Well, there are there's lots of research that says it will reduce oxalate. If you boil if you boil oxalate if you boil vegetables, you can reduce your oxalate, for sure. So, you might say, "Well, why don't you tell us to do that, Grandma?
Why don't you?" I don't tell you to do that because if you're leaching out the oxalate from those plants, guess what else you're leaching out? All kinds of good vitamins and nutrients. So I'm not a fan of it.
I mean, how bad do you need to have First of all, does that mean I can have spinach, Jill? By the time you boil that spinach, first of all, it would be as big as my pupil, and there would be there would be nothing left of anything. What why would you eat it?
Because then all the nutrients are in that water. So, no. Look, people always This is a big one.
People are always like, "Well, I read, and I read, and I research, and it says that I can really reduce the oxalate level in my vegetables if I boil the hell out of them." I don't want people doing that. Here's why. I want you to get all the nutrients out of your vegetables.
That means there's going to be some oxalate in there. It's not going to kill you, folks. Yes, there is a very small, tiny population that can that have that has hyperoxaluria.
They have that, okay? I've never seen one patient in my practice with that, 26 years, by the way. So, that's how rare it is.
I don't I never deal with that. And you could say, "Well, Boubou Kitty does on the internet." Well, go to Boubou Kitty. If that's what she or he is dealing with, then you need to go follow them.
I don't deal with it. Not that I don't want to deal with it, I've never had to deal with it. Now, I've had some primary hyperoxaluria folks, but it's genetics.
That's what's going on, okay? It's not because they ate too much spinach. They have genetic things going on.
But I've never had somebody in my practice I've had people in my practice that, you know, their oxalate is about 125, we want oxalate levels under 30 on our urine collections. But after they worked with me for one session, the next time we did their follow-up urine collection on their number two call, and then that was it, they were on their road, their oxalate was 22, and Dr.
Coe actually has a case study on it on his kidneystonediet.uchicago.edu site. So, I've never I've never had a kidney stone patient where I couldn't help them lower their oxalate. It's the easiest thing in the world.
Easiest thing. Yet, that's what everyone's coming to me for. "Oh, my god, Jill, my oxalate!
Oh, my god, there's nothing to eat! What am I going to do? I'm going to boil the shit out of my vegetables!" You don't have to, Fran!
You don't have to! You just have to stop eating spinach every day and not get your calcium needs met every day. That's what you need to do.
You need to get rid of almond milk, almond bread, almond flour, almonds, almonds, almonds, okay? And then you eat all other foods in normal portion size. There's other foods I take away, maybe there's five, chia seeds, cashews, rhubarb, I don't take away beets, they're higher in oxalate, but you're going to have a few as a side dish, that's fine.
Get calcium with that meal. Boiling your vegetables in order to reduce oxalate, I'm it's not that I'm just not a fan of it, you just don't need to do it. Because you're going to lose all the nutrients and vitamins and all the fun things that come along with the oxalate.
It's perfectly okay. Most of you, unless you have malabsorption issues from bowel disease or bariatric surgeries, you're able to have up to 100 milligrams of oxalate a day. That's a lot of oxalate, folks.
Most of my patients get nowhere near that. And so, you can clearly have some things that are higher in oxalate. Thanksgiving is this week.
Wait, well, it's not because when we put this out, it will be past, but Thanksgiving just came by, and I have a lot of people, "Jill, but I really want those candied yams." I'm more worried about the sugar than the oxalate in the yams, and I'm not even worried about the sugar because it's it's a holiday, enjoy yourself, get right back, enjoy your treat, get back on the street the next day, that's it!
It's not a big deal. Oxalate is the least worrisome problem when it comes to lowering your risk for kidney stones. The reason everybody freaks out about it, not a judgment, just a fact, is because what gave you the stone was you were eating so much oxalate.
But now after you learn by going through our YouTube channel, reading newsletters, going to kidneystonediet.com, going to the Facebook, all the free things we do, once you learn that it's the least important part of the Kidney Stone Diet by taking away a handful of foods, the hard work comes, folks, when you're trying to lower salt, lower added sugar, drink more fluids, get your calcium needs meet met, and stop eating a side of beef every day.
That's that's what we're talking about here. That's the hard part. Oxalate, easy.
Not a problem. Oxalate's easy. So, "Well, Jill, I hear you.
I hear you, but I still want to do it." God bless, you're grown. Do you do you. If you want to boil the heck out of those vegetables to lower the oxalate, just know you're also losing other nutrients from that vegetable, which is the whole reason you're eating them, right?
So, that's all I'm saying, you don't have to do that. If you want to, be my guest. I would never do that cause I really want all those nutrients that are in my fruits and vegetables.
When I eat fruits and vegetables, I feel so proud of myself and so good because I know it's fueling my body. You know, I'm 61 now, I have a lot of energy for somebody who is 61, and it is because I work out, I eat well, and I really do the things that I'm asking you guys to do. And that's why I say, I know it's hard, but where else do you want to put in the work every day?
Where else, what else matters? I've been really Oh, and here's another thing, Jeff. There was a comment on it was a comment I just posted and somebody said, it wasn't the first time somebody said this, they said, "You know, if she's so healthy, if this diet is so healthy, and I'm following this diet, why did she get cancer?
Why does she have stage four cancer?" And actually it wasn't nice, it was very not nice what they said. So I wrote back and I said, "How about looking at it this way? I'm still here.
The people that I went through this journey with my cancer journey, all the friends I met at Sloan Kettering when I would travel there to get my chemo, all the friends I met at Northwestern when I was getting chemo here, too, they're dead. A lot of them had other medical conditions because they weren't nourishing their body, they weren't exercising.
So maybe, I flip it around, maybe I'm still here because I was super healthy going into that treatment. But the point is, sometimes people eat healthy and still get cancer. It was just an ignorant comment, quite frankly, because people get sick.
They just do. People get sick, even if they eat well or move well or whatever. So, I'm just saying, I feel really happy when I'm nourishing my body, and that's why I want you guys to eat fruits and vegetables.
I'm on a mission, as you know, this year to eat more of them or eat them because you're not eating them at all. And in my humble opinion, please don't boil the heck out of them just to get rid of some oxalate that if you just ate a little bit less of the product, you'd get rid of more oxalate than you're trying to boil out, and you'd save all the nutrients.
I hope that makes sense. What do you think, Jeff?
