Are Ham, Bacon and Deli Meat Bad for Kidney Stones?

Are ham, bacon, and deli meats bad for kidney stones? Let's talk about that.

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.

So, now today, nice cold cuts, deli meats, sub sandwiches, sort of like that whole category. What are we looking at with regards to kidney stones and kidney stone prevention when we're talking deli meats and bacon?

It's so funny because as an Italian who grew up in New York, we call them cold cuts. We're having cold cuts today. So, yes, all the deli meats, salami, bacon, ham.

What else did you say, Jeff?

Yeah, I mean…

Another three things. All of it, right?

Yeah, just a little bit of everything, deli meats being just yeah, the overarching category for everything.

Deli meats are delicious, but they are so, so high in sodium. Even when you get lower sodium, so people will say, "Well, Jill, I'm going to get turkey bacon. It's it's it's healthier." It's still so high in salt.

I just want you guys to recognize that. It doesn't mean you can not have turkey bacon. It doesn't mean you can't have bologna.

I never understood what that was. I used to love it as a kid, though. It doesn't mean you can't have these foods.

We just want to educate you in understanding

How much sodium is in these products. So, you could say, "Listen, Jill, I like a salami sandwich. I'm still going to have them." And I'm going to say, "That's great, Bert!

You can still have your salami sandwich, but instead of 20 pieces of salami on that hoagie or that Italian bread, could you put 10?" Because just lowering the portion–and we always talk about that here, portion not perfection because you may want to keep your favorite foods, that's great! Let's just pay attention to how much of the product you're having because as you lessen the slices,

There will be less sodium in there. People will tell me, this is very common, believe it or not, I talk to really smart people every day, but when it comes to food, I think the internet has just we've lost our rationale and just we've just lost it when it comes to nutrition. We don't know what to believe.

We've been told a million different conflictual things, so just things like, "Well, Jill,

You know, I'm I'm it's not that bad. It says two pieces are only this much sodium." But you're having 10 pieces. Or, this is very common, "You know, Jill, I had a bag of unsalt, a low-salt pretzels and, so, I'm eating low-salt." But not if it's the whole bag anymore!

It's not low-salt. So, it's always going to be: how many pieces of that cheese are you ordering on the Subway

Sandwich? First of all, I'm just going to say, Subway's cheese, you don't even taste it. We just like seeing the cheese on it, so you might want to just say, "Heck, I don't even want the cheese." That's going to automatically lower the sodium on that sandwich.

So, or you put a couple pieces of ham. Maybe you usually put five or six pieces, but now you're going to put a couple of pieces and maybe green peppers, and some onions, and maybe some vegetables on there.

Get a nice crunch, you lower your sodium, you still get to have ham, but you're also putting veggies on there to counterbalance some of the, you know, healthy versus unhealthier things. So, I think when it comes to deli, if you want to have it, you can certainly have it. I would ask you to pay attention to your total sodium needs for the day, or goal.

And we're asking people between 1,500 and 2,000 milligrams of sodium per day

For kidney stone health, heart health, kidney health, all the organs' health. So, lowering your sodium is very beneficial and healthy for you, overall, but in kidney stone disease, we're looking at lowering sodium because when we eat too much sodium, number one, we don't pee as much, and that's why you're puffy around the middle or your rings don't fit, or you're getting those marks around your socks, you know, on your ankle.

We're retaining fluids. We do that because we're eating too much salt. So, we can also increase our fluids by just lessening salt because we won't retain the fluids anymore, so that's great.

And then the other thing, which is so, so super important in kidney stone disease: the more sodium we eat, for many kidney stone formers, this will make our urine calcium high. High urine calcium

Increases your kidney stone risk. The more calcium you have floating around in your kidney, in the urine in your kidney, the more apt oxalate and phosphate find that calcium and connect to it and form stones. So, we do not want high urine calcium.

And up to 60% of kidney stone formers will have that. Lowering your sodium, which is one of the six goals of the Kidney Stone Diet, is going to help prevent kidney stones. And how do you know if where you are where you need?

You must do a 24-hour urine collection. Listen to this because this also is very common. "Jill, I've lowered my salt, but I'm still making stones." "Let me see the follow-up urine collection, Sarah." "Well, I didn't do it." "How do you know?" And I'm not being mean about this.

I'm I'm seriously asking, "How do you know you lowered your sodium?" Just because you stopped using a salt shaker doesn't mean you're on a low sodium diet. I talked to a patient today, "health nut,"

Quote-unquote, she says she is, her sodium was 4,000 milligrams a day. That's not a health nut, but that's somebody who's not aware. And she's thin, and she's fit, and she's all the things, but she's using a lot of packaged goods to get her protein needs met.

Protein bars, protein shakes. You can use these products, but make sure you're paying, turn it around, Buster Brown, and look at the sodium

On your nutrition label. You're aiming for 1,500 to 2,000 milligrams a day, not under. That's where we want it to be.

And, so, if you want a protein bar, and your protein bar is 250 milligrams of sodium every day, you can keep it, but you're going to have to pay attention to your sodium for the rest of the day. So, just because you don't use a salt shaker doesn't mean you're on a low-salt diet. You know if your salt your sodium goal is working to lower urine calcium

By doing a 24-hour urine collection. It's the only way you're really going to know. Also, tracking your sodium.

But what we think we're doing and how much we're really eating of a product, you'd be surprised. So, a urine collection is going to tell me, when I'm looking at it, exactly how much sodium you had that day. Pee don't lie!

So, I can always tell and patients are always shocked to see. And then when they write me later, they're like, "Jill,

I have no idea how much salt was in this product I'm using, this product I'm using. Now, I know." So, it's really interesting. I would say, out of all the Kidney Stone Diet goals, water is first, sodium is going to be second.

That's why it's the second goal of the Kidney Stone Diet. Oxalate, by the way, once you take away the highest oxalate foods, that's the last on the six goals. So, that's it, Jeff.

I think I got everything, Jeff. Did I miss anything?

No, you covered it all! And I think that's a good point, too, that oxalate is where we start. We hear "oxalate," this is a new word, this is a new category in our vocabulary.

So, then, we focus on oxalate when maybe–I mean, presumably–not even maybe or presumably, just the reason the goals are ordered in the way they are is because oxalate isn't the top. It's not the most important one. But, if you want to prevent kidney stones for good,

You can go to kidneystonediet.com and, right in the navigation, you'll see "How to Prevent Stones." And you will find all of the goals, and you can dive into the sodium goal, specifically, right there. And it is a robust resource that covers everything you need to know, specifically about sodium, with regards to kidney stones and everything that Jill talked about today.

So, I think with that, we'll wrap, and we'll see you next week.

Bye, everybody!