Easily available vegan sources of Calcium

As soon as I tell that I am a vegan, the people around me suddenly have this concerned look on their face. Whoa, what do you do for protein.
And what do you do for calcium.. Milk is so full of calcium and what do you .. ohhh, aaah.

well, for one, Elephants , are vegetarian. They derive all the proteins they need from non animal source. If An elephant can manage getting so big and strong eating just plant matter, I am sure I can too.

Here is a very small but useful list of plants or plant products that are immensely rich in calcium.

Oranges-- These are easily available.. many of us actually drink orange juice with breakfast. Not the best source of calcium but a decent source of calcium. Most packaged orange juices have preservatives or are made of concentrate. I prefer eating up a whole orange rather than drinking orange juice. That way i get the requisite fiber too.

Spinach- Any green leafy vegetable is a great source of calcium. Since most of us, vegans and non vegans alike use spinach very frequently, I have put this on my list. Spinach essentially is a good source of vit A too, All other vitamins infact. lots of fiber too. So yeah, just add in spinach wherever you can and you make sure you get your calcium.

Broccoli--yet again, I am only including items that everyone already is familliar with. That way hunting for your vegan calcium source is not really tough. I love broccoli. The fun part of cooking is making everything more tastier by choosing the right balance of salt and herbs . experiment and device recipes on your own.

Millets-- This is not such a common ingredient. But damn. This by far is the richest source of Calcium. I mean, You eat one serving of millets each day and you really will get more calcium than even milk . Use millet flour in cake making, or in bread making . Use millets for porridge and such. In africa, they make a fermeneted pancake out of mIllets called Injera. It is not only rich in calcium but is tasty as hell. Fermentation overnight makes the batter all fluffy for pancake making the next day. try it.

Soy tofu made with calcium coagulants. --Now now, you must remember that there are very many methods to make tofu. Some of them use calcium based coagulants and such type of coagulation adds to the calcium content of the tofu thus produced. So, be careful when you choose your tofu. You just might be under the false impression that all tofu is rich in calcium which it is not. It is the processing method that determines the calcium content of soy tofu. Please read the labels to purchase the rich type of tofu.

Nuts- almonds- Infact all nuts are very good sources of minerals .Many of them are laden with fat , so please only use nuts are garnishes or minimini snacks rather than chomping up platefuls of them. Almonds for one are surely rich in calcium. Though many vegans drink almond milk, I would rather suggest that all vegans eat a bunch of almonds so that they don't lose out on the vitamins and fiber in the skin of almonds.


yeah, the list is actually extensive , but I will stop here coz i don't want to overhwhelm the newbee vegans reading this page. let us do this with baby steps, Lil by little. K?

Also, all those vouching for how much milk is great for calcium, Please understand that the calcium in milk is in the presence of so much of protein that it hardly gets absorbed. What use is a ton of calcium if it goes waste?