Protein Powders in 2026: What I Tell Patients Now

Protein powders. What is Nurse Jill telling her patients now about them? 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. Nurse, nurse, nurse.

So, today we're talking protein powders and what's what's the current landscape? What's your advice currently? Like you work with patients every single day helping them prevent kidney stones, but

Protein is a big part of like sort of our lifestyle now, just holistically as just a society and protein powders tend to satisfy that goal. So, what are What are you telling your patients right now?

It's interesting and this is, yes, a very common thing in the last I don't know, 5 years, but it's really peaked in the last couple. You know, if you're on social media, and you know, I obviously follow a lot of fitness and a lot of nutrition and fitness things. So, I know what you're being told there.

But, since I'm in this industry, I know who to pay attention to and I know who not to pay attention to. But, the problem is y'all don't. And so, we are being we are being marketed to big time.

Now, listen, right away, I do use protein powder, so I'm not here not to tell you not to use them. I want you to use them safely.

But, I do have to stress this. First of all, my kidney stone patients, some of them are older and they are not getting enough protein. And it's a big deal because what happens to us—I'm going to be 63 in a couple months, so I'm us, I'm us'n, I'm in this demographic.

We get older, we fall,

We break a hip, we get pneumonia, and then we say goodbye. This is very common, fall risk for senior citizens. That's why, as you get older, one of the biggest questions, one of the number one questions you're asked on an intake form when you go to the doctor is ha- have you fallen recently?

I knew I was getting old when I saw that on my medical form. I was like, "Oh, here we go, I'm here."

So, protein powders: The internet's going to make you seem like if you're not getting 200 g of protein a day, why get up? And a lot of you come to me saying, "Jill, I can't meet these goals." And then, a lot of you, like I said, are not getting enough protein, period. So, we want to get normal amounts of protein.

Even bodybuilders, if you're bodybuilding like I do,

You want to get normal amounts of protein. I have a great article on the website, "How Much Total Protein Do I Need?" Jill, Kidney Stone Diet, you'll get it right on search for that. And

Meat protein is a goal of the Kidney Stone Diet. We don't want you getting too much meat protein, specifically, and you can read about that on my website. But, for those of you who don't eat meat, you are subbing a lot of protein with these with these powders, and bars, and shakes, and all of that.

Is that a problem for your kidney stone risk?

Well, let's go down the list. Some of these powders, especially for my vegans and vegetarians, can be high in oxalate. So, typically, if you're a kidney stone former, you want to pay attention to the source of protein you're getting.

I would suggest pea protein. Do not take protein powders that have

Spinach in them. That's number one. Also, for my vegans and vegetarian kidney stone formers, do not use almond milk or cashew milk as your base.

And a lot of people in the fitness industry are definitely using those two plant milks. Do not use them as your smoothie base. I have a whole smoothie website a smoothie ebook on my website for Kidney Stone Diet

Kidney stone diet patients, and if I'm doing something that doesn't contain milk products, whey, then I use things like flax milk, or pea milk, or coconut milk for the smoothie. So, I suggest you do those things, too. A lot of you, before you met me,

Were using chocolate flavored. Don't do that. Higher in oxalate.

So, vanilla, unfortunately, for you chocolate lovers, is going to be your new best friend. I'm so happy I love vanilla. I don't care as much about chocolate, so.

Any other flavor, except chocolate. Peanut butter, watch out for that, too, so, you know, because that can be higher in oxalate and it will be a little concentrated, obviously,

Because it's in a dehydrated form. So, you want to stick with other flavors, not chocolate, not peanut butter. A lot of protein powders are very high in sodium.

"Well, Jill, I like my protein powder. Wh- What? I can't have it no more?" Work that sodium into your daily budget.

The daily budget for sodium is 1,500, and I always give the 1,500 to 2,000 mg a day

Because I don't want people going under 1,500. Okay? So, pay attention to the sodium in your powders.

I happen to have one of my powders has a little bit higher sodium, but I'm on such a low sodium diet, I have room for it in my day if I decide to have that protein powder. Added sugar: most of you already know to stay away from protein powders that have a lot of added sugar, and most don't even anymore.

Okay. So, here's a thing that's very popular. A lot of people are using the yogurts, the drinkable yogurts that have protein, the drinkable filtered, ultra filtered milks.

Now, I happen to use one of those ultra filtered milks. It's made by Fairlife and it's called the Core Power Milkshake. One of those alone,

The nutrition label will say, "This is one serving, the bottle." But one of those servings alone has almost 700 mg of calcium. So, you do not want all that calcium at once. You won't absorb it all.

So, even though I use that product, that's two servings for me. So, it's about 350 mg of calcium when I'm using that product per day.

And 26 g of protein for me. Milk, yeah. So, that's a great product, but a lot of you in those drinkable Chobani yogurts or things like that, turn it around, Buster Brown, and look at how much calcium is in the product you're having.

If it's a super high calcium amount in the one serving that the label says you're having,

Split it in half, please. Split it in half. All right.

Protein powders, bone broths, all of these things, collagen-based protein powders: there's an amino acid called hydroxyproline that's in collagen and that can convert to oxalate

In your body. Please get rid of the collagen-based products, all of them, and in the protein drinks. I'm going to tell you this, too: there's not a lot of great research that's saying collagen is doing anything for your hair and your fingernails.

Go look at that, just so you know, and that's why you see all these collagen products on the discounted shelf at Marshalls. Okay.

Now, here's something you may not love me saying, but that don't stop me, as we all know. A lot of you, to lose weight, are using protein are using protein drinks as a meal substitute. "What?

What's wrong with that, Jill? I'm doing it and I've lost 5 lb in 6 days." That protein drink is doing nothing

Except lowering your calories every day. You're skipping a meal. Why do you care, Jill, that I'm doing that?

Because you will gain that weight back. There's nothing special about that prone protein shake. You are just lowering calories.

Okay? It's not sustainable. Now, if you want a protein drink

Because you can't get to lunch because you're so busy, I get that. But as a weight loss measure, not a fan. Okay?

And how does that increase kidney stone risk, Jill? What's the big deal? Because you'll gain the weight back, cuz you'll start binging cuz you're so hungry, and then ex- excess weight also can lead to kidney stones.

So, if you're trying to lose weight, do that safely, please. Following the Kidney Stone Diet, if you follow the goals of that diet, of my diet here, you will lose weight because you're lowering salt, you're lowering added sugar. You're eating things within portion.

Okay.

Yeah, because that's sort of an un- an unspoken sort of un- what? Sort of an unappreciated side effect, say, of pursuing the Kidney Stone Diet.

We have a whole page. Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, like, generally, like you said, like, we're upping the protein for very specific reasons. It's not just arbitrary, usually. But the side effect being that, oh, you're preventing stones and you're getting the results that you want outside of stones, I think, is like the unsung hero of the Kidney Stone Diet.

It is why I run out of my bed every morning. Because when I hear in my inbox every day, "Jill, I've lowered my blood pressure medication." A lot of people get off of it. "My A1c is back to normal.

I was pre-diabetic for years, just couldn't budge it. I lost weight. I wasn't even paying attention to it."

Onward, onward, onward. Here's the here's why: there's nothing special about the Kidney Stone Diet. It's a set of goals that will have you be healthy eat eating healthier.

What's different, and why people lose weight with it, is because you looking better is now not the dominant theme in your weight loss journey. You never making another kidney stone?

Well, you won't give a damn about a Clark Bar no more, because you never want to go through that pain again. So, if I just hung a shingle on my shack that said, "Weight loss, and here's goals to what I'm asking you to do," and you just want to lose weight cuz you have a wedding coming up, I'm going to tell you right now, you might look cute for the wedding and you may lose some weight, but after that wedding ceremony, you're going to go right back to what you used to do.

This is a very important reason

Why kidney stone formers finally lose the weight they've been trying to their whole life, because, now, you have an important reason why. Without an important reason why, we human beings really don't change too much. Believe me.

I know. Okay? So, when we have a negative consequence, such

Like kidney stones—the pain, the stents, the surgeries, the financial burden, the time lost of work, all the things your spouse is going through, too, by the way, cuz they're petrified of this for you—well, then you'll listen to drinking more water, lowering sodium. So, the side effects of you eating better, well, I could roll them out all day long, and this is why I love what I do.

Recommended Low-Oxalate Protein Powders and Alternatives

So,

"What can I have, old lady?" Well, if you are able to handle whey, which is you know, protein powders are typically made with whey and they don't bother your stomach, please use that, okay? So, you can use protein powders, pay attention to the added sugar and the salt in them. Use the ones that work for you.

And also, there are egg white powders, there are pumpkin seed powders. I use pumpkin seed powders: no sugar, no sodium, lower oxalate than like almond stuff. And I use that to bake with.

I have so many great baked goods in my meal plan, which are high protein and low oxalate. And so, that's a wonderful thing. No salt in that.

That's why I use it so much.

Pea powders, pea-based protein powders. I will also use whey isolate. I can't use just regular whey, it can bother my stomach, depending on the day.

So, I use whey isolate, where the where it's been stripped away, and we don't I don't have stomach issues with that. That's great for like Also, it's it's fun to get some protein and drink your water. You can just put it in a water and have that.

Again,

Pay attention to the sodium in those. And then, so, I also have a I just have to plug this cuz it's so popular: a low-oxalate protein bar cookbook that I use all these protein powders in, so there's something for everybody in there. So, it's I want to explain this to you guys.

I know you're looking for protein, especially if you're like me and you're lifting weights. You definitely need

Enough protein. You just have to be paying attention to how you're using protein powders and the safest ones to use for a kidney stone former. So, you have my blessing in using them.

Just don't use them without paying attention to the things I'm talking about here. Otherwise, I think that's good, Jeff.

Yeah, for sure. I think that's a good spot to wrap. Again, you can go to kidneystonediet.com/protein for everything protein, including the protein calculator and everything that you possibly need.

And then, while you're there, you might want to check out the All-Access Pass where you can get Jill's daily meal plans, 7 days a week, 4 meals a day—breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner—to just help you have the inspiration to stay on track

And prevent future kidney stones. With that, we'll wrap and we'll see you next week.

Bye, everybody. Have a great week.