Tracked as a goal
Calcium tracking
- Unit
- mg
- Default goal
- 1,000 mg
- Direction
- Reach
What it is, and why people track it
Calcium is structural: the great majority of it is in bone and teeth, with the remainder involved in muscle contraction, nerve signalling and clotting.
The common case for tracking it is a diet without dairy. Fortified plant milks vary widely in how much they contain, and an unfortified one contributes essentially none — a difference that is invisible in a photograph and worth saying out loud when you log it.
Setting your number
AIM targets 1,000 mg a day, the label daily value. Guidance rises to around 1,200 mg for women over 50 and adults over 70.
How good is the estimate?
Depends heavily on fortification, which is not visible. Say “fortified oat milk” rather than “oat milk” and the estimate improves a great deal.
Questions
- How do I track calcium on a dairy-free diet?
- Say whether the plant milk or tofu was fortified or calcium-set when you log it. Fortification is the single biggest factor and it cannot be seen in a photo.
Also in this group
Sodium
A cap, defaulting to 2,300 mg a day. Most sodium is not the salt shaker, which is why an estimate from the meal itself is more useful than a note to “use less salt”.
Cholesterol
Dietary cholesterol as a cap, defaulting to 300 mg a day — tracked because people are asked to track it, with a note on what current guidance actually says.
Potassium
A goal, not a cap — most people fall short. Potassium is the counterweight to sodium in blood pressure guidance and is missing from most macro trackers entirely.
Iron
An 18 mg daily goal by default. One of the most common reasons someone starts tracking a specific nutrient — usually after a blood test.
Track calcium without a database search
AIM estimates it on every meal from a photo or a sentence, and lets you correct anything it got wrong just by saying so.