I brought my mom along to a store in Los Angeles that sells healthy broths and soups. In this post, you’ll find tips on how to take good care of your bones, naturally, my trip to this store, the bone broths we sampled, and my mom’s new favorite soup.
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I learned years ago, that limited mobility due to fractured bones was one of the major reasons a doctor placed a senior in my assisted care home. It was disheartening to see someone who could not move from bed to sit in a wheelchair. My mother and I started to pay attention to our bone health since then, having had a firsthand view of how a simple misstep can seriously alter a life because of very weak bones.
Below are 6 of the many natural ways I try to do to take good care of my bones in my adult life. These are what the doctors said over and over when they visited my elderly residents in my care home.
See how many of these are part of your overall lifestyle too.
How to take good care of your bones, naturally:
1. Eat a nutritious diet with adequate calcium intake.
Excellent sources of animal protein are lean red meat, poultry, and fish. Also eggs and dairy foods.
If you are to buy packaged broths, make sure they are sourced from non-GMO farms.
There are vegetable sources of protein and calcium, and they include legumes (e.g. lentils, kidney beans), soy products (e.g. tofu), grains, nuts, and seeds.
Fruits and vegetables contain many types of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and alkaline salts – some or all of which can have a beneficial effect on bone.
2. Avoid being under-nourished especially if you are doing weight-loss diets, or have eating disorders.
Your body misses out on important nutrients such as calcium, Vit D, and protein when you repeatedly engage in weight-loss diets.
You can’t maintain bone and muscle strength.
An eating disorder such as Anorexia Nervosa needs to be identified early and given support and counseling.
3. Maintain an adequate supply of Vitamin D.
According to Dr. David J Leffell, Chief of Dermatologic Surgery at Yale Medicine, our skin manufactures Vit D when we expose it to the sun.
“We each have vitamin D receptor cells that, through a chain of reactions starting with the conversion of cholesterol in the skin, produce vitamin D3 when they’re exposed to ultraviolet B (UVB) from the sun.”
– David J Leffell, MD
10-15 minutes per day is sufficient, and it also depends on the time of day!
A good time period is usually early morning and late afternoon.
When it comes to food, some Vit D food sources are salmon, sardines, mackerel, dairy foods, and fortified cereals.
4. Get plenty of physical activity.
Bones become stronger with exercise, just like our muscles.
The best exercises for healthy bones are strength-building and weight-bearing, like walking, climbing stairs, lifting weights, and dancing.
Try to get 30 minutes of exercise each day.
It has also been proven that people with better posture, balance, and greater muscle power are less likely to fall and of course less likely to be injured.
Tai-chi, anyone? And of course, hello yoga!
5. Avoid smoking or second-hand smoke.
6. Avoid heavy drinking.
The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism published a report based on their research on the effects of heavy alcohol drinking, especially on women who go through a dramatic loss in bone mass after menopause.
They reported that heavy alcohol drinking decreases bone density considerably, as well as weakening the bones’ mechanical properties.
But the real bad news is that bones do not recover from your early heavy chronic drinking even after you’ve stopped drinking.
Sure, AA can help with your alcoholism recovery, but your bones will always remember what you did.
More Thoughts on Keeping Our Bones Healthy:
1.“Break a leg!” is a wish of good luck in performance theater but it’s not to be taken literally (I know!).
Well, in real life, when we break our legs, we are out of luck.
We’ve heard of possible scenarios that can happen due to bone weakness. You may have a grandmother who is a fall risk. Or an older aunt who’s scheduled for knee replacement.
Did you know that women are at higher risk for Osteoporosis because of the changes that are happening in the body – particularly during menopause?
It’s the time when bones become so brittle that even mild stresses like minor bumps or, believe it or not – coughing, can cause a fracture.
2. Osteoporosis is often called a silent killer.
It literally means “porous bones”. It’s a bone disease that happens when our body loses too much bone, makes too little bone, or both.
They become less dense, get weak, and are likely to break.
The bones most affected are the hips, spine, and wrist.
Source: National Osteoporosis Foundation
3. Bone fracture is a common reason seniors move to assisted living.
Years ago when I was managing an elderly care facility, I noticed that the most common reason for their moving to my facility was because of a hip or knee replacement. It may have been due to a fall in their own home that resulted in a fracture.
And because it was difficult to resume normal activities after a hip or knee surgery at their advanced age, the families found care homes like mine.
They needed physical assistance to lift them from the wheelchair, transfer them to bed, or go to the commode.
It was also common to hear from my seniors – “I used to be 5’10”. But I shrunk to 5’6”!
That’s because Osteoporosis can cause the bones in the spine to break and begin to collapse.
That made them shorter and unable to stand up straight.
4. Mind you, hip fractures are not reserved for the elderly.
According to the key findings made by the National Center for Health Statistics, the percentage of total hip replacements is increasing for younger age groups and decreasing for older age groups.
Inpatients aged 45 and over accounted for 95% (310,800) of all total hip replacements. And the trend is expected to go up in the coming decades.
A total hip replacement is a surgery due to severe hip damage.
This is when a surgeon removes the damaged cartilage and bone from the hip joint and fits the head of the femur and the socket with artificial parts. Ouch! That really sounds like a totally painful thing to go through!
Many of us have relatively weak bones even as young adults because of our genes or poor nutrition and lifestyle.
And bone health matters, because simply put, our bones support our bodies and allow us to move.
5. Let’s make sipping bone soups a part of our daily healthy lifestyle.
My mother and I were curious about the taste of these beef and chicken bone broths that are coming out on the market.
She’s a 74-year-old mama who was a professional athlete during the ’80s, and thankfully, she understands how important it is to stay active in order to maintain good bone health.
So one fine California day, we decided to make a drive to LA to visit a bone broth store called Osso Good. The drive was long from our home in Orange County. But this signals our seriousness in paying good attention to keeping our bones as healthy as we possibly can.
It was past noon when we arrived at the store. I was already very hungry. After a quick look at their menu, we ordered gluten-free bone broth waffles topped with avocado and pine nuts.
I just wished they were crispier without a squeeze of lemon on the mashed avocado. I’m not particularly into tangy-tasting waffles.
After we’d eaten our late lunch, we looked around the store (and inside the fridge), inspecting every packet of bone broth.
They are packaged to be sippable which gives us no excuse to miss our calcium and collagen needs because we’re always on the go.
Inside the store, the guy behind the counter gladly offered us little sample cups.
He wanted us to taste each of the broth flavors plus the paleo soup called Thai Carrot.
My mother tried it. The soup, she said, has a little kick to it. But it got two thumbs up from her.
This soup is her new favorite!
The broths were tasty!
So I figured it’s never really too late to start a new lifestyle habit. It may mean daily sipping organic chicken or beef bone broth to help restore our bones’ good health.
There are also other ways if you prefer not to sip the plain broths. You can add the broth to your mango smoothie, classic gumbo, or to your favorite classic chicken noodle soup recipe.
Did you know that collagen plays a big role in the density of your bones?
Dr. Vlachos with Penn Medicine – the University of Pennsylvania, the first medical school in the US, established in 1765 – said:
“Your bones are mostly made of collagen, which keeps them strong and healthy. If your collagen levels are low, it can cause your bones to become weak and risk breaking.”
What he said emphasizes how important it truly is to eat food that contains collagen.
But for the ones who follow the vegan diet, sipping beef or chicken bone broths may not be for you.
Check my post where I wrote a list of several collagen-rich foods and they’re not all from animal-sourced protein. I also talked about my “road test” of the collagen intravenous (IV) treatment. Quite dandy!
Matched with a regular diet of these sippable bone broth soups, I think we’re well on our way to (re) building stronger bones. Perfect with a dollop of light cream!
After we were done with our late lunch visit, we brought home several packets of the organic chicken bone broth soup, plus my mom’s new favorite – the Thai-carrot paleo soup.
There are many recipes you can try with broths. From matcha green latte to your favorite chili soup and even mixing the bone broth into your overnight oats.
Whatever way you can include a useful amount of collagen into your daily menu, the stronger your bones will be.
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On to the next post,
