An Extremely Cheap Alternative To Calcium Supplement Pills For Increased Bone Mineral Density

In my own life, sometimes interesting facts appear out of nowhere and this little tip on a very common source for calcium might make some people rethink about how they dispose of food leftover products, which they never think of except to throw into the trash without thinking.

For the longest time, the milk companies have been advertising to young kids and parents that they need to be drinking milk to grow taller and more robust with their “got milk?” commercials claiming the benefits of calcium as an important height increase natural drink.

I agree that milk is important, but the real active ingredients is probably the colostrum and casein found in the female mother’s milk from the breast for her new born babies. Human milk has been proven to be critical in the growth of children, but cow derived milk has always been suspicious. There has been almost no studies linking drinking cow milk to increased growth rate. There was maybe two studies done back in the 1930s or 1950s when a group of young malnourished boys were experimented on, but in today’s age, when very few people in the developed countries are actually really malnourished, the height increasing claims of cow derived milk is slightly questionable.

As for human breast milk, I had written before looking at the possible beneficial effects of increased duration in breastfeeding to give the developing toddlers a slightly greater growth pattern in their younger developing years. I have found studies which show that babies who are given formula instead of continuing to drink breast milk do grow slightly faster for the first 6 months of the experiment, but their weight grew at a much higher level, suggesting using formula too quickly can increase the likelihood of the young kid developing diabetes later in life. After maybe 2 years, the breast milk feed toddlers ended up catching up to about the same height as the ones taking the formula, but much thinner. The study was never extrapolated to adulthood but I am willing to bet that the kids who had been fed breast milk slightly longer by 6 months had a less chance of developing illnesses and grew taller as an adult.

Of course, the main component promoted in the milk commercials is calcium, which is supposed to make your body stronger. At this point, I am not even sure there is enough evidence to show that Calcium has even a strong positive effect towards growth, but more likely a minimal positive effect. If it is really calcium that parents worry about, how about trying this trick to get the calcium

Here is the tip: Instead of throwing away the egg shells into the garbage, why not just crush the egg shells into powder form and put them in the beverage of the growing child?

Some people might raise the fact that the shells might contain some forms of bacteria which might compromise the digestive system of the child, but you can remove that part by putting the shells into a boiling pot of water for 10 seconds to kill the bacteria.

If we look into the composition of what egg shells (Wikipedia article) it is made of about 95% Calcium Carbonate, which is the same type of crystal used to make shellfish shells (like scallops). Did you know that one of the main ways the supplement industry gets its calcium supplement pills is to crush fossilized coral reef matter (ie shell fish, crab shells, scallops shells, etc.)? 

So why get some large corporation to take a ship to the coral reef to crush up dead sea life calcium when you have a crushed egg shell right in front of you which you can buy for $2 from the local supermarket?

Then we read over the sources on what types of calcium crystals are needed to prevent osteoporosis and bone loss (Refer to the WebMD article on treating Osteoporosis with Calcium Supplements). They are mainly Calcium Carbonate and Calcium Citrate. Like all supplements, the hard pill version is the hardest for the body to break down, dissolve, and get to the right organs. Going with the gummy type of supplement would be faster. The powder version would be the fastest. That is why this proposed alternative is so much easier. You would get to the powder form already, from a product which you usually throw into the garbage. You would obviously need a mortar and pestle to grind the shells.

If we just dipped the shells into hot water for a few seconds, killing harmful microbes, crushed our egg shells into powder form, and put them into our kids’s orange juice, the calcium carbonate crystals would be an additional boost to their bone’s health. Citrate seems to be a supplement which is not recommended to be taken with food, but Carbonate is. The recommended dosage is about 500 mg of calcium at one shot, since the body can absorb only so much calcium at a time. So you pretty much just need around 1-2 crushed egg shells and that would be enough to do the trick for a daily dosage of calcium needed.

That is perfect since the only time you ever have broken egg shells left over is when you are breaking the shell and using the yolk and whites inside to make some egg derived food. Just add the crushed shell powder inside any food (preferbaly liquid like protein shake or something similar) and you would barely notice or taste the grainy nature of the shell.

Note: A very old post we wrote about is dealing with a compound called Baryta Carbonica which is believed by many people from India to help kids grow taller. It is one of our most popular posts but the kids who want to buy the pills from us (which we don’t sell) don’t realize that the Baryta Carbonica is just Calcium Carbonate (there isn’t any Citrate component in those India Hemeopathic pills sold as growth pills to poor kids in India). Our website ranks at the top of almost all the search engine results for the term “Baryta Carbonia”. Those kids in India already have it within their households, as long as their parents can afford chicken eggs. If Calcium did indeed have a high level of positive effect on height growth in developing kids (which we don’t believe it does, only minimally), this information is probably critical in preventing stunted growth in maybe 100s of Millions young kids in India over the years! Imagine millions and millions of young kids in India and around the world who don’t get enough to eat, becoming malnourished, and not wishing to suffer the effects of stunted growth. A crushed egg shell could be the solution to some of their growth worries at least.

It is also good for the environment, saving up on space in land waste sites. From the Wikipedia article, they say that “The US food industry generates 150,000 tones of shell waste a year“. Combine that with the amount of chickens and chicken eggs eaten by China, India, and all the other large populous countries around the world, finding alternative uses to the chicken egg, like helping one’s kid possibly grow slightly taller from getting extra calcium supplementation would be a much better alternative. I am sure that some kids in North Korea would also find this information vital, since the kids there have extremely stunted growth due to severe vitamin and mineral deficiency.

Here are some other ways egg shells have been used traditionally by people

• For a long time, some people have gotten into the habit of putting crushed egg shells into their coffees, which is supposedly would make the coffee less bitter.
• My cousin when she was younger had a pet snail. She would crush egg shells to feed to snail, which might have helped the snail keep it shell really hard.
• The shells often act as an antacid, so swallowing the powder can potentially stop acid reflux, heartburn, and indigestion problems. (Turns out Calcium Barbonate is just like the active ingredient in TUMS, a base, which reacts and mitigates the effects of the Hydrochloric Acid in the stomach, which can cause ulcers.)
• The powder egg shell can be used as a facial mask to whiten skin. I’ve seen this practice done in the East Asian countries and heard about it from families of South Asian ethnicities as well.
• It can be put under your plants in the garden acting as a fertilizer. We know that Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potassium are the big three components used, but Calcium is important too.
• The crystal form of the egg shell can be used as an abrasive in home made toothpaste (You should add it with baking soda, hydrogen peroxide, and some other stuff) & scrubbing agents.

Final Note: We do fully realize that this extremely cheap alternative to the traditional calcium supplement pills does not have the VItamin D with it. Vitamin D is a necessary mineral to let the body absorb the calcium into the blood properly.