Is spaghetti high in oxalate?

The following is designed to entertain and inform, not provide medical advice. Always consult your doctor before starting any new treatment.

Welcome back to the Kidney Stone Diet podcast, the show about reducing your kidney stone risk and living your best life. I'm your host and fellow student, Jeff Sarris.

And I'm Jill Harris, your kidney stone prevention nurse, AKA Kidney Stone Diet. That's me.

That is you. It would be funny if that was your name-name. It'd be a very specific first name: "Kidney Stone Diet Harris."

Wouldn't that be funny? Well, I don't have a middle name. We made that clear.

Mom, you know, Mom, no middle name. It could be Jill "Kidney Stone Diet" Harris.

Yeah. Well, there's always time.

There's always time. All right, so I'm re- We've already taped four shows today. So, this old lady's ready to rock and roll.

Yeah, so instead of a listener question this week, we are going to do an FAQ. But for everyone out there with a question, the number again is 773-789-8763 and we'd love to have your voice on a future episode. And for everyone who has called in, we will we'll get to you in the upcoming weeks.

But, yeah, we appreciate everyone's call. So this week, the question though that we're going with is, "Is spaghetti high in oxalate?" Which, of course, spaghetti, pasta, sort of it'll all fall under the same umbrella. But that is a common question, because of the Harvard list.

It is a common question. And since I'm wearing red, I saw myself in the camera, I'm like, " please press the red subscribe button." Jeff, just when you thought I- I didn't forget, people. 65% of you have not sub- subscribed, but you're watching, so please do that for us.

I love you. Thank you. Okay, spaghetti.

Is spaghetti high in oxalate? Well, Harvard says 1 cup of spaghetti, which, by the way, no one eats just 1 cup of spaghetti, is 11 mg of oxalate, and then next to it, they- it says, "High." And this is why I do not like the Harvard oxalate list, because of the adjectives they use. So, if you go to kidneystonediet.com, you will see that we have a safe oxalate list.

If you just go to Google and put "Kidney Stone Diet safe oxalate list," it will come up. You can do that, okay? And then you're going to see it is the Harvard list, but we have taken all the adjectives away.

So, you simply have the food, the portion size, and the amount of oxalate. Because once people see- they read it like this, "Oh, holy resurge, spaghetti, 1 cup is 11 mg, Harvard says that's high." So, we just go by that word "high" and we stop eating it. Quite frankly, hell, spaghetti's not a health food, so I, you know.

But it brings a lot of joy to people. This girl here's Italian, she likes her pasta here and there, for sure. So, does that mean you can't have it because Harvard says that it's high?

100%, absolutely not! Please, have your pasta! 1 cup of it is going to be 11 mg of oxalate.

You may say, "Well, I like rigatoni. I like mostaccioli. I like penne.

What about it? What about it?" just whatever, people. Just say it's about 11 mg of oxalate.

They didn't measure every single pasta. Pasta is still made up of the same ingredients. It's just shape.

It's all different shapes, that's all. So, it's 11 mg. Most of you, unless you're a bariatric patient or a malabsorption patient, you get 100 mg of oxalate a day.

You could have 2 cups if you wanted to, but you're going to put tomato sauce on it and there's some oxalate, too. So, of course, you can have it, but be mindful of your portions. Most people are eating 3 cups of pasta.

We have a whole bunch of pasta in a bowl, and then we have a bunch of sauce. People also get nervous about all the tomato sauce. Tomato sauce is higher in oxalate.

Jeff, when you get a second, look how much it will say tomato sauce, I think. Look under tomato and see what it pulls up for the oxalate level.

Yeah, so we have 1/2 of a cup of tomato sauce is 17 mg.

Right, so if you're having 1/2 a cup, which isn't very much, and you're having a couple cups of pasta, you're like at, you know, 40 mg of oxalate. I'm rounding up. So, right?

40, 50. So, it adds up quickly because of portion size. So, when I have pasta, when I do have it, I'll have a cup.

I don't eat a big portion of pasta, because, you know, there's no fiber or anything in it, and I'm one of those boring people. I do like to eat for health, right? It doesn't mean you can't have pasta.

Please, enjoy. But I do pay attention to my portion size. Now, being Italian, I don't want to see no little tiny baby doll portion in my plate.

So, what I do, I like to see some food on my plate, people. I am I want robust. So, what I do is I start putting also vegetables in my pasta, so it looks like a nice bowl of food.

So, I have broccoli, and onions, and whatever I have in there, all different kinds, kale. I'll put a lot of different vegetables in there, red peppers, all kinds of things. So, it really bulks up my product.

I don't use because I have kidney stone formers in my family, so I do what I ask you guys to do, and I don't put so much sauce on mine. It's not Let's just say this. I'm cognizant that they're not free foods.

They all have oxalate in them, so watch the portion size. If you're sad like me when you see a little cup of food on your plate, then bulk it up with other healthier things, and, you know, just don't have 3 cups of sauce on your product. It's perfectly okay to have pasta.

I always tell my patients, "Please, bring it back on your plate, not a problem. But don't eat it every day, don't eat 5 cups, and watch your portion size." That's it! That's all we have to do.

And the other thing is get your calcium needs met every day. So, the way oxalate leaves our body is it binds with calcium-rich foods and it leaves through the stool. If we don't get enough calcium in our diet, our oxalate gets reabsorbed back into our body and we have higher oxalate amounts.

So, the calcium aspect of this is even more important than the oxalate aspect in and of itself. So, please, remember that. Pasta, can you have it?

Absolutely. It's not a free food. Put some vegetables in there, too, because pasta doesn't have any fiber, so the veggies will add more fiber.

You'll feel fuller. You won't be hungry in about 40 minutes, and don't look at what Harvard says as far as the adjectives. Go by the safe list, so you just have the food, the portion size, and the oxalate level in it, so you're not like- you're not nervous when you see the word "high." They put something as 8 mg and they say it's high.

Well, none of that's high if you have 100 mg in a bank account sitting there for you. And remember, the reason I give 100 is I know because I'm looking at thousands of follow-up urine collections a year, that patients do that, and then their oxalate's under 30. And that's where we want it to be on the urine collection.

So, it- and because they're getting their calcium, too. It all works out. It all works out.

I'd rather you guys focus more on all the other goals of the Kidney Stone Diet. Take away spinach and almond products. Eat all foods within normal portion size, and unless you have malabsorption issues, you won't have to worry about oxalate again.

Meaning, do what I just said, portion size, all that, but that's not really what's driving kidney stone formation once you do those things. It's going to be the salt, it's going to be the sugar, it's going to be high levels of calcium in your urine, whether you have calcium or not. It's a lot of different things.

It's complicated. It's not just about oxalate. So, spaghetti?

Calcium Balance and Customizing Dietary Risk Goals

Mangia!

Yeah, and I like when you throw that in about the calcium, too, because both not enough and too much is a problem. So, there is a window.

Yes. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, because we don't absorb calcium that great, so the excess winds up in our urine. So, when I tell, you know, a postmenopausal person they need 12- woman, they need 1,200 mg. Well, should I go to 1,800?

No. No, but see, when we're told a number, typically, you know, "Don't have that much, go to this." "Okay, she said don't go that much, so I'm going to go way less because that must be better." Or, "I get this much," you know, "she wants me to start getting something, so I'm going to get even more than she said, because that much must be better." That's what we human beings do, and that's why so many people get kidney stones.

They took advice from keto and overate spinach and almonds, or they're doing paleo and ate as much meat as they wanted. Meanwhile, they're not getting any calcium in most two diets, not enough anyway. So, again, it's complicated.

You've got to talk to each person. There's no one-size-fits-all here. The diet industry likes to sell things that way, so they make a shitload of money.

That's not how this works, people. You've got to figure out what is the best way for you, for you, and this is why diets don't work overall. You've got to talk to people.

You've got to hold some hands. You've got to figure out why they're doing what they're doing and lead them in a different way, not just because I say it's the right way, it's the way that's the right way for them. That's all very important.

You can't read a book and then going to do something, and that's going to work for you and 5 million other people. It's not how it works, and this is why people fall off the wagon on diets. It's not made for them.

You've got to figure out what works for you and do that, because what we're asking you to do is a lifetime of this. So, you practice for a lifetime, and that's why our diet is a bunch of goals. You do whatever lifestyle you want that works for you and feels good to you, but you got to fit into our goals to lessen your stone risk, right?

So, if you're watching salt and sugar, you want to do keto? God bless. Go do it.

If you want to do paleo, if you want to do Atkins, if you want to do Mediterranean, that's it's whatever works for you, just fit into our salt, sugar, our oxalate goals. Mediterranean is a great diet. You can't eat spinach and almonds all day long, though.

You just can't. So, pay attention to that. There's a lot of great diets out there, but you've got to fit into our goals, because a lot of those diets, keto especially, paleo, ain't nobody counting no salt, okay?

And too much salt taken in can lead to higher urine calcium values. Too much calcium in your urine can increase your stone risk, okay? Very important.

Very, very complicated. It's not just about oxalate, folks. It's not.

But eat some spaghetti if you like.

Yeah, and that's why there's the Kidney Stone Diet goals, to try to simplify it in the way that's most accessible for everyone. You can find all of that at kidneystonedied.com. There's a start page, there's so many resources where you can access everything absolutely for free.

But if you want to dive deeper, there's the Kidney Stone Prevention Course and all the other products, like the meal plans and e-book, and all sorts of things there that you can find at kidneystonediet.com. And if you have a question, again, the number is 773-789-8763, and we'd love to have you on a future episode. And finally, the Patreon.

We don't really talk about it a ton, but it is out there for those of you who've asked how to support the show and what we do in a way that isn't purchasing the course or purchasing the meal plans or anything. That's patreon.com/kidneystonediet. There's absolutely no pressure.

There isn't- there isn't any new content or anything that we're delivering through there, so it's purely the those who've asked. It just exists for you guys. But, yeah, we appreciate each and every one of you.

And if you can hit that subscribe, give the video a like, a thumbs up, it really goes a long way to help us. We're on our way towards 10,000 subscribers, that is our goal in the in the coming months, so hopefully we can we can get there and reach more people with this scientifically backed information. So, with that, thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next week.

Bye, guys, thank you!