The Your Car Matters newsroom grew by one this month as Sarah Heidler, Service Advisor extraordinaire, joined the team. You may have talked with Sarah about your car, but you probably don’t know that she’s quite a buff on health and nutrition. While no one here at the shop can figure out why she’s never sick, Sarah insists it has something to do with avoiding toxins, eating nutritious, 
home-made food, and riding her bike to work each day. Be that as it may, Sarah’s come on board to share her own take on a healthy lifestyle with you, and we think it’s advice you’ll appreciate. Welcome aboard, Sarah!
Sarah’s Eggshell Calcium Recipe:
My mother always said if something looks to good to be true, it probably is. This came to mind while looking at the vitamin offerings a chain drug store. Just $9.49 and I could have a buy-one-get-one-free multivitamin supplement that promised me “100% daily value of 10 essential vitamins. Support heart health with vitamins B, C, and E, plus folic acid.* Supports eye health with vitamins A, C and E. Promotes physical energy with B vitamins, including thiamin, riboflavin and niacin, to help convert food to energy.” Amid the widespread supplement fraud targeted by New York Attorney General’s office, this is a claim I’m resistant to believe to say the least. I always wondered what could possibly be in those types of supplements for so very little money. As it turns out, The New York Attorney General’s office has discovered many supplements that didn’t even contain any of what they claimed to contain, but are just full of fillers.
I’ve been a firm believer in getting as close to the food as possible for supplements. So, recently instead of taking a tablet that’s been purchased for calcium, I’ve been eating eggshells. Eating eggshells? Well, not exactly munching them into my eggs, but taking about a ¼ tsp of ground eggshells in my morning smoothie. Here’s the recipe if you’d like to try it yourself…
- Save a few dozen used eggshells, rinse them very well.
- Cook them at 300 degrees for about 20-25 minutes to dry them out, and kill any possible pathogens. Be forewarned – eggshells small BAD when they are baked. Another way to do this is to use eggshells that come off of your boiled eggs – they will already be sanitized and you can just bake them a little bit to dry them out completely.
- Let cool for 30-60 minutes.
- Blend in a coffee grinder or high speed blender (or I use a coffee grinder) until you get a very fine powdered consistency (very important!) After you grind it, leave it sit for a few minutes – you really don’t want to breath in the fine eggshell dust.
- Consume about 1/8-1/4* tsp with a little water or juice 1-3x per day or as needed to meet your individual health needs 1tsp eggshell calcium equals about 800 mg calcium. I see no need to consume a teaspoon of it a day, I am, after all eating which is where I get most of my calcium.
My sister actually started me on this idea of making my own eggshell calcium supplements and it appeals to my frugal nature and desire to make everything that I put into my body as natural as possible. She started having powdered eggshells in her morning juice and has seen a marked increase in the thickness of her nails in just a few weeks. (She’s always been jealous of my thick and long nails!) As we women age, it becomes even more important to get a good amount of calcium. The current US RDA for Calcium is an average of 1000mg a day, or you can look up the recommendations for your specific age here. Read a study about eggshell calcium and the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis here.
