Best Foods for Healthy Bones (with Bonus Recipes) — Dr. Sally's Kitchen

When it comes to maintaining strong and healthy bones, the right food is always my go-to recommendation for patients. And, since this month we are celebrating Osteoporosis Awareness it’s time to get down to the brass tacks of diet and nutrition for bone health.

Osteoporosis is known as a “silent disease” because we often don’t recognize that we have it until a bone fracture occurs.

1 in 3 American women over age 50 will suffer a fracture during their lifetime.

Bone loss is driven by many factors, including the lack of essential nutrients and exercise to keep bone healthy and strong over time.

BONE IS LIVING TISSUE

When you see a skeleton, you’re observing dead bone: hard, calcified, breakable.

But inside us, bone is living tissue, actively growing, and remodeling on a daily basis.

How we eat plays a large role in providing the nutrients needed to build healthy bone and it influences the activity of specialized cells that orchestrate bone formation or destruction.

Osteoblasts are the specialized cells that create new bone, while osteoclasts carve out and resorb old bone, making way for osteoblasts to lay down new bone.

Osteoporosis occurs when bone resorption overtakes new bone growth. That’s why a balanced lifestyle and the right food is key.

From reading the popular (and medical) press, it’s easy to think that just taking a calcium supplement and vitamin D are the only dietary interventions needed to prevent or treat bone loss. But a closer look reveals that the kind of foods we eat daily sets the stage for either the loss of bone or the growth of bone.

DANGER ZONE: SUGAR AND BONE LOSS

Our MAD (Modern American Diet), high in sugar, and refined and processed foods, and low in the nutrients essential for bone growth, is contributing to the high rate of osteopenia and osteoporosis (as well as a range of other chronic, degenerative diseases.)

Think about it: we sit inside all day, eating our MAD diet and drinking way too many sodas, coffee, and alcohol. These factors combine to create a highly acidic environment that encourages bone loss.

This MAD diet leads to elevated blood sugar and insulin. Remember, insulin works to lower blood sugar by binding to “insulin receptors” on every cell membrane. When insulin attaches to the insulin receptor (like a key in a lock) it opens the “door” and carries sugar across the membrane and into the cell where it is used to produce energy.

But we now know that the high intake of sugar and processed foods dulls the insulin receptors, effectively turning them off, leading to the condition known as “insulin resistance”.

When insulin can’t get the sugar into the cell, it leads to the high blood sugar levels seen in pre-diabetes and Type 2 or “age related” diabetes. High blood sugar promotes inflammation and drives both acute and chronic diseases, including osteoporosis.

Insulin resistance keeps blood sugar high and forces sugar that isn’t taken into the cells to be stored as fat. We used to think that fat cells just stored and released energy, but we now know that fatty tissue is a reservoir for pro-inflammatory cytokines. These inflammatory chemical messengers aggravate bone loss by causing an imbalance between the osteoblasts and osteoclasts leading to bone loss.

Top Good-For-Your-Bones Food

At the top of my list are dark, leafy greens like spinach, Swiss chard, collard greens, bok choy, beet greens, kale, arugula, and dark lettuces like romaine and watercress are rich in key bone building minerals like calcium, magnesium, potassium, and vitamin K, and folate.

Cruciferous veggies (AKA, the Broccoli Family) also known as the Brassica family of veggies, include broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, arugula, kale, and Romanesco. The intake of cruciferous vegetables is independently associated with lower risk of all fractures, especially in older postmenopausal women.

Nuts and seeds are tasty little nuggets that are rich in a range of key minerals, fiber and a great balance of carbohydrate, protein, and fat. Almonds, pumpkin seeds, Brazil nuts, and cashews are richest in calcium and magnesium, two minerals essential for bone strength. Walnuts, flax, and chia seeds contain ALA (alpha-linolenic acid), a plant-based source of omega-3 fatty acids. Brazil nuts provide magnesium and a daily dose of selenium, a key antioxidant mineral. Eat them as snacks, in salads, smoothies, and grain dishes.

Bone broth is loaded with collagen – a structural protein in the bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments, skin, the digestive tract, and other connective tissues. Our body makes collagen by combining amino acids, the building blocks of protein from chicken, fish, beef, pork, eggs, and dairy, with vitamin C, zinc, copper, and other nutrients. I also want to encourage you to only consume bone broth that is high-quality and organic. It’s time to say goodbye to CAFO (confined animal feeding operations). Animal protein contains the all the essential amino acids needed to create bone collagen, and muscle tissue, needed to stabilize us to help prevent falls and fractures.

Spice it up with Turmeric, a cousin of ginger root. Tumeric contains curcumin, the phytonutrient with the most powerful anti-inflammatory properties yet discovered in Nature. Curcumin inhibits the process of bone loss and is associated with a decrease in the markers of bone turnover. Integrate this bright orange spice into your diet today.

Fermented foods provide key microorganisms to seed our gut microbiome, where they generate vitamin K2. Make your own kimchi (the Korean version of sauerkraut), which contains beneficial nutrients for the bone such as vitamins K2, B vitamins and minerals like manganese, phosphorus, magnesium and calcium and fiber. You’ll find the recipe in my Using Food as Medicine to Build Healthy Bones Recipe e-Book. LINK

Yogurt and its liquid cousin, kefir, provide generous levels of bone-building nutrients like calcium, magnesium, zinc, vitamins D, K, B2 and B12, and protein. These fermented cow milk products are also rich in probiotic microbes. The fermentation process generates various peptides with calcium absorption enhancing activities.

Berries and dried plums (or prunes) contain high levels of vitamin K, but they’re also rich in magnesium, boron, and potassium. Eating prunes has been shown to reverse bone loss present in osteoporosis.

To make it simpler for you to add all these amazing ingredients into your daily diet, I’ve created a free digital recipe book for you filled with soups, salad, side dish, and delicious main courses.

Here are a few recipe highlights: