In this conversation, Jeff Sarris and Jill Harris discuss dietary considerations for individuals with kidney stones, focusing on breakfast options. Jill shares insights from her experience with patients, emphasizing the importance of hydration, calcium intake, and managing oxalate levels. They explore various breakfast recipes and substitutions that cater to different dietary preferences while ensuring they align with kidney stone prevention. The discussion highlights the need to balance oxalate intake with other dietary factors such as salt and sugar, ultimately encouraging listeners to adopt a holistic approach to their diet.
Takeaways
- Breakfast is an important meal, but not mandatory.
- Many people default to oatmeal for breakfast.
- Hydration and calcium intake are crucial for kidney stone prevention.
- Avoiding high oxalate foods like spinach and almonds is key.
- Substituting white flour with oat flour increases fiber and protein.
- Meal planning can provide a variety of breakfast options.
- It’s important to focus on overall dietary balance, not just oxalate.
- Different individuals may have different dietary needs and preferences.
- Jill offers numerous breakfast recipes in her meal plan.
- Focusing on salt and sugar reduction can improve overall health.
00:00 Breakfast and Kidney Stones: An Introduction
02:31 Understanding Breakfast Choices for Kidney Stone Prevention
05:23 Substitutions and Alternatives in Breakfast Recipes
08:45 The Role of Oxalates in Kidney Stone Formation
11:27 Broader Dietary Considerations Beyond Oxalates
Jeff Sarris (00:00)
So I have a kidney stone. What can I eat for breakfast?
We’re talking maybe the most important meal of the day. I think it’s debatable, but breakfast. I mean, we love our breakfast foods. It’s, it’s just sort of a magic to that. You have your extra like maybe some sweet and things you don’t normally get for lunch or dinner, but with kidney stones, how does that change how we should look at breakfast? What can we actually eat when we have kidney stones?
Jill Harris (00:25)
Well, here’s what I’ve learned in 30 years almost talking to patients. Y’all are just eating oatmeal or a spinach smoothie with almond milk. That’s what y’all are doing every day. Well, Jill, I’ve eaten this oatmeal for 32 years. The same thing every single day. Not even a friggin’ berry is in the oatmeal. It’s just oatmeal. So, and then a lot of my patients say, I don’t eat breakfast. And they’ll be like, I don’t eat breakfast. Are you gonna tell me I have to eat breakfast? No. If you notice, the Kidney Stone Diet goals are just that. It’s a set of goals.
We tell you we don’t want you to go above this for salt and added sugar. Get your calcium. Certainly hydrate. Don’t eat too much meat, but certainly have it if you like and pay attention to oxalate. But don’t freak out about it because it’s not that big of a deal once you take away spinach and almonds. And so the reason I like the goals is because you all have your own lifestyle. You don’t want to eat breakfast. Don’t eat breakfast.
But here’s what I’ll have to say. It doesn’t take away what I’m saying. You don’t want to eat breakfast, don’t eat breakfast. But here’s something that’s very common. Well, Jill, I don’t eat breakfast. I have lettuce for lunch. I have a dinner and, you know, and then I say, and maybe the person’s like two, 250, 300 pounds. And I say, well, what are you doing for the rest of it? I’m like, well, Jill. So what I have found is, a lot of people that don’t eat breakfast because they think they’re going to save calories there, they’re overeating them at nighttime when they’re watching their shows. Okay?
So I have spent many of my years not eating breakfast and within the last five years I do eat breakfast. I do what works for me. Jeff does what works for him. And you, dear viewer, please do what works for you. So this is not a video about you must eat breakfast. I’m glad Jeff prefaced that. But there’s so much you can eat for breakfast. So now listen to what I do eat for breakfast. So I make my own breakfast. Usually, usually you’re gonna be surprised. There’s one of two things I do. If I’m having breakfast with my coffee, I will have one of my baked goods lately.
I have had, and when I tell you this is good folks, I’m not lying, because if it wasn’t that good, I wouldn’t bring it up. I have, it was just put into the meal plan, it’s called a pumped up protein scone, pumpkin protein scone something, you know, I make up all kinds of names. 20 grams of protein, nice and dense, that’s why I called it a scone, and no added sugar, and when I tell you it’s pumpkin-y, pumpkin spicy, it is. I make it with oat flour, so it’s kind of like oatmeal. I just bake it. Delicious. 20 grams of protein. There’s fiber in there. I make it with pumpkin protein powder, pumpkin seed protein powder. Delicious. That’s new in the meal plan.
In the meal plan, we have almost 70 different breakfasts. Some for vegans, some for vegetarians, some for meat eaters, whatever you want. So I’m just going to give you a list of all kinds of things you can have for breakfast. Oatcake Berry Bake. And you’re going to see, because remember, I’m eating everything in my meal plan. There’s going to be a lot of baked goods because that’s what I like for breakfast. If I eat breakfast later, then I’m usually having like a dinner type thing. Like today, I woke up at five o’clock. I had breakfast at ten and it was like a full on turkey dinner. So, you know, because I was already up for five hours or whatever. So to me, that was lunch anyway. But I didn’t want that for breakfast. I had no more baked goods that I’ve made left so I waited till later to eat so I could have like a major lunch.
So the oat cake berry bake, high protein banana bread mug cake, delicious. High protein bagels, homemade bagels, easy breezy, made with Greek yogurt and oat flour. You could have it for lunch, breakfast, but on this breakfast sandwich I had like eggs and low sodium sausage things like that. So I just had my own Egg McMuffin but I made my own bagels. Delicious, so high protein. Go ahead.
Jeff Sarris (05:04)
So what would you actually say then for subbing maybe when someone’s looking at the baked goods, would you say the oat flour is the go-to? I know the pumpkin seed flour. So how would you say someone, maybe they have a go-to recipe that they already love. What might they think about when they look at making it?
Jill Harris (05:20)
Yes. Yeah, so say they’re making something that they, yeah. So what I do, if somebody, maybe you Jeff are gonna make the same thing as me, but you’re gonna use white flour and I’m gonna sub out that white flour. Say you’re using one cup of white flour. I’m gonna use three fourths cup of oat flour and the other fourth of pumpkin seed protein powder. Okay, so that’s how I’m gonna sub it out. I don’t use white flour in my cooking.
I want to get some fiber. Why do you use oat flour, girl? I actually use, and in my meal plan, I always say what I use, and I always give substitutions. You don’t want to use that, use this. You don’t want to use that, use this. But what I use as a flour substitute is my Bob’s Red Mill Oat Bran High Fiber Cereal. So it gives me, instead of white flour, having no protein and no fiber, my flour substitute gives me protein and fiber and that’s what I’m looking for. I’m not baking so I could be hungry in 10 minutes. I’m baking so I’m full but I also want it to taste like a cake for Pete’s sake. What am I a nun? So, you know, I like eating foods like that and I especially like eating foods like that with my coffee. So I just make my own.
So I would sub it and instead of butter I will use Greek yogurt because that ups the protein too. Now I don’t use Greek yogurt, old lady, so I would use maybe applesauce more as a binder, right? Because maybe somebody doesn’t want to do dairy. So you or you do egg whites if you don’t want to do dairy. So there’s other ways to get around it to substitute. Now I use which people don’t have to. People have love hate relationships with sweeteners. I will use stevia. Many kidney stone formers think that stevia is high oxalate. The plant is. Once it’s processed, there’s zero oxalate in it. So I use a brown sugar substitute made with stevia. That works well for me. But I’ll say in the notes of the meal plan, it may not work well for you. Use what sugar sweetener works for you. Or if you want to use half and half, some regular sugar, just count the added sugar in it, right? So you can do, I have things like high protein chai spice donuts for breakfast. There’s no added sugar. So I’m substituting white flour for the oat bran flour, zero oxalate by the way, the oat bran and always take out some and put a protein powder in there. I like the protein powder made from just pumpkin seeds because there’s no salt at all. So that’s a big deal.
I will use sometimes like isolate, whey isolate because I’m lactose intolerant in my recipes, but it does have salt. So I kind of go back and forth. Sometimes I really like a vanilla flavor and the pumpkin seed protein powder is unflavored. So I’ll use the whey isolate. But you know, some people can use whatever they have in their kitchen that works for them. So I’m never like you have to use my products and I will always offer you substitutions. Often in my notes, I will say your kitchen, your rules. You don’t like what I had as a side dish. Here’s use other things. You’re a vegan. Try this.
There’s a lot of things like avocado toast, right? That’s avocado toast with tomato or, you know, high protein apple cake bar. You’ll see where I’m going. There’s a lot of baked goods. A blissful belly smoothie. You want a green drink, but there ain’t no spinach in it. You’ll have celery, kale, lime, mint, pineapple and kefir. Kefir has protein and gut healthy bacteria because it’s fermented. There’s—
Jeff Sarris (09:13)
And why no almonds or spinach? For anyone who might not actually know.
Jill Harris (09:18)
Almonds and spinach are two of the highest things on a high oxalate diet. And these are two of the most popular foods that people overeat. When people, typically kidney stone formers, are overeating spinach and almonds, along with not getting any calcium in their diet, that’s why they had high oxalate. And a lot of times, so many of the times, a high percentage of my patients will tell me, 75, 80% of my patients will say, I was diabetic, so I changed my diet. The dietician said, eat some almonds. And so between what the dietician said and what the patient actually did, they went to Costco, got the almond bag as big as my body and was eating them all day long. And so, you know, a very small amount, one ounce of almonds is 122 milligrams of oxalate. One cup of spinach is 700 milligrams of oxalate. So you can clearly see that you get a hundred milligrams of oxalate a day, unless you have malabsorption issues, then you only get 50. So you’re gonna break that bank with just one cup of spinach. And usually people are not eating one cup of spinach, because it steams down to a tablespoon, it’s ridiculous. So they’re overeating those things.
And those ingredients, spinach and almonds, were really put in smoothies. Almond flour, for paleo people, used all the time for baked goods. So those products have really done a lot of people in. Then I’ll have people say, well, Jill, my cousin Bobby eats those two things all the time. He’s not a stone former. He’s not predisposed to forming stones, just like people can smoke their whole life and never get cancer. There are those people that don’t. Right? So some people are prone to stones and some people aren’t. So breakfast, you know, it doesn’t have what were we going to say?
Jeff Sarris (11:04)
With that too, I just wanted to jump in real quick. With that too, the oxalate is only one portion. You know like the kidney stone diet has so many goals because oxalate alone isn’t just it like like cousin whoever who can eat all of that. Maybe they have everything else dialed in and somehow like so that works for them.
Jill Harris (11:12)
Yes. Jeff, and that’s very true too, I can tell you just a post on the Facebook, advice from Nurse Jill, I wish you guys would not freak out so much about oxalate. Here’s why though people do. So those are just a bunch of examples of low oxalate meals, very filling, low salt, most my recipes have no added sugar. And there’s 70 of them, just breakfast, so there’s lots of options.
Now, you can pick, and don’t let me forget about the oxalate part, you definitely can pick, you want five breakfasts, fine, but not the same two for the rest of your life. Your gut likes a lot of different vegetables and fruits and variety, okay? So I know that breakfast is a pain in the tush for a lot of people because they want to have it and go right out the door. A lot of my meal plan breakfasts are also prepared beforehand and you got them all week long. But then the next week you try something different, right? So always trying to, the meal plan is about, you know, trying different things too. And I can’t tell you how many people are like, I would have never thought to do that. And now it’s one of my favorite things.
Oxalate before we shut this video down. I wish people would be just as crazy about salt and sugar and the fluids as they are about the oxalate. And the reason you guys are so anxious about the oxalate, because if you do Google kidney stones, that’s one thing that’s going to come up. And every site you look at will have different information. And you just got off of having a kidney stone that sent you in the hospital with the worst pain of your life. So now you’re just lost. And if you just stick to the kidney stone diet, you’ll never need another. And I’m just telling you, because I’ve had such success in my career and I have a lot of data over 30 years of successful patients and it’s not they just took away the spinach and almond products. It’s not that it’s all the other teaching. There’s so much free resources at kidneystonediet.com, but you know, you’ll get your urine collection back and the doctor says the oxalate’s fine. And then you call me a few months later with the new stone. You’re like, why am I making stones Jill? My doctor said my oxalate’s fine because your salt and sugar and fluids and it’s all off the charts. But the doctor too is only focused on oxalate, because maybe they don’t read those urine collections very well, you know?
So it’s really important. I want you guys, if you take one thing, there’s lots of stuff to eat for breakfast. There’s that. But the other thing is, oxalate is the least important part of this diet once you take away like just three or four foods, tops, and get your calcium needs met. I really want you to freak out about salt and sugar, because lowering those two things in your diet means you’re eating healthier overall. And you can stop diabetes or at least help it. Your A1C can go down. Blood pressure, cardiovascular risk goes down. These are things that can really go down. So if you want to freak out about anything, freak out about those kidney stone diet goals. All right, Jeff, I’ve talked to you long this time. I got excited about all the meals, Jeff.
Jeff Sarris (14:36)
No, I think that’s perfect. Well, yeah. So kidney stone diet meal plans are at kidneystonediet.com where every day of the week you get four recipes, breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner. So, you know, exactly what you can eat. You don’t have to eat all of it, but it’s inspiration, like Jill said, inspiration to know just how much there is still available on your plate every single day while still preventing kidney stones. So I think with that we’ll wrap. Thanks again for tuning in and we’ll see you next week.
Jill Harris (14:58)
My God, so much.
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