How much calcium is in cheddar cheese?

100 g of Cheddar cheese contains 707 mg of calcium, which is 54% of the Daily Value.

What this means for you

A slice of cheddar weighs about 17 g and carries roughly 120 mg of calcium. Against an adult requirement of 1,000 mg a day, that is a useful eighth from something the size of a playing card.

Two slices in a sandwich also bring about 220 mg of sodium, and the saturated fat in cheese is the reason nutrition advice keeps it in the "some" category rather than the "more" one. None of that makes cheese a problem. It makes it a food where the portion does the deciding.

Calcium from food is absorbed steadily across the day, which is one quiet advantage cheese, milk and yogurt have over a single large tablet. Supplements are absorbed best in doses of 500 mg or less, about 36 per cent of a 300 mg dose against 28 per cent of a 1,000 mg one, and food arrives in small doses by its nature.

If you are trying to reach 1,000 mg a day without supplements, the realistic route is several modest sources rather than one large one. Milk or yogurt at breakfast, cheese on something at lunch, tinned fish with the bones in, and greens that are low in oxalate such as kale.

Worth putting cheese in the wider frame. The calcium argument that turns up in headlines is about supplements, not about food: across 35 prospective cohorts, dietary calcium tracked with slightly lower mortality while supplemental calcium tracked with nothing. Cheese has its own reasons for moderation, salt and saturated fat among them, and the calcium in it is not one of them.

Written from the evidence cards and the data on this page, then checked back against the sources. Bioma Learn has no human medical reviewer at this time and we say so rather than invent one. Information, not medical advice. How we verify.

Full nutrition for this food, including all 30 vitamins and minerals we hold: Cheddar cheese →

Full guide: Calcium: the supplement question that experts still disagree about

Data: USDA FoodData Central, FDC ID 328637. % Daily Value against FDA. Checked 2026-09-15.