It’s never too early to start thinking about your bones. Osteoporosis in later life can be a killer. Worse, it can mean a painful, limited life spent in a granny flat next to the daughter-in-law you can’t stand.
Current wisdom says some prevention lies in foods high in vitamins D and K, plus calcium. So I set out to find out what they were.
As a child, I loved rhubarb. I had no choice – my grandparents often served it with custard for dessert, and those were the days when children ate what was put in front of them.
However, my cousins and I would attack the classic pud with gusto, and then burn off the resulting energy with boisterous games in Grandma’s garden. Curiously, I don’t remember any of us ever breaking a bone.
Rhubarb is an excellent source of calcium. One hundred grammes of the raw stuff provides 86mg or 9% of the recommended daily amount for adults.
It’s also high in Vitamin K (29.3 microgrammes or 28% of the RDA) and low in fat (0.3g).
Much as I love custard, I looked for an alternative topping with more of a calcium kick.
The answer was yoghurt. The fermented milk wonder food is loaded with nutrients. One hundred grammes provides 121mg of calcium, or 12% of the RDA, and 3.5g of protein. Its fat content is slightly higher but still only around 3.3g.
And here’s the result: “Super Rhub”. A quick, simple, tasty and cheap dessert – and variation on the much-loved classic, rhubarb and custard.
And here’s to stronger bones. And an independent old age.
Recipe: Super Rhub. Feeds: Four
Ingredients
1kg or 2.2 lb rhubarb (two-three stalks)
300g or 1 1/3 cups of natural brown sugar (reduce amount for an even healthier option)
One large pot of natural yoghurt
Water
Steps
1. Wash the rhubarb stalks and cut off the ends at the tip and by the leaves
2. Chop the stalks into pieces of around 2-3cm or 1”-1.5”
3. Place the rhubarb pieces and the sugar into a heavy-based saucepan
4. Pour in enough water to cover the contents. Cover the pan
5. Cook on a low heat for approximately 10 minutes. Stir the contents occasionally to prevent them from sticking. The rhubarb is ready when it becomes mushy and stringy throughout
6. Remove from the heat and allow to cool
7. Serve the contents – rhubarb and juice – into bowls. Add two or three tablespoonfuls of yoghurt on top of the rhubarb in each bowl
8. Enjoy!
Osteoporosis: The Facts
Getting older isn’t always a barrel of laughs. Just as you get to the point where you quite like yourself and wisdom has replaced youthful stupidity, your body starts giving up like a classic car on a damp morning.
Osteoporosis is just one more contributor to geriatric gloom. The bone-thinning condition results in around one in three women and one in 12 men over the age of 50 fracturing their hip, wrist or spine.
A broken bone might sound fairly innocuous, but these senior fractures are certainly not. Aside from costing the NHS billions of pounds every year, they can all but guarantee premature death or permanent disability and chronic pain for the sufferer. Grim reading indeed.
So what causes osteoporosis and, optimistically, can we do anything about it?
Osteoporosis is caused by a combination of factors you can and cannot change. The unchangeables are: ageing, family history, being female, and being post-menopausal. There are also medical causes, such as conditions that affect the hormones, as well as vitamin and protein absorption.
However, the changeable factors are easy to rectify: inactivity, a poor diet that’s low in calcium and vitamin D, being too thin (such as having a Body Mass Index of 21 or under), smoking, and a high alcohol intake (over 50 units per week in men or 35 units in women).
Happily then there are some simple measures that people can take to prevent and treat osteoporosis: improve one’s diet and eat foods rich in vitamin D and calcium, take supplements (vitamins D and K, plus calcium), stop smoking, cut back on alcohol consumption, and do some exercise. The usual guidelines for a long and healthy life.
My personal motto is: booze eats your bones. If you would like to be rollerblading with your grandkids at 65, then put the cork back in. And start rollerblading. After you’ve had some Super Rhub…
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