Not only do I have to concern myself with how much calcium different foods have, there is also a concern that the body absorbs certain forms more easily than others. In fact, somewhere I read that only such and such percentage of this or that type of calcium is absorbed by the body...!!

There really needs to be an easier way to do this calcium thing!