Dairy allergies and kidney stones

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.

That's perfect. I love it. You booped the screen.

Yeah, I booped the screen.

I like it. So, what do you say? Should we just dive in this week?

Should we go right into a call?

Yeah, you know, we'll reward some audience members who get so sick of waiting for two minutes to pass by. Yes, let's just go right to it, baby. Let's go, baby!

Here we go. Okay, this is from Steve. Thank you.

And I have questions about oxalate and calcium, allergy to dairy, which is my big problem, and I have had kidney stones. And so, I'm just trying really hard to learn what I need to know.

So, I would appreciate connecting with you. Thank you.

Aw, Steve, that's a great question. So, Steve is saying, "Look, oh lady, I have a dairy allergy. I know you're barking at me to get some calcium every day.

How am I supposed to do that?" Well, thankfully, there's a lot of non-dairy ways to get calcium these days.

There are. So, first of all, as always, I'm going to tell you to go to my blog because, you know, you can read about it, but I just want to I want to pull something up here. Kidneystonediet.com, and if you go to the blog, I want you to see there is an article, and it's called "Non-Dairy Sources of Calcium."

But then if you put, and even if you don't want to go there, you just go "non-dairy sources of calcium and Jill," and then you can read all the things that you can get calcium from that are not dairy, non-dairy sources of calcium. So, we have here, on the blog, kidneystonediet.com, "16 Non-Dairy Calcium Sources for Kidney Stone Formers."

And I don't remember them offhand, because I'm 117 years old, so I'm going to read them to you. There's orange juice. Orange juice, that's high in sugar, even though it's not added sugar.

Do you really want 27, 30 grams of sugar in an orange juice glass? Get the 50/50 Tropicana. They reduce the sugar in it.

That's a good non-dairy calcium source. You can get canned sardines.

Believe it or not, people, some people like that. God bless, not me. I don't like those sardines.

They have little, I don't like them. I don't like little fish in a can.

That is something I eat.

Oh, you would. God bless you.

I know, I knew you'd think that, too.

They are a good source of calcium, but they're very salty, people, so you want to get the, and I don't know if you can get it in the stores, you can get it on Amazon, low-sodium sardines. So, there's that, okay? They have calcium in it.

Canned pink salmon with bones. The calcium is in bones. And also, that's why you need calcium, forget about kidney stones, you have bones.

You need to feed them. So, salmon in a can with the bones will be a nice calcium source.

There are fortified cereals like Cheerios that are low oxalate and also you'll get some calcium in there. You'll get about 130 mg per 3/4 of a cup. Broccoli has 43 mg of calcium for some blah.

Peas, Chinese cabbage. So, you're going to see I have here those non-dairy calcium sources, plus they're lower in oxalate, so you don't even have to worry about all that stuff.

Low oxalate, non-calcium sources. Go to kidneystonediet.com, the blog, and you're going to see it's called "16 Non-Dairy Calcium Sources for Kidney Stone Formers." The other thing that you can get is we have some alternative milks that have been recently studied for their oxalate content, and that is also on kidneystonediet.com, the blog.

I think it's "Oxalate Content of Plant Milks." Some, some prominent nephrologists have done some research and they have found, and they listed that research and we have a beautiful little article on that, so you can see that there's other sources of non-dairy ways to get it. And, yes, you know, those are supplemented. People will say, "Well, you say don't take supplements, so why can we take it from the milk?"

Well, it's, you know, it's in a food source, right? So, supplements in general, we don't absorb those so great, people. If you're somebody that must take a pill supplement, we say, go ahead, you can take it, but that's sub-par.

But if you do have to take it for various reasons, there are a lot of bariatric or malabsorption patients that have malabsorption that must take calcium supplements, take it with a meal, not one cracker, a meal, because they're not absorbed that well.

So, we want to make sure there's that. The plant milks that are, so many of my patients are on the plant milks, they're they're not, they're absorbing the calcium. It's not winding up in their urine because I see the urine collections.

So, the plant milks seem to be fine, we're not worried about it. It's very easy if you have a couple cups or a few half a cups, a cup and a half of those plant-sourced milks, you're getting your calcium needs met. Not a problem.

I mean, it just doesn't take a much if you're doing take much to get it if you're doing it that way. Men and women who still get their periods need up to 1,000 mg of calcium a day. Postmenopausal women up to 1,200 mg of calcium a day.

More is not better. Get up to your needs, okay? You don't have to do more than that, because, typically, when we find out a goal, we always think more is better, let's get extra.

Well, we don't absorb calcium that great, so just get up to, even if you're getting 800, 1,000, fine, if you're trying to, because some people will say, "Well, that's 1,200, that's a lot." It's a lot to you because you never paid attention to calcium before. So, when you're first starting this, it can seem overwhelming.

But once you know the right sources and where to get your calcium needs met, it's so not hard, honestly, especially if you can use dairy, okay?

So, kidneystonediet.com for a great couple articles. There's plant-based calcium sources and then the plant milk sources, they're there, they're listed, they're all low-oxalate options, so take a look at that. Plenty ways to get calcium.

I want to remind you guys that you also have a skeleton. It always kills me that we really don't talk about calcium in our healthcare system until we wind up with bone disease or a kidney stone.

Then all of a sudden somebody's like, "Oh, by the way, for the last 40 years, have you gotten any calcium?" You know, it's just something that's not brought up as prevention to get things. So, you know, it's a shock when people start figuring out, "How do I get calcium?" PhDs, very smart people coming to me, they have no idea how to get calcium because it hasn't been talked about forever.

And like Steve, they may have an allergy, or for, they don't want to eat animal products for many different reasons.

They can't do dairy, so now what are they supposed to do? It's not, it's not cumbersome, until you find out, when you know, when you have the right information, sorry, we're taping a lot of shows today, when you have the right information, it's not hard. It's when we don't know what we don't know that things are hard.

So, this show is about having you understand, this is the way you do this, this is the way you do that, and then when you know, education is power.

When you know, then you can get your control back, then you can start coming down, and you can start putting this together day by day. And it's not that hard once you do it, once you get the information. Then put it into practice, and then that magical word, practice, practice, practice for the rest of your life.

It's not a quick nothing. You're practicing a healthy lifestyle for the rest of your life. Don't let the diet industry tell you otherwise.

It's not quick and easy. It's not going to happen in three months.

It's not going to be a rapid anything. You get the information, don't just collect information, too, doesn't do anything for you until you put it into practice. Practice, you take action, and then you practice for the rest of your life.

Enjoy foods, have birthday, Christmas just passed, you had your holiday fare, get right back to work, nobody cares. It's what we do on a day-by-day basis.

If you have something that is higher in calorie or junk food, nobody cares. Enjoy it, get back to work. That's how we roll here at kidneystonediet.com.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we're investing in ourselves a little bit every day. It's like it's not exciting, like, but it shouldn't be.

Like, it's not it's not that quick fix, one pill changes everything kind of approach. This is just over time, and it's hard to see over time, too, at times. It's hard to like perceive what we're doing for or against our bodies.

But it's so important. Like, this is all this is what we got. This is all we have, so we want to take the best care of it as we can.

Yeah, I always say if we were walking around and our organs were, you know, hanging around and we really saw what they look like over time, we would make better choices. I think it's because, you know, you know, chronic illness is what's crippling our healthcare system with the trillions of dollars that's spent on diabetes, obesity, chronic kidney disease, you know, things like that, right?

Cardiovascular disease. These are diseases typically that aren't going to kill you right away. It's going to be long-term maintenance and management of them, right?

So, it costs trillions of dollars to keep people well. If we just really started at home and we just, which doesn't cost a lot, and I know people will say, "Well, healthy food is more expensive." It is. It is more expensive and that's a travesty and we could put a whole 'nother podcast for that.

But eating just better, you don't have to buy freaking organic. You don't have to buy, you know, kissed by baby Jesus broccoli. Just get some freaking broccoli.

You don't have extra money to buy organic, I don't care about that. You all have different wallets. Choose the healthiest food that fits into your budget.

Don't be, don't be, is "dissuaded" a word? Persuaded?

Don't be, don't be put off by people who say you must do organic, otherwise it's not good. Come on! Come on!

What are people who don't have the money to pay $1 more for extra? I'm going to tell you right now, I'm not paying extra for an organic freaking avocado at $15 an avocado. It ain't that much, I'm exaggerating, I know, but I'm not doing it.

It has a shell on it. I don't care. I mean, come on.

The point is we want people to eat healthier. "Healthiest"? I don't even know what that means.

Healthier, better than you were. That's what we aim for here, better than you were. And guess what?

There's no "perfect" at the end of the line. So, stop buying into that crap. You are better.

You are working and striving for better, practicing. Are you going to be perfect? No.

I'm thrilled to hear that. You know why? Because you'd be so boring!

Nobody would even want to hang around you if you were perfect. I'm not perfect. Also, when we when we, there's never a time where we don't have something to learn.

If you think you're done learning, then that means you're done growing. And that's a sad life. I'm always trying to learn more stuff.

I know nothing compared to what I need to learn.

And I take that as like, "Wow, I get to learn this, this, and this." Every year, I was telling Jeff, every year I take some kind of new coaching course. Last year, I became a personal trainer, taking that course to get certified. Why?

Because am I going to do anything with personal training? Probably not, but I just I love it, so why not get certified? Why not learn all the stuff I don't know?

I'm always watching YouTube to learn more stuff about that, or how, there's always something new with diet, there's always something new with exercise.

I always, there's always new ways to coach people. I mean, I'm I'm registered right now for an elite mastery coaching program so I can be better. Am I the best?

Hell no, and that would be so boring because I would have nothing to learn, I would have no reason to grow. That's, I don't even know what that life, life is long, people. Well, you know, how many TV hours can you watch?

So, learn something new.

I'm so glad you're here with us on this YouTube channel because that means you're in the game. If you're in the game, you can get control back and just learn step-by-step all the things we're asking. So, so Steve, with your dairy allergy, you can, there's plenty of calcium sources you can get and go to kidneystonediet.com, the blog, and read those articles.

All the articles at kidneystonediet.com are very short and sweet, the information you need.

Also, this YouTube channel, Spotify, Audible, Apple, you name it, we're all over the place. Go check us out.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's so important. Like, for me, that sort of the growth, like you're saying, like, constantly growing and progressing throughout life, like, to me, my perspective, that's the meaning of life.

Like, I know it's like grandiose, but for me, that's why I'm here is to try and become the best version of me that I can in the limited time I have here. And I think it's just so valuable and, I want to say it's like it's rewarding when we feel that.

And I think that's so important. And I love that you do that every year, that you pick something that, it pushes your boundaries, because, like, we could, we could just sit on the couch and watch TV all day. Like, that's one choice, but are we getting out of that what we want?

Maybe for some, but not for me, not for you, I know. Like, we want we want more, we want to, sort of chisel this, stone into the sculpture that we want to be.

Well, and I think it's so important when, so when I showed up for one of the group calls for that coaching program, the guy is like, "What are you doing here? You've been doing this for almost 25 years, double the time I've been doing it." And I'm like, "Because I've been listening to your podcast, and you always, you have always little golden nuggets that makes me think about something in a different way." And in order to be the most effective coach in teaching people about the Kidney Stone Diet or nutrition in general, losing weight, then it keeps me on my game.

It keeps me fresh. It keeps me in growth. It keeps me passionate.

It keeps me compassionate. It keeps me all the things. It keeps my energy up.

So, otherwise, I could be really stale. And then, again, my whole mission in life is to be able to take my heart and all the beautiful things I get in my life from people and support and love and just beautiful cardinals, whatever brings me joy, get it for myself so I can give it out to the world.

That's what it's all supposed to be about, right? So, if I don't give myself new education or a better way of looking at something, whatever, then I can't give it out. So, it keeps me fresh.

It keeps me from going, "God, I've been doing this for 24 years, ugh." I never feel that way, cause I'm always seeking new ways to talk about something because I can't hit every person in the world. We're all so very different, so you should be always looking at your message and seeing, "Am I saying this in a way that can get more people interested, more people engrossed in their health?

How, how am I just meeting one little sector of people? I want to get to a lot of people so they understand that they should never take their body for granted and that, you know, how you eat and how you move your body is very important." But the bigger message is never to be thinking you're going to be perfect at this. None of us are.

So, I guess today I'm going to leave this podcast, thank you Steve for this, allergy, dairy allergy question.

But what new ways this year, since it's the beginning of the year, what new what new things can you do for yourself this year to keep yourself in the game, to make yourself a better you? It doesn't have to be taking the kidney stone prevention course, it doesn't have to be anything for kidney stones, it could be how to communicate better with your partner, how to be better at your job, whatever you want to, how to be how to communicate better as a parent, to me it's always communication,

Because what else is there in the world than how to communicate your feelings or message, right? So, that's always very important to me. But it's like, you know, how can you push yourself to do something differently?

Different, differently than you've ever done before, in a way that you've never done before, so you can matter more to the people around you and yourself, you know?

So, I don't know, that's a that's way, that's way away from Steve and dairy allergies, but we really try to bring messages on how we can live a better life in general here. And what we're striving for is better, not best, better. Not best, better, cause there's always room for an improvement.

And if that doesn't excite you, I want you to reexamine that, because it should.

That should be something new and fresh and it should excite you, not, "Ugh." It should excite you, okay? How can you be better than yesterday? That's it.

That's my message.

I think that's the perfect, message to wrap on. And, thanks again, Steve, for the question. And anyone out there with another question, you want to, we'd love to have you on the episode in the future, the number is 773-789-8763.

But, yeah, you can find all of the, references that Jill mentioned at kidneystonediet.com.

And, if you're watching, you saw sort of the, the post that you're looking for right on the screen. If you're just listening, it's, yeah, you can just find everything just kidneystonediet.com/blog, and everything is right there. But, yeah, we really appreciate each and every one of you.

Hope you had a great holiday season. We're already in, 2023, which doesn't make any sense for my brain, I just can't, that feels fake, it doesn't seem real at all, but, yeah.

Crazy.

Just hope everyone had a great holiday season and ready to, kick off this year right, because I know, Jill and I both are. We're excited for everything that's to come, both here and personally within our, non-Kidney Stone Diet lives as well, but—

Absolutely. I'm just praying for everybody the healthiest, absolute healthiest year you can have, the best you can make. That's what we're doing here this year, right?

The best you can make. Let's go, baby. Let's go!

Absolutely. So, we will see you all next week.

Thanks, Steve!