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.
Jeff Sarris
So we actually saw each other this past weekend in person. We had a big recording day, just a couple days ago. We completely refreshed the course. The Kidney Stone Prevention Course.
Same content, obviously, but just leveled up because the course has been out for a little bit and we wanted to give it a little shine, a little polish, a little refresh.
So yeah, that was fun. And little Finn, he’s so well behaved. I’m sitting there. So Jill, obviously is on the other side of the camera. I’m on behind the camera, but I’m sitting there and Finn comes up and he’s just got those big eyes that are just like “Hey, pet me. You wanna play?”
Jill Harris
Look at him.
Jill Harris
I mean, I don’t know how I get so lucky with animals. I swear to God. He’s such a beautiful little soul. He’s so funny. too. Often, you’ll find us if you just were eavesdropping in my little apartment, you’d hear us giggling together. He’s very funny. He tells the best jokes and he cheers me up when I’m sick.
So I mean, when I don’t feel well, which is a lot, he cuddles right up,. And I know every dog owner’s like, “They know.” They really do know.
So yeah, he’s just, he’s truly such a great companion. For me. I’m so glad because you know, when you have an animal that dies, as you know, Jeff, you’re like, Oh, God, never again. Well, here’s my never again, you know.
What am I supposed to do? I love having animals in my life.
Jeff Sarris
And he’s such a little ball of energy. He’s like, “Hey, do you want to play?” He’s like, “okay, no”No? Okay, I’ll just run around and spin in circles and do stuff here.”
That was just so much fun. I really liked seeing you and getting all that knocked out. So we wanted to update the course for a while. So, anyone who already has purchased the course, all the videos will be refreshed. It’ll be structured just a little bit differently for super simple access to exactly the information you need. And you can find that at kidneystonediet.com/course.
Jill Harris
Yes, very exciting. I mean, I’m telling you,I said to you this week and I’m looked like an afghan blanket. It needed some refreshing.
Jeff Sarris
That’s the beauty too, you’ve been doing this for 25 plus years. So it’s not like anything has changed suddenly, like, “oh, no, let me fix it.” Everything was perfect. So we didn’t have to rerecord it. But, it was just time time to make everything. Give it a little polish.
Ok, let’s dive into this week’s question.
Listener Voicemail
Hi, this is Margie from New York. I’d like to know, if you are eating a food high in oxalates, which I virtually never do. I usually stick to the low or medium foods with oxalates. When you drink let’s say a glass of milk with high oxalate foods. Do you have to drink? Let’s say a glass of milk. Eight ounces of milk before you’re eating the food that has a high oxalates or can you just sip away at the milk?
As you’re eating the food with high oxalate content must you be consuming the calcium with your high oxalate foods? Can you even drink, let’s say a glass of milk after you’re eating something with high oxalate?
Should it be at the same time?
I just don’t know whether you could do it ahead of time with it or after does it make a difference? Thank you so much. Hope to hear you answer my question.
Bye bye. Margie from New York.
Jill Harris
Margie from New York reminds me of my mom because she was Margie from New York. Or Margaret depending on if she people were mad at her. So yeah, hi, Margie.
Happy that you asked the question because now you know it’s funny. This I find very funny. So I will remind people that in 25 years no one has ever said when I asked them so what are you doing for calcium, “Jill, I get plenty of calcium we don’t even have to talk about it.”
There’s no person that has gotten or even thought about calcium, their entire life. Once past the age of five, nobody was doing anything with milk. So it’s just interesting to me.
So now when they get a kidney stone, they’re like, Okay, chill. Do I drink the milk? You know, at 7:15? Do I drink the milk at 7:14? It’s so interesting, right? Because now, it’s just like, when you stub your toe, you don’t think about your toe until something’s wrong with it. Right?
That’s what illnesses or disease so now Marge, she’s like, oh, man, when do I do this? How much? All excellent questions. And it’s very common that people do this. So say you’re going to and Margie said to she doesn’t eat high oxalate foods. And this gives me a little inroad to dive into. Remember, do not restrict yourself too much, please. We take away spinach, almonds, rhubarb, for those of you who are eating in the south all the time. But you know, even if sweet potatoes, potatoes, they’re higher in oxalate, but it doesn’t mean you can never have them again.
And actually Margie, if you’re like, “Yeah, I’d like to have a sweet potato,” that would be a perfect food to have some milk or non dairy milk, a calcium source to pair with. So how do you do this? If you’re so I’m going to say what I do, because they’re stone formers in my family, and I don’t want to add that to my medical list. So what I do is this, if I’m having say I’m having a quarter of a sweet potato, or even half a sweet potato, I think there’s 28 milligrams of oxalate and a half a cup of sweet potato, so say I’m gonna have that I have my milk with that food, Margie, if you want to have it right before, if you want to sip it during, or you wanted to have it after, the point is you want to have with the meal during meal time, doesn’t have to be you take a bite, take a sip, take a bite, take a sip doesn’t have to be like that.
But you can’t have your high oxalate meal and then two hours later go Oh, holy braciole, I forgot my calcium source and then think you’re gonna have it at that, you know, it’s not going to catch up to that oxalate you’ve already started to digest, obviously.
So you just want to have it with the meal, Margie. That’s it. Before, after, during, but within the meal time. Now, theeven more excellent question you asked was how much do I need? If I’m having say I’m having some fiber, one cereal that is higher and oxalate look at your Harvard list. I am going to use a whole glass of milk a whole cup of milk for that cereal. Because it’s really higher in oxalate.
If I’m having something that has like less than 10 milligrams of oxalate, I may not want to waste my whole cup of calcium on that food. I may not want to, I may know I’m having some soy later on. And I’m going to add my cup of milk to that. So if I’m just having a little bit of oxalate, like just say I’m throwing this out less than 10 milligrams of oxalate, I may just have half a glass of milk, or maybe I may not have any. And I’ll pair it with something later. So I’m kind of thinking about my daily meals because I’m meal plan so I know what I’m going to eat each day pretty much.
And I have a great Kidney Stone Diet Meal Plan, it has all the oxalate figured out for you. And so what I’ll do is I look at each meal, say, I don’t think I want to waste my calcium source on this meal because there’s barely any oxalate in it. But I’m going to push it over to maybe a snack later, I’ll have half a cup there, half a cup here, a whole cup there. So I do it based upon the food I’m eating each time I’m eating, you may say that’s all too much for me, I’m having a glass or a cup or a half a cup of my calcium based product with each meal. So I don’t forget, you could do it that way.
Some people are gonna say I’m gonna have three cups, one with each meal, but turn it around Buster Brown and look how much calcium is in your serving size, especially the fortified plant milk. Some of them have over 400 milligrams of calcium each time. And if you’re a guy or a woman who has not hit menopause yet, you only need 1000 milligrams of calcium. You Each day, so don’t go overboard. So look at the portion size you’re using. Look at how much calcium will be in that portion size. And pair it accordingly.
If you have breakfast, and there’s less than five milligrams of oxalate in your breakfast, maybe you don’t even want calcium in there, but maybe you do you have to decide. Am I being clear? Jeff? You know, it can get confusing. That’s why it’s a good question.
Jeff Sarris
Yeah, absolutely. Because we, we sort of innately want that perfect system, perfect formula. But that just doesn’t exist. So it’s a framework of how to think about it.
Jill Harris
And you’re absolutely right. And also, I’m just gonna I giggle to myself a little because, you know, no one’s thought about calcium, their entire adult life. And now because we’ve been through this trauma of a kidney stone, we’re really focused on it. And we tend to, because with my illness, God knows I’ve gotten really heavy about it, where some days, I’m just like, Jill rise above, man, you’re getting way too much micro into this and making it harder than it is. So the overall picture here, for all of you is this, get your calcium needs met every day. If you’re on vacation, and you missed a day of calcium, it’s okay, you didn’t make a stone because you missed a day of calcium, you miss three decades of calcium.
So that’s when I say rise above and don’t get to like, making so much pressure on yourself or beating yourself up. We all know I hate that for you. So, you know, it’s okay, if you’re not perfect every single day, it’s the New Year, everyone is very focused on being perfect. And when we are focused on being perfect, that just leads to more anxiety, and it also leads to impossible. Management of diet, meaning Nobody here is perfect, you’re gonna go out once in a while you’re not going to get your calcium needs met. Some of you actually bring like a thermos of flax milk. When you go out to eat, you don’t have to do that. Just you didn’t get your calcium with your lunch. It’s okay, so choose the lower oxalate meal. So but I love her question, have your calcium containing product, whether it’s non dairy or dairy, milk, orange juice, whatever you’re doing, and just have it in that meal frame. But it doesn’t have to be exactly each buy, you’re taking a sip of calcium, it will all work in that meal.
And you don’t have to waste a whole cup of milk each time you’re drinking each time you’re eating something because it may not even be a high oxalate meal. The point is you get up to your goal, whether it’s 1000 for men and pre menopause women, and post menopause, women get up to 1200. And don’t go over and do not take more than 500 milligrams at a time. Okay, so don’t some men will say, Jill, I’m just going to drink three cups of milk in the morning, don’t do that your body can absorb it all. And that excess calcium winds up in your urine. And that increases your stone risk so excellent question, Margie from New York. Love it. Love it.
Jeff Sarris
And if you’re out there with a question, the number is 773-789-8763. Because we’d love to feature all of your voices, as many people as we can. This is so helpful to have people call in because we can hit things from different angles you might not think about and you have the questions like Jill is here to help as many people as possible. And if you have that question, there’s probably at least someone if not many people out there who have a very similar question. So we really appreciate each and every one of you who’ve called in.
And if you liked this video, we would love it if you give it a thumbs up. If you haven’t already subscribed, subscribe because we’re trying to reach as many people as possible and every little bit helps build the credibility and the trust within this platform for others to come in and understand that this is this is the place where you can get valid, scientific proven over decades of information. So we appreciate each and every one of you. And if you want to dive deeper again, kidneystonediet.com, you can find everything. For those of you who’ve asked we have a Patreon patreon.com/kidneystonediet, no extra content, just ways to support the show, and even little things. We never really mentioned it but all of Jill’s favorite products are right below in the description in the video. We make a few nickels every time you click through on those.
So if you do want to support the show, even in any way like that, that’s also a possibility but so much is always free. And that’s the goal. That’s the plan. We try to do as much as we can and reach as many people. So with that, I think we’re up. Thanks again for tuning in.
Jill Harris
Folks press that red button because it helps us get higher in the rankings. We really appreciate it and that’s a great gift to give us.
Jeff Sarris
See you next time!
Jill Harris
Thank you Margie.
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