How important is oxalate in kidney stone prevention?

In this episode, Jeff and Jill discuss the importance of oxalate in kidney stone prevention. They address the fear and anxiety that often comes with eating foods high in oxalate and provide guidance on how to incorporate a variety of foods into a healthy diet. They emphasize that while oxalate is a factor to consider, it is not the most important aspect of kidney stone prevention.

Takeaways

• Oxalate is an important factor to consider in kidney stone prevention, but it is not the most important aspect.
• Eating a variety of foods in normal portions is key to maintaining a healthy diet.
• Salt and sugar intake should be monitored and reduced for kidney stone prevention.
• The fear and anxiety surrounding oxalate can be alleviated by understanding the guidelines and focusing on overall dietary habits.
• Accessing additional resources and seeking professional advice can provide further guidance on kidney stone prevention.

Jeff Sarris
So we’re back with another episode about oxalate. How important is oxalate in kidney stone prevention?

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.

Jill Harris
And I’m Jill Harris, your kidney stone prevention nurse.

Jeff Sarris
So yeah, we had a big one last week with the new Oxalate List update. If you missed that by chance, head over to the YouTube channel or scroll up in your podcast player because Harvard has updated their list for the first time in decades. So we talk all about that. And if you want to dive deep into all the numbers and changes, you can go to kidneystonediet.com and look for the Oxalate List in the menu.

But this week we are talking about oxalate and how important it is for kidney stone prevention.

Jill Harris
You know, we’re gonna focus on oxalate for a bit because I know that people are going to lose their mind a little bit because some numbers have changed. And I think my whole career, I have been up against this whole oxalate thing. Oxalate, oxalate, oxalate. You know, and the fear that goes along with eating an oxalate.

And this I’m not going to make a joke about because I’ve had thousands of patients, so many of them. I would say at least 90% of all the patients I’ve talked to, at least 90%, I’m being very conservative. The first thing, the main thing they want to talk about with me is oxalate. Because you can be rest assured that when you Google kidney stone, that is the one thing that’s going to come up. That and some damn lemons and water, which I don’t mind the water. But Jeff, there are some days I just pull my little curly hair out over oxalate.

Now, for somebody who’s had a lot of illness in her life with cancer and treatment and all the stuff I deal with on a daily day because of all my surgeries, nobody empathizes more, nobody understands more of what you’re going through. Nobody understands anxiety and illness and specifically illness and eating because I have a lot of bowel issues. So can I eat this? I can’t. I’m in the bathroom all day. Oh my God. I eat the same thing I did yesterday. Yesterday I was fine. Today I’m not. I mean, so when you have a disease or medical condition that has to do with eating, you can drive yourself nutty.

So I’m not judging anybody, I’m not, I’m just telling you I so get this. I have food journals, oh my god, what should I do, should I eat this, I just, it’s better if I don’t eat, then I won’t go to the bathroom. So this comes from somebody who is sitting in the same pair of pants as you are, okay? I mean I so get it, so I want you to understand that. I’m not being glib.

I get it. I get it. I get it. It’s one of the reasons I don’t travel. I’m too afraid. I can’t eat at the airport. I’m going to be on the plane, go to the bathroom, bothering people, go… I get it. I get it. So I want to make that clear with you.

But, oxalate. I want you to really listen to what I’m talking about here. And you’re talking to somebody who has 25 years of doing this.

I am looking at follow-up urine collections every single day, all day long. That is what I’m looking at. I talked to Timmy four months ago. His oxalate reading was 75. We talked. He fixed. I’m looking at the follow-up now. Look at this. It’s 22. Am I a genius? No. I gave him advice and he listened to it. And he turned his life around.

The oxalate part, he will tell me, that was the easiest thing ever, Jill. It’s the salt and sugar crap I gotta deal with. It’s hard. So what I’m here to tell you is although I understand how you want these numbers to be, and if it’s 14 as opposed to three, you’re gonna eat it or you’re not gonna eat it, please don’t live your life like that. You can eat all foods.

I take away spinach and almond products because those are two really high products that people tend to overeat.

So, there are other high foods, but people don’t tend to overeat them daily. Now, you may say, hey, I always eat sweet potatoes. For you, Jean, don’t. Don’t eat as many sweet potatoes. But I guess the point is what I’m saying is always eat a variety of foods. Some of you have gotten your new Harvard list, the updated one, at kidneystonediet.com, and you’re like…damn blueberries are higher now and I’ve been eating bushels of them because I thought they were so low.

Please don’t do that with any food even if you think it’s low and I know it’s annoying here’s what else people tell me Jill I can’t think about food all day long. Either people are worried about it or they don’t want to think about it at all so they eat the same four foods for fifty years and they’re over eating those foods.

I’m asking people like Goldilocks, not too much, not too little, just right. So you eat a wide variety of foods in normal portions. You want some peanut butter? Peanut butter went up a little. A lot? No, a little. Am I going to ever take peanut butter away from you guys? No. Is peanut butter something that if you have one spoonful you’re eating the whole jar? No peanut butter for you. Just like I can’t have a cracker. No cracker for me because I’m addicted. I like crunching.

When people Google kidney stones, I’m up against a lot with Oxalate, just because that is definitely something that’s talked about. And every single list says something different. It says something different. I’ve always told you that the Harvard list is super, it works. But is it the Harvard list, or is it any list that I first would have started with, simply because it’s the advice I’m giving.

So oxalate is important at the beginning for about 32 seconds. If you have a conversation with me, we’re gonna talk about oxalate for five minutes and you’re gonna get it. Now, if you wanna vent a little bit more about it, the call’s yours, but five minutes is all I need to really teach you about oxalate. The rest, sugar, salt, water, calcium, and the other things, meat protein, that’s five seconds too.

Sugar, salt, and water, and calcium, well that’s gonna be hours. And that’s why you join the Kidney Stone Prevention Course. Or you can do a private consult.

But oxalate, it’s what you’re focused on, but it has very little to do with kidney stones once you stop overeating the really high foods and get your calcium. And Jeff, I mean, you know, we’ve been doing this for years together. It’s, I can’t say it enough, right?

And you can think, well, girl, I hear you, but people don’t, because they’re so worried about having that trauma again of going through not only the pain of a kidney stone, that’s the beginning of it. The surgeries, the cost, the time off work, the stents, the recovery, and then the overall fear of getting another one. So you, so like I say, because I’ve been so sick.

I understand where it’s coming from, but I have the answer for you. And if people will just go with that advice, anybody on my Facebook group that’s been there for years will say, oh, we don’t count doxolate anymore. We don’t count oxalate at all. So what do you have to say about this, Jeff?

Jeff Sarris
Well, yeah, and it comes down to habits. So like habits don’t feel as, uh, philanthropy, better term as sexy as being like, Oh, let me take oxalate away. Cause that’s something new. That’s it’s almost like the new super food thing that it’s like, I’m going to consume a lot of this and be healthy. It’s like, Oh, oxalate is the, the opposite of a super food. Let me take it away. Let me focus everything there. Oh, but what I eat all the rest of the time, that’s, that’s hard.

That’s not as simple or as fun or as binary. It’s, it’s big. It’s a big change. And that’s why these are, these are rules. These are rules you’ve shared with people, sort of guidelines that may be better than rules, but guidelines on how they can improve their health. And it’s not just flick a switch and take oxalate.

Jill Harris
Yes, I think you’re absolutely right. And the other thing is let’s make sure we don’t, let’s make sure we call out the people that have, say they had diabetes or they had heart disease, whatever. They’re on a really, before they knew anything about kidney stones, they are on a healthy journey. They have changed their whole life. To find it, so they got rid of all the shitty food and they started eating super healthy food just to find out that are you kidding me now I have a kidney stone I finally eat healthy and my healthy diet caused this stone are you kidding me. It’s not the healthy diet that caused your stone just like it’s not keto or paleo or whatever, it’s how you guys did those diets by choosing the same few foods over and over again

You can have a healthy diet. We’re just not asking you, we’re just asking you not to overeat the highest oxalate foods. And that’s really anything over 50 and above, overeating. So sweet potatoes can be higher, but you can have one once a week. It’s overeating every single day without the calcium. So those people, and I get so many patients that come to me for a private, and they’re like, Jill, I can’t tell you how proud I was of myself that I was eating spinach for the first time, I was eating almonds, I was so good at snacking. We went to Costco and we got the mixed nuts, non-salted even Jill, and here I am with the kidney stone.

And so it’s really frustrating and disheartening for people that have already been through this huge change. And now what they think before they got with me, when they’re just Googling and they see oxalate, they’re oh my, oh my wrong, this is all I’ve been eating is this.

So, you know, and then all these lists say all these different things are high oxalate. So people think there’s nothing they have left to eat. And I’m here to tell you people that you absolutely, even with the Harvard changes that have just come up, you know, even though something like blueberries are higher, it doesn’t matter. Just don’t eat so many of them all the time. Put them in your yogurt. It’s okay. I’m not going to give up blueberries. Are you kidding me? And you know, and as far as the raspberries, if a food is one level from one study and another level from another study and at one study they said they’re really high I’m going to eat those in moderation. I’m not going to eat a raspberry now as much as I want just because they’re saying it’s lower. I’m not doing that because there’s no perfect number but in the same token I’m telling you.

The oxalate piece of the Kidney Stone Diet, of preventing kidney stones, is truly, once you get this, this information I’m giving now, the least important part of kidney stone prevention. It’s the least. No one working with me or being on that Facebook group or listening to me holler in these YouTube, they stop counting the oxalate. They just stay away from the highest ones and they really focus on the salt and sugar because listen guys every time you go out to eat, boom, there’s your salt, there’s your salt, I mean for the day, right? So that’s much harder than eating a lower oxalate diet. And a lower oxalate diet is around, we say in the kidney stone diet goals, 100 milligrams of oxalate a day. Very, very doable.

Most of my patients don’t get anywhere near 75 and they’re eating a very healthy, robust, satisfying diet, not giving up all their superfoods. So that’s what kills me too, is when people just stop eating fruits and vegetables. That just pains me, because we need our fruits and vegetables, right? So it’s the least important part, guys, of the Kidney Stone Diet. It really is. At first it seems like it’s the biggest, because you read about it so much, but it’s not. It’s just not.

Jeff Sarris
Yeah, I think that’s a really important note and a good spot to leave off. If you have any questions about oxalate or any other questions about kidney stone prevention, the kidney stone diet, the phone number is 773-789-8763. You can leave us a voicemail and we will feature you on a future episode. Or if you’re outside of the States, you can send a voice memo to podc And yeah, we go through all of them.

We have some backlog right now so we will get to your question. Thank you for everyone who’s called in but we’d love to hear from you as well. And for those of you who have asked, we do have a Patreon, there’s no extra content, there’s nothing additional but just it was a way to support the show and support what we do for those of you who wanted to. That again is patreon.com kidney stone diet. But for all the free information, all the premium products, the course, the meal plans, everything.

You can go to kidneystonediet.com and find absolutely everything you need to improve your life and reduce your risk for kidney stones. So I think with that we’ll wrap for this week. Thanks again for tuning in. Thanks for liking, subscribing, sharing it with a friend and we will see you next time.

Jill Harris
Everybody don’t worry about oxalate I promise.