Foods that "destroy" your bones

Along with providing the nutrients needed to build strong bones, diet also plays a role in destroying bone health.

Certain foods actually reduce or prevent bone density. Here are the top 6 foods that can destroy your body's strong bones:

Salt

Salt leaches calcium from your bones, weakening them over time. Nutritionists warn that for every 2,300mg of sodium you consume, you lose about 40mg of calcium.

A study comparing postmenopausal women who ate a high-salt diet with those who ate a lower-salt diet found that those who ate a high-salt diet lost more bone minerals.

What to do: The most effective and quickest way is to cut down on salt intake, especially in processed foods.

Research shows that most Americans "get" 75% of their sodium not from table salt but from processed foods, such as cold cuts, frozen foods, canned soups, pizza, fast foods like burgers, french fries and canned vegetables...

Soft drink

Soft drinks are also dangerous for bones. Carbonated drinks often contain phosphoric acid, which increases the rate of calcium excretion in urine. Meanwhile, they only satisfy your thirst without providing any nutrients like when you drink milk or fruit juice.

What to do: When you're tempted by a cola, try to replace lost calcium by drinking more milk, orange juice or a fruit smoothie with yogurt. Or just drink water when you're thirsty and eat a diet rich in bone-building nutrients.

Caffeine

Caffeine isn’t as bad as salt, but it does the same thing to your bones, leaching calcium from your bones. For every 100mg of caffeine (about the size of a small cup of coffee) you consume, you lose 6mg of calcium.

That's not a lot, but it can become a problem if you tend to replace bone-healthy drinks (like milk and juice) with caffeinated drinks (like iced tea and coffee...)

What to do: Limit your daily caffeine intake to one or two cups of coffee in the morning, then switch to other beverages that don’t have a negative impact on your bones. Adding milk to your coffee can also help offset the negative effects!

Alcohol

In a way, alcohol “blocks” calcium absorption in the body. It prevents the bone-building minerals you absorb into your body. Heavy alcohol consumption can disrupt bone remodeling by preventing osteoblasts, the bone-building cells, from doing their job.

Therefore, drinking too much alcohol not only makes bones weaker but also causes bone fractures, interfering with the treatment of bone-related diseases.

What to do: Limit alcohol to one drink per day, whether it's wine, beer, or liquor.

Hydrogenated oil

Recent studies have found that the hydrogenation process (turning liquid vegetable oils into solid oils) used in commercial baking destroys the natural vitamin K found in the oils.

Vitamin K is essential for strong bones, and vegetable oils such as canola and olive oil are the second most important source of vitamin K (after green leafy vegetables) for the body.

However, that amount of vitamin K is very small. A tablespoon of canola oil contains 20 micrograms of vitamin K, a tablespoon of olive oil has 6 micrograms, while a serving of spinach contains 120 micrograms.

What to do: If you're eating greens, you don't need to worry about this too much. But if you're a fan of baked goods like muffins and cookies, you might want to reconsider.

Read labels to avoid hydrogenated oils, or bake at home with canola oil instead when possible.

According to Alobacsi