Help! %RDA for calcium = ? mg

jackiepowell79
jackiepowell79 Posts: 1 Member
edited June 2020 in Food and Nutrition
How can I tell how many mg of calcium you have allocated to the %RDA. I need to up my mg of calcium but first I need to check what myfitness pal has as the %RDA

Replies

  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,458 Member
    I always just assume it's the USDA recommended amount for a 2000 calorie day.

    The answer is in this article somewhere. I don't worry a lot about micros.

    https://support.myfitnesspal.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032625391-How-does-MyFitnessPal-calculate-my-initial-goals-
  • pi2eye
    pi2eye Posts: 1 Member
    Hi, one way to check what MFP is using for the RDA of calcium is to enter a food whose calcium is known in mg. Then look at the nutrition in MFP to see what percentage it gives. I did this and MFP say 390 mg calcium (as on the label of my Lifeway plain kefir) is 39% of the RDA. Voilà- MDP is using 1000 mg of calcium to state its percentages in. I need to take more calcium daily due to osteoporosis so now I know how to translate MFP’s percent calcium into mg.
  • paints5555
    paints5555 Posts: 1,233 Member
    pi2eye wrote: »
    Hi, one way to check what MFP is using for the RDA of calcium is to enter a food whose calcium is known in mg. Then look at the nutrition in MFP to see what percentage it gives. I did this and MFP say 390 mg calcium (as on the label of my Lifeway plain kefir) is 39% of the RDA. Voilà- MDP is using 1000 mg of calcium to state its percentages in. I need to take more calcium daily due to osteoporosis so now I know how to translate MFP’s percent calcium into mg.

    And the current number used by FDA - 1300mg = 100% DV.
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 10,384 Member
    A lot of the problem is absorption of calcium from the foods we eat really. Calcium in milk or cheese for example is in the 30% range for absorption and certain vegetables like spinach, beans, collard greens that have compounds like oxalate acid and phytic acid form salts that reduce calcium to some pretty low numbers, like 5% where other greens like broccoli, kale and cabbage are similar to milk absorption, so maybe investigate that.

    Calcium is stored mostly in our bones, actually around 99% and is used to maintain calcium homeostasis throughout the body and will rely on those reserves in our bones and Vitamin D is the 900lb gorilla in this context. We could consume all the calcium in the world and still contract osteoporosis without sufficient vitamin D, so look into that would be advisable imo.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,119 Member
    MFP doesn't really use anything in particular as the 100% RDA, because entries are mostly created by users who either (1) use the percentage number from the label on the food they're creating an entry from, which might be based on the US RDI numbers established by the National Academies of Medicine if they are on foods sold in the U.S.; (2) mistakenly use the raw number in milligrams or micrograms as the %RDA; (3) omit the micronutrient values entirely because they're not on the food label or they just don't care; or (4) they just make up some number, based on my review of database entries.

    For option (1) above, for U.S. foods, the current RDA for calcium seems to be 1300 mg, but not too long ago it was 1000, so you're likely to find plenty of entries in the database in which the % was calculated based on 1000 mg. If you're going to rely on MFP to track your calcium, you had better carefully check all the entries you use for accurate info on calcium.

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