Baked Potatoes on a low oxalate diet

SPYR.

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.

Hi Jeff, I'm Jill Harris, your kidney stone prevention nurse.

Yeah, so we are back at it again.

See my t-shirt?

Yeah, I really like that. The limited edition is perfect.

Yeah. You can tell I've been called weird a couple times in my life. She's just weird.

Have you ever been to Austin, Texas?

No, I want to go though.

So their tagline is "Keep Austin Weird." So there's merch in the airport, there's everything. I really like it there. It's—

That's so fun!

Yeah, it's—I'm sure it's very different now that—'cause that's where Joe Rogan moved, like lots of Silicon Valley people moved there, so I know lots of money flooded in, so it's the dynamic is probably different. But it was always—every time I was there, I really loved it. We'd go for like South by Southwest and different events like that.

Back in the day, like in the late 90s, I lived in Albuquerque. And that when—that's when people were like, "Hey, have you seen what's going on with Austin, you know?" And I was pretty close to it at that point, but I didn't have the money nor the wherewithal. I was in nursing school back then.

I didn't have the time to do it. But I wish I had, because I look, it's just way different now, 'cause yeah, so much more money has poured into it. It's kind of like Nashville,

You know, it's changed so much. But Austin, yeah, that is on my bucket list. I'd like to go there.

Yeah, for sure. And you brought up New Mexico and I don't know if you've seen Dave's, the other, the—

Oh, yes! I'm keeping track.

Yeah, the third of, third partner, I guess, in Kidney Stone Diet, Dave, who's never on this, but he's another behind-the-scenes, like my business partner at SPYR. But yeah, he's out in New Mexico building and really doing some interesting stuff.

Amazing. It's amazing. Yeah, I'm watching his YouTube channel.

Yeah, brand new.

What is it?

It should just be his name.

Working Outside? Building Outside?

Yeah, I think Life Outside.

Life Outside, yeah. Anyway, yeah, he's pretty amazing.

Yeah, if you like Dave's, if you want to check it out, it's, yeah, maybe we'll link it. I'll write a little note, a link in the description here.

Yes, it's pretty amazing what he's doing. And he's very artistic, so the way he's shooting this video, he's living the nomad life in, Belen, New Mexico. They bought some property, he and his girlfriend, and they're just, they are really roughing it, man.

I mean, it's pretty freaking amazing. I admire them greatly. And if any two people can do it, it's Lori and Dave.

That's for sure. Super cool.

Yeah.

Jeff and I want to do a road trip and go over and visit them.

Oh, yeah, we definitely will. And yeah, we'll talk about off camera, but we were talking after the last show, Alma and I were talking about, maybe the hundredth episode, some ideas of what we can do here 'cause we're, it's rapidly approaching and that'll be fun, see if we do a little, little something special. But yeah, we'll figure that out.

It would be awesome.

Yeah, we'll figure it out off the show and see what we can, what we can come up with. But yeah, should we dive right into this week's question?

Let's go, baby. Let's go.

Sweet.

Hi, my name is Becky from Michigan, and I was wondering about potato skins, baked potato skins. Everything says, you know, baked potato with the skins is this much. But if I take the skins off, sometimes, I know they have a lot of nutrients, can I have more without them?

And are there ways to reduce the oxalates? Can I boil them and then use them? You know, what can I do?

Thank you.

Becky, just have the baked potato. Just have it. First of all, once you take away the skin from a baked potato, it's just mashed potato with a boiled-old potato.

It's just not that fun. The whole fun for a baked potato is the skin. Is it higher in oxalate?

Who cares! I mean, again, guys, if you're not eating a baked potato every single day, you're not going to make a calcium oxalate kidney stone. You're just not, okay?

So, have a baked potato, skin and all, don't boil the hell out of it so you boil every little nutrient there ever was put in the baked potato. Just enjoy it. Don't worry about it.

If you're worried about anything, what I would do, I would have half. Split it with your, split it with your partner. Have half a baked potato.

You don't need to eat the whole thing.

So, sometimes people will be like, "Jill, I really miss having, some cookies." Well, you don't need to eat the whole sleeve anymore. Can you just have two? Sometimes, it's just about portion.

"Jill, I really love pickles." Don't have five, just have one, put it into your budget. So, lots of times, it's always—and this is where the mantra comes in—portion, not perfection. Sweet potatoes, I certainly eat them.

I'm just not eating one as big as my head, and I'm not eating it every day.

So, a baked potato with the skin is perfectly acceptable to eat. That is a perfect place to pair your non-dairy or dairy calcium source, so any excess oxalate you do have, you can combine it with the calcium at the time you eat it. So then the oxalate can leave through the stool.

And then, just go on with your life. I don't want people boiling the hell out of vegetables. Don't do that because it just—it just takes away the fun of the food.

So, again, I'm looking for long-term compliance. And in order to get that, I'm going to give, which means I'm going to tell you not to boil the hell out of that potato. And I'm going to tell you don't take the skin off.

That's all the fun.

So, but from you, I'm going to say I don't want you eating it every day, or, and I don't want you to have—maybe split it. And then you're—that's how you get less. So, it's not about taking away people's favorite foods or boiling the heck out of those favorite foods so it's not even a recognizable food anymore.

It's about how much you eat of that food and how many times a week you eat it, and if you're getting your calcium. That's the formula.

So, I will get this question all day long. "Jill, what about this food? What about that food?" You see all the YouTube, sesame seeds, peanut butter, pickles, whatever it is, right?

People want to know, "What can they do to lower the oxalate?" Eat less of the product. And don't eat it every—so that means don't eat it every day. More important—I want everyone to listen to these words—more important is to get your calcium needs met most days.

That is how oxalate doesn't get reabsorbed back into your body, okay? So, that's the important part.

Becky, have your potatoes, have the skin, don't boil them, and share it with your partner. Then, you'll have less. But if you wanted to have a whole baked potato once in a while, you can do that, too.

Watch your oxalate for the rest of the day. Get your calcium needs met. Nobody formed a stone by having a baked potato on a Tuesday.

I hope that makes sense.

Yeah, for sure. And what are the calcium needs then, again, just once again to reiterate?

Yes, if for men and women, 1,000 mg of calcium a day. If you're a woman—well, of course you have to be a woman—postmenopausal women, up to 1,200 a day. Up to, people!

That doesn't mean over. Calcium is not the best absorbed mineral in—it's just not. So, we can still take in our normal amounts, but have some spill out in our urine.

So, I don't want people going over, up to.

Even if, you know, your goal is like 1,000 mg a day, even if you're getting like 800, is 800 more or 600 more than before you met us, okay? So, just know that you need calcium for your bones, 'cause you don't want to get osteoporosis. And for kidney stone disease, it helps to get rid of the excess oxalate.

But it's a bones thing, too. Many kidney stone formers also have osteoporosis. So, and that's because people are losing calcium from their bones from eating too much sugar and salt.

So, it's—it's calcium is a very important part of the Kidney Stone Diet.

You do not have to have—"I don't eat dairy, Jill!" I'm not saying you have to eat dairy. There are non-dairy sources, too. And the non-dairy sources, they're supplemented.

And then the next question will be, "Well, you said I can't take supplement pills. Why can I have oat milk or why can I have, then, you know, what I drink, which is the unsweetened coconut milk?" Well, you can have that because it's a little better absorbed from those drinks than it is in pill form.

And really, it's make sure you get it throughout the day. You don't want to overdo calcium. You don't want two glasses of oat milk.

It's too much for the body to absorb. So, you spread it out throughout the day. If you're somebody that must take supplements, think bariatric patients or maybe your doctor said to take supplements, talk to your doctor about it, when you do take a pill form supplement, it must be taken with food.

That's the best way it can be absorbed, so know that, too.

Yeah, so important. And, yeah, supplements are always the big question because, yeah, you're not—you're not super keen on them for all the all the reasons. But, yeah, when it comes to delivering it through the milk, through the different things, then, yeah, it just—it's just a slightly different mechanism that helps, you get it in.

I think, too, well, I think the supplement industry has a lot of bull do. Now, some of us need supplements. A blood test will tell you if you're low in vitamin D, if you're low in certain things, you may need a supplement, B12, that's fine, B vitamins, that's fine.

Like I'm always low in B's because I don't eat red meat. So, and iron. There are some supplements you definitely need and a blood test will tell you if that's the case.

But overall, people, there's so many supplements on those shelves. They're not regulated. They're not—who knows?

Is that 500 mg of calcium in that pill? You don't know! It's just not a regulated industry.

And really, if you eat a well-balanced diet, should be able to get most of your nutrients from your food, people. And this is what we're touting here. So, put that 10 bucks in your pocket from a pill, 'cause you're always going to absorb nutrients and minerals and phytonutrients much better from food than you are in a pill.

But because we are always looking for a quick fix, the vitamin industry is a zillion-dollar industry. And really, I think we just pee most of that stuff right out in the toilet, so. That's my humble opinion.

Yeah. And, so thank you, Becky, for your question. If anyone else has—if you're listening, have a question, it's 773-789-8763 and we'll feature you on a future episode.

But I wanted to jump real quick just to the website and kidneystonediet.com and the meal plans because, like you were saying, you can get a lot of your nutrition, like ideally, you're getting the bulk of your vitamins and nutrients and everything from food. And that's why we have the meal plans out there. It's so—it's there to inspire you on the diversity of what you can eat on a daily basis.

It's—you don't have to eat it. It's not like eat these specific things every day. It's merely to just show that you don't have to stick to a very tiny collection of things that maybe—maybe you've been eating every day for a very long time just because it's easy.

And we're just trying to make things a little bit easier on everyone.

Yeah, and the best thing about the meal plans is everything's figured out for you—your sodium, your sugar, your oxalate. So each recipe will also pull out the Kidney Stone Diet goals and tell you how much is in each, each dish that is on there. So it's helpful to people so they don't have to—I've done all that for people so they don't have to, "How much oxalate's in this or that or that?" Also, I always get some education in everything I—everything that we give out.

So each recipe will have Kidney Stone Diet safe tips, and they can be pretty lengthy, meaning a paragraph. I'm not just saying a couple things. I'm trying to also educate you with the meal plan because that's what this is all about.

The more you know, the less disease you can get, and that's super important to us.

Absolutely. Well, yeah, again, I think that's a great place to wrap. So, you can head over to kidneystonediet.com to find that and everything else: the free weekly newsletter, the, Facebook group, the prevention course, just everything is all there right at kidneystonediet.com.

So, thanks again for listening and we truly appreciate each and every one of you, and we will see you next time.

Thanks, Becky. Bye!