How can one best support their supporting structure through the foods they choose?

Question

Leslie Bonci, RD, CSSD · Answer

As a sports dietician, I am all about having my clients support their supporting structure. In other words, how do you take care of your bones, and ligaments, and tendons, and joints, and muscles? So, number one, you have to eat enough. If you under fuel, then everything really falls apart. Number two, when we are looking at muscle health, that means having protein containing foods as part of every eating occasion. Number three, if we are looking at the health of joint, we want to think about food that have an anti-inflammatory benefit. That's fatty fish, that is berries, that is eating things like a beet, having turmeric, and ginger as part of your eating. And when we think about bone health, a lot of people think just calcium. Calcium is important, it's not the only thing. Your bones need to have enough protein, your bones need to have enough fat, your bones do need to have calcium but they also need vitamin D, and they need potassium, and they need iron, and they need B vitamins, and they need what we call phytonutrients or plant nutrients. So, making sure that you are having a bone building type of an eating plan, not skimping on what you do, protein is part of every meal, getting some color on the plate that is critically important for the health of the bones and something that you may not know, interestingly, one of the best foods for bone health, prunes. Who knew? But prunes actually contains substances in them that tend to support healthy bones. You can mix them into a cereal, you can put them in a rice pilaf, you can put them in a smoothie, you can eat them as part of a trail mix. So thinking about bone building, joint supporting, muscle strengthening, all these types of things, this hand-to-mouth activity is critically important as any physical activity that you do. So, make sure that you support your supporting structure each and every day with every meal.

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"How can one best support their supporting structure through the foods they choose?"