Find great calcium sources in our selection of easy, delicious, healthy recipes.

Creamy broccoli soup offers some of the best-tasting calcium around.

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—You probably know that getting enough calcium is vital for healthy bones, but that's not the only reason to include plenty of calcium sources in your daily meal plan. For starters, your heart needs calcium in order to beat regularly, your blood uses calcium for clotting, and calcium helps your nerve and muscle cells function properly. A low calcium intake forces the body to steal calcium from the skeleton, where it's paired with phosphorus to form the "latticework" on which our bones and teeth are built. This is why it's crucial to get our daily recommended intake of 1,000 to 1,200 milligrams (mg) of calcium. Unfortunately, many of us don't: Only 14 percent of women aged 20 to 50 get 1,000 mg of calcium daily, and just 4 percent of women over age 50 hit the 1,200-mg target.

Tapping into calcium sources every day also has a beneficial effect on cholesterol, according to researchers. A study published in the American Journal of Medicine revealed that 1,000 mg of supplemental calcium can increase HDL (good) cholesterol by 7 percent. And a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that participants who ingested 600 mg of calcium (and 200 IU of vitamin D) reduced levels of bad cholesterol by 14 percent (overall cholesterol levels dropped by 9 percent). Researchers believe that calcium might keep some dietary fat from being absorbed, reducing the liver's production of LDL cholesterol.

Calcium also appears to play a role in fighting cancer. According to a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, getting enough calcium seems to lower the risk of gastrointestinal cancers in women and men, and lowers women's risk of cancer overall. For women, overall cancer risk was lowered if they consumed 1,300 mg of calcium a day. Men who ingested about 1,800 mg daily had a 16 percent lower risk of gastrointestinal cancers than those who consumed the least calcium. Women who got the most calcium (1,881 mg daily) had a 23 percent lower risk of gastrointestinal cancers than the women who ingested the least.

And calcium may help prevent type 2 diabetes as well. In a study on women done at Tufts-New England Medical Center, researchers found that participants who consumed at least 1,200 mg of calcium a day (plus at least 800 International Units of vitamin D, which helps boost calcium absorption) had a 33 percent lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes.