Will peanut butter give me kidney stones?

Will peanut butter give me 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, fellow student, Jeff Sarris.

And I'm Jill Harris, your kidney stone prevention nurse, and I'm totally psyched to do this video, because it's peanut butter. Who doesn't like peanut butter, man?

Yeah, and for anyone who's new, Jill has spent 26 years helping thousands of patients prevent kidney stones so you don't have to deal with any of the pain and suffering in the future. So, why don't we dive in to peanut butter?

Okay, peanut butter. So, will peanut butter cause kidney stones? Well, just like spinach and almonds, if you're eating it every day, it sure can.

And so, many bodybuilders, many keto people, many low-carb people in general, will tell me this. And now they're stone formers, "Jill, well, I just would take the jar, put the spoon in, and just watch a show and just gobble it down because I'm on keto!" Well, you know, I'm not a fan of it, anyway, just doing that. I'm, but you know, I'm a pain in the ass, as we all know.

But, peanut butter, two tablespoons has almost 30 mg of oxalate. And most people are not only eating two tablespoons, 'cause peanut butter is delicious. Also, it has a lot of sugar, can have some salt in it.

So, we've got to watch all of it. Now, people on keto are definitely eating a lower-sugar peanut butter, for sure. But, here's the deal, it's portion, not perfection.

Can you have peanut butter and still be kidney stone-free? 100%, 100% you can.. I've plenty of my patients.

I bring peanut butter back, in fact, because it's delicious, and well a lot of people enjoy it. So, I tell them, "If this is something that you can just, you know, basically have one tablespoon on some bread, two tablespoons, and just you get 100 mg of oxalate a day, that's just going towards your goal. Fine." I would also, which it pairs real nicely with, have some low-fat milk or whatever you're doing with your milk or plant milk, not cashew or almond, but have it with some a calcium product.

A lot of people like putting maybe a spoonful of peanut butter in their Greek yogurt. I make a parfait that I'll make Greek yogurt and low-sodium cottage cheese, I put it in my little Cuisinart. I put it in the freezer for about 20 minutes, then I get some peanut butter and I put a layer of peanut butter, about a tablespoon, and then I will put a little chocolate shell on top.

Delicious! Delicious! But there's a lot of calcium in what the cottage cheese and the Greek yogurt, plus nice protein, right?

So, I can get away with it. And I do have stone formers in my family. I have never had them.

I follow the diet just as you guys do, so I pay attention to oxalate. I haven't had spinach for decades. And I don't eat almonds as well.

So, what I'm saying is you certainly can still eat peanut butter, but here's the other thing. Some people are like, "Jill, I've had such horrible experiences with kidney stones. I've been septic, I was in the I lost the kid- kidney because of kidney stones.

I'm not going near peanut butter." And that's perfectly fine. You don't have to have peanut butter, but you also don't have to never have it again. So, I just You can have peanut butter.

Look at the Harvard oxalate list, which is on my website at kidneystonediet.com. Look up how much Jeff made a searchable list there, and you can just type it in, and it will tell you. How much ox- Jeff, type it in.

How much exactly is in it, oxalate and peanut butter? What does Harvard say? Two tablespoons?

I because I think it went up a little when they re-did it. And then, a lot of people are afraid to have peanut butter, so they have substituted sunflower seed butter, because we know sunflower seeds are a lot lower than peanuts are in oxalate. Go ahead, Jeff.

Yeah, so peanut butter, reduced fat peanut butter is 16 mg per tablespoon.

Yeah, so 16 + 16 is 32? Yeah, so it's 32. So, you know, it adds up, but so you still have, you know, whatever, 68 mg of oxalate for the day.

It's very doable. You guys can have it, pair it with calcium. But if you're too afraid to have peanut butter, not a judgment, a fact, as many will say, "Jill, there's no way in hell," then please have SunButter.

A lot of you, and pay attention to sugar and salt in these products. Turn it around, Buster Brown, and look and find the lower-sodium, lower-added-sugar renditions of these products. I, personally, use PBfit 2, which you can find on my favorite things at kidneystonediet.com.

I have it. And Jeff also has a link, typically, to the favorite things article where I discuss the things that I like from the kitchen for a kidney stone diet. And…

Yeah, right in the description of this video or podcast.

Yes, thank you. And so I have I use PBfit 2. I don't use it that much, but the reason I use it is two tablespoons of peanut butter is 200 calories.

I don't want 200 calories from that. I don't like peanut butter that much, so I use the PBfit 2, and two tablespoons of that is only 60 calories 'cause they it's de- it's dehydrated, it's a powder, and then you make it a peanut butter by just adding water, but they stripped away the fat, and so that's why it's so less so many less calories.

Now, because they did that, it could be a little higher in oxalate, so that's so be careful of that. I don't want people saying, "Oh, look at this. I'm going to have a whole jar of the dehydrated peanut butter." Don't do that.

That has not been studied. I would assume it's a little higher in oxalate, so just stick to the portion size, and I maybe have powdered peanut butter a couple times a month. I'm not eating that every day.

Anyway, but I did use it for that parfait I was talking about, which is delicious. I posted that in the Facebook group the other day. All right.

And so, peanut butter, have it if you want it. What else was I saying? Jeff's like, "I don't know, girl, I fell asleep about 5 minutes ago."

No, not at all. But, yeah, I mean, we're talking about oxalate and, yeah.

Oh, oh, I know! Granola! So, a lot of you are choosing, "Ooh, Jill, I see this granola butter!

It's delicious!" So, you're using that as a substitute. Guys, that's so high in calories, and it would be It is delicious. So, the only reason I bring up the calories, that's not part of the Kidney Stone Diet, but I'm working with people with weight loss all the time, and they're eating things like, "Well, it's not peanut butter, Jill, so it's low oxalate," but they'll tell me they've gained so much weight 'cause they're choosing lower-oxalate renditions of the things they gave up, but they're not And then, they're overeating it.

So, things like that granola butter, which if you Google, you'll see what I'm talking about, it is delicious, and it's very caloric, and people are typically not having just two tablespoons of things. They're overeating. So, I'm just saying this as a side note for all my kidney stone formers that are struggling with weight, turn it around, Buster Brown, and look at your calories.

Many people on a low-oxalate diet will start incorporating low-oxalate foods, example: rice. And now, they're eating two cups of rice with every meal. Well, yeah, you're going to gain weight from that!

Of course, it's caloric, right? So, there's a lot of things people do that you wouldn't think about, so I'm always kind of putting them in these videos to make sure that people I get some information out there. I'm just telling you what I hear every single day on the phone.

So, peanut butter, guys, you can certainly bring that back into your diet if you can eat it responsibly, 100%. So, please bring it back. It's about 30 mg of oxalate for two tablespoons.

Have it with milk, you will lower the oxalate in the product when you bind it with calcium. Exactly how much? Who the hell knows, but it will be lower at least.

And you have 100 mg of oxalate to play with unless your doctor has told you otherwise, and that would only be if you're a gastric bypass patient specifically, or you have bowel issues specifically. Now, I'll just say one more thing, "Well, Jill, I don't have those things, but my doctor told me 50 mg of oxalate." The doctor is being too restrictive.

If there's no medical reason why you're being told that, I'm going to say this as a nurse, I don't override a doctor's order, but I would push back on your doctor. A lot of them have just picked a number out of the air. And now patients really are restricted because the doctor just generically set a number.

I'm being conservative when I tell you 100 mg. Dr. Coe always says, "They could have a little bit more." I'm like, "Let's just leave it like this, Fred, because this has been working for three decades, so let's not mess with it." So, I'm just saying, folks, okay?

Please, if your doctor has said 50 mg of oxalate a day, and you don't have any medical conditions that would make that necessary, push back. "Well, doc, I heard 100 is pretty much what everyone's doing." "Oh, okay." You'll see, they'll say, "Oh, okay, 100." They just They just pick a number sometimes. Sometimes 20, it's ridiculous!

Then you're not eating no fruits and vegetables, folks! That's not good! Then you're going to be sucking down rice 'cause it has 1 mg of oxalate, and what do you do?

You have diabetes, that's not good. That's going to mess up your A1C. Oh, my god, the things I see.

So, let's just leave it at that before I go way down a windy road, Jeff.

No, that's perfect. But for anyone who wants to dive in to the Kidney Stone Diet, there's a Kidney Stone Prevention Course, there's meal plans, there's tons and tons of free resources on the website at kidneystonediet.com where you can benefit from Jill's 26 years of experience with thousands and thousands of kidney stone patients.

So, if you want to prevent stones, head to kidneystonediet.com and we will see you next week.

Everybody, have a great week! Bye!