Calcium your body actually gets
Ranking · Calcium
Dairy-free foods, ranked; whole milk shown for comparison. One serving each. Big number: the calcium from that serving that gets in (the label’s amount times the share a study found is absorbed). Small number: what the label says, crossed out.
- 1Kale, cooked85 g · 40.9% gets in · tested at 288 mg ⚑52mglabel 128
- 2Tempeh85 g · 36.9% gets in · tested at 130 mg ◇35mglabel 94
- 3Soybeans, cooked91 g · 31% gets in · tested at 98 mg ◇29mglabel 93
- 4Bok choy, raw85 g · 51.9% gets in · tested at 83 mg ◇27mglabel 53
- 5Broccoli, raw85 g · 47.8% gets in · tested at 83 mg ⚑ ◇19mglabel 39
- 6Corn tortillas55 g · 32% gets in · tested at 94 mg ⚑14mglabel 45
- 7Carrots, raw85 g · 52.1% gets in · tested at 38 mg ◇13mglabel 26
- 8Green beans, cooked85 g · 28% gets in · test dose not reported10mglabel 37
- 9Spinach, raw85 g · 5.1% gets in · tested at 200 mg ⚑ ◇3mglabel 57
Last, though its label shows more calcium than 5 of the foods that beat it.
- refWhole milk263 g · reference, not ranked · 32.1% gets in · tested at 312 mg104mglabel 324
Ranked among the 9 reviewed foods on this card. The order comes from absorption studies of each food; where a food has more than one study, the card uses the one closest to a serving's dose.
How the big number is worked: the calcium listed for one serving, times the share a study found gets in. Cooked kale: 128 mg × 40.9% = 52.1 mg. The dose after “tested at” is what the volunteers were given, shown so you can see how far it was from a serving (⚑ marks more than twice as much); it is not part of the sum.
Where a nutrient list or a food page says “a lot”, “some” or “a little” for the calcium of a food on this card, the word is read from the calcium that gets in, counted as milk’s: the listed calcium scaled by how well the food’s calcium gets in compared with milk’s (32.1% here: 104 mg of the 324 mg listed in a serving of milk gets in), read against 1,000 mg a day. Cooked kale: 128 mg listed × 40.9% (gets in from this food) ÷ 32.1% (from milk) counts as 162 mg of milk’s calcium, 16% of 1,000 mg, so “some”.
⚑ the study's dose was more than twice a serving's calcium · ◇ the study doesn't say how the food was prepared