Are poppy seeds high in oxalate?

This week, Jill answers a listener question about poppy seeds, oxalate, and how oxalate is calculated.

Jeff Sarris
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, I’m happy to be here. And I’m also this is the day we’re taping for four or five shows right now. And so and we batch them, Jeff and I meet and we do a bunch of shows. And right now, as we’ve said, in the last couple, it’s the it’s, it’s Black Friday, day after Thanksgiving. And I just wanted to take a few minutes. I wrote this in my newsletter last week. But I just wanted to say truly, I mean, this career of, of ours is just so rewarding, because we get to help people every day. And the fact that people come here, and are taking our information. And, you know, just feeling safe and trusting it. And well. That just means the world to us. And on this week of gratitude. I just want to make sure that everybody who joins us at kidney stone diet.com understands how much Jeff and I are so grateful for your support, and for your love and your kindness and just this community in general. So I just wanted to thank you for that. Right. Yeah, absolutely.

Jeff Sarris
Yeah, lucky, are we grateful for your support for us and for others, as well sort of pay it forward. Like if you’re finding value here helping others get the scientifically valid the experiential knowledge that Jill has from over 25 years of doing so it means a lot because we want to the only reason to do this is to help people. And if we can’t reach people, we can’t help them. So we want to thank you, each and every one of you for that as well. Because every little bit means a lot. All right, so with that we were going to rewind a couple weeks and talk about poppy seeds because Joyce had brought up poppy seeds we we accidentally didn’t touch on that. Specifically, we touched on everything around it all the other topics relating to consuming calcium if you need throughout the day. If you missed that episode, it’s just a couple weeks ago, it would be called does calcium cancel out oxalates. But this week, we wanted to talk specifically about poppy seeds and for a few reasons. So I’ll just hand it over to you.

Jill Harris
Yeah. Joyce, from Joyce from Detroit. We’re going back to your question from a couple weeks ago. So Joyce is like, Jill, I like bacon. And I like me some poppy seeds. So I’m baking with it. And if you Google poppy seeds, guys, because Harvard didn’t study it. But if you Google poppy seed you’re gonna see it has, you know, over 1600 milligrams of oxalate. So Joyce is like what the heck, I like poppy seeds. And Joyce guess what, it’s one of my favorite things. I just love seeing them on something. I love it. So sometimes I’ll make my own everything but the bagel seasoning because I can’t use garlic. So I put all the other things in there. And I love seeing some poppy seeds on my food. So I hear you now there is a there is a source on the internet that gives how much oxalates in these poppy seeds. I don’t know who’s doing the research on this. I just know that Harvard didn’t and so when Harvard didn’t study a food, my advice is always this and it has not bitten me in the butt and 25 years. If something hasn’t been studied by Harvard have that food just eat normal portions of it. So Joyce is probably thinking but Jill it’s over 1600 milligrams and I’m gonna say I get a Joyce but it’s also in 100 gram portion size says this source. So you’re not having three ounces of poppy seeds on a cookie that’s not happening. But even so, if it is in fact 1600 milligrams for a three ounce portion of poppy seeds even a few of them gel are going to be a lot of oxalate and that’s true. It is going to be a lot of oxalate how much exactly I’m not dividing all that out. I don’t have the brain for that. So yes, it’s going to be higher Knox Lake, that kind of seasoning is going to be higher Knox Lake. But Joyce think about it. I’ve got a cookie. And I’m sprinkling a few seeds on there. Well, poppy seeds are small, so you’re gonna be sprinkled. I’m not worried about it. Let me tell you why. I’m not going to overeat poppy seeds. You might Joyce you might so you want to pay attention to it. And maybe if you’re having a few cookies or a muffin or whatever that Have some poppy seeds, you’re gonna pair that with your calcium calcium source. Okay. And Joyce’s original question is if I’m, if I am having it with a high calcium source, isn’t that going to lower the food? Can I still eat it? And I’m going to say yes. Joyce may then say this. Well, you’re telling us not to have spinach girl? Why can I have spinach once in a while? I mean, could you? Yes. Could you have spinach once a month? Yeah. Are you gonna make the stone having spinach once a month? Probably not. It’s once a month. What happens is people eat. And this could be you Joyce, you’re eating poppy seeds every day. Poppy Seed under your arm poppy seed in your hair and poppy seed. I don’t know what you’re doing. I would have them in a you know, a little sprinkle. If you’re nervous about it, because you’re over eating them. Definitely pair your calcium with it. But other than that, again, nobody’s nobody’s chugging down poppy seed. Okay, so I’m not too worried about it. If you’re overdoing it cut back on how much you’re eating. And yes, anytime you have a higher oxalate content, pairing it with calcium is going to help absorb that oxalate? How much exactly? I don’t know. Okay, it does lower it though. So that’s why we always want you to stay in your 100 milligrams or less oxalate bank account. Okay. So, and lately, too, you know what? We’ll adjust that on on another show? So that’s my answer to that. That makes sense.

Jeff Sarris
Yeah, it definitely does. And along those lines, we did have a question from Eric, who was curious how they test for actually in foods. It’s a voicemail, but I figured we can just sort of touch on briefly.

Jill Harris
So I’m not a scientist. I don’t know exactly how they do it. I do know this. It’s it’s complicated. To test foods for oxalate. It’s complicated. I don’t know the precise how they do it. You’d have to call up a lab and ask them for their explanation on how they do that. It is complicated. Why are there different oxalate amounts for the same food? Because you can have a spinach plant that grows in Mexico, and you can have one that grows in California, different amounts of sunlight, different soil conditions, different stuff. So you’re going to have different values. We know spinach is high. So that’s not the best example. But why the list very like they do. Was the research done correctly. was the what was the lab equipment calibrated the same as somebody calibrated it in another lab? All labs run differently? People? You’d have to ask a lab? How they do that? I don’t know. That’s above my paygrade. Thank God, I don’t want to really know. I do know, it’s complicated, though. I do know that.

Jeff Sarris
And everyone has. Everyone has their specialty that’s not yours. And you even said, Dr. Coe, even that’s not something that he would be able to answer just off the cuff. Unfortunately, we appreciate the question. But that is something that it’s just it’s a different lane. Because you guys, you guys take the data and use the information that the labs have provided using their methods. So it’s just a little a little different. But yeah, we appreciate the question, Eric, and Joyce, round two from Joyce. And for everyone out there who does have a question no matter the question. Remember that we don’t know what you don’t know. None of us collectively know what we don’t know. So it’s one of those things that we appreciate each and every one of you who call in and the number is 773-789-8763. Or you can send a voice memo to podcast at kidney stone diet.com. But we’re building this library of content together. So we appreciate all of your input feedback and working with us here honestly, in the comments, sort of continuing the conversation around these episodes. Through the voicemail through the email, just everything.

Jill Harris
I think I really think it’s marvelous that people call in it takes a lot of it takes a lot. I mean, that’s not you know, you people get nervous. I remember when my mom used to call in I found after she died I sent this on one of the shows. I found she wrote herself a little script like she was on Damn, Dinah Shore and that’s back in the day, folks are Merv Griffin. It’s like man, you ain’t on a real show. It’s just me and Jeff, you voted down. And so I know that people it takes a lot to call in a show and somebody’s going to talk about your question. So I really appreciate that people do that. It’s it’s extra. We really value that because, of course I could talk all day about kidney stone prevention. We don’t need to have people call in But I think it’s nice because what we’re trying to Jeff and I are always trying to build community. So it’s just so important to us. And I love that people call it It’s the highlight of our week. I will tell you that.

Jeff Sarris
Yeah, absolutely. So again, thank you everyone. And you can always go to kidney stone diet.com to dive deep find everything and all the premium products, the free products and access to everything. It’s sort of our, our switching station. It’s our operator, you can go there and find your way to whatever you need. But again, thank you all for tuning in, and we will see you next time.

Jill Harris
Thanks, Joyce. Thanks, Eric. Have a good day, guys.