Quote from romaine on May 20, 2019, 4:09 am

Thank you Bludicka for the list.  That is helpful!   Do you know if medjool dates are low in oxalates?

Quote from bludicka on May 20, 2019, 5:43 am

Quote from romaine on May 20, 2019, 4:09 am

Thank you Bludicka for the list.  That is helpful!   Do you know if medjool dates are low in oxalates?

1/2 cup of whole medjool dates is lower medium (just over 6 mg). 6 whole dates would be low at roughly 3.6 mg

Fruits M Dates, California, pitted, chopped, Sunsweet 8.80 1/2 cup

It depends on the variety of fruit.

I eat figs, they are high oxalate, but only 2-3 pieces daily - this amount is low.

Quote from Diogenes on May 20, 2019, 6:17 am

Interesting list.

I only heard about oxolates through these forums, and it does make me worried somewhat. Because throughout my life the main staple food in my life has been potatoes. My mom used to make them very often and my favorite snack food that I had almost daily was potato chips.

 

Are all potato types high in oxolates. Nobody eats sweet potatoes where im from. We eat the yellow kind mostly. Not sure what they're called in english. Are they high in oxolates?

Quote from bludicka on May 20, 2019, 6:36 am

Quote from Diogenes on May 20, 2019, 6:17 am

Interesting list.

I only heard about oxolates through these forums, and it does make me worried somewhat. Because throughout my life the main staple food in my life has been potatoes. My mom used to make them very often and my favorite snack food that I had almost daily was potato chips.

 

Are all potato types high in oxolates. Nobody eats sweet potatoes where im from. We eat the yellow kind mostly. Not sure what they're called in english. Are they high in oxolates?

I eat potatoes... but only two-three medium-sized potatoes...I have no idea what sort of potato it is, they are yellow. Potato chips are too concentrated... therefore they have more oxalate. Red skin potatoes are lower.

Fries - 27/100g
Potato chips  47 mg/ of oxalates per 100 grams of weigh
New w/skin, boil 30 min - 21/100g Red, new boil w/o skin - 13/100g
Russet, baked, flesh only - 50/100g
Russet w/o skin boiled - 25/100g
Potatoes, dried, mashed - 99/100g
Sweet potato, baked - 82/100g

I eat low oxalate only now in detox phase, later I will also include more medium oxalate foods. But I will never eat very high oxalate foods - buckwheat, beets, almonds....

Quote from Liz on May 20, 2019, 10:01 pm

This sure is an interesting topic. I looked up oxalate content in food and every list differs from the other with quite a lot. Might also differ between countries. Some sources on the internet say some group on yahoo/facebook (trying low oxalates?) have the "correct" list but how would they know?

I am thinking of dr G's list, it is very dynamic so he updates it when ok foods are added or removed. He has removed oats and kiwi from the list although some are fine with oats and kiwi. For those who are not, it could potentially be an oxalate issue (just speculating). Same with chocolates, some so fine with dark chocolate others feel like crap soon after ingesting.

Quote from bludicka on May 21, 2019, 12:06 am

Oxalates can be variable in foods, e.g. depending on the ripeness of the fruit, unripe fruit has more oxalates, how grains and legumes are prepared... Heat and cooking does not destroy oxalates.... only soaking and cooking in water can reduce some soluble oxalates.
The problem with oxalate is similar to that of beta-carotene, vitamin a.... If someone daily drinks green smoothies, carrot juice, almond milk, eats "healthy", large amounts of salads, greens, spinat and uses almond and nut, seed flours for baking.... the body is flooded every day with oxalates.. Some people with all this "healhy foods and superfoods" receive 2000-3000 mg of oxalates daily.
Oxalates are slowly accumulating in the body and it can be very difficult to relate health problems to oxalate, just as chronic vitamin A poisoning, chronic heavy metal poisoning slowly develops. Just the fact that as soon as somebody stops eating high oxalate foods, the body immediately starts to excrete oxalate and those dumping symptoms can be very strong and can take years, means that oxalate is a very powerful toxin for the body.  Dumping occurs when the amount of oxalates in the blood decreases  and the tissues consequently start releasing stored oxalates to be excreted from the body. Unfortunately oxalates are as toxic leaving the body as they were coming in and storing into the body. It is similar to when a person chelates mercury, I felt terrible when mercury was leaving my body. I read many stories in low oxalate group... for some people  health benefits can be huge, from chronic fatigue to healing kidney disease.
Oxalates can binden minerals and trap heavy metals in the body, if someone is already toxic, he cannot excrete the oxalates well... Many people in Cutler chelation group have oxalate problems and many autistic children. If someone has only a problem with chronic vitamin A toxicity ... it is not so bad but if heavy metals, oxalates are added, the detoxification capacity of the body is weakened, organs as kidney, liver are overloaded, we live now in a toxic world where some  "natural toxins" from plants can be a bigger problem today and plus our unnatural diet.
A healthy body can cope with a certain amount of toxins from food, the more I am sick and toxic, my kidneys and liver, the capacity of the body to excrete them decreases. Oxalates from green smoothies are much more available for the body as if I eat whole vegetables with fiber, the carotens from carot juice are much more available as from whole carrots. It's totally unnatural to do meals like almond milk... and make a raw cake with a pound of cashew nuts but we can buy them and to this all year round.

This is from low oxalate group:

1. Dumping oxalate IS NOT A DETOXIFICATION process that is handled by the liver. The liver helps to get rid of chemicals that have to be modified - first with a Phase I process (p450 enzymes) which often oxidize the substance and then by Phase II processes like glucuronidation, etc which tend to make the substance more soluble (so it’s easier to get rid of). Detoxification involves essentially changing the identity of the substance being detoxified by chemical modification. That DOESN'T happen with oxalate. Our bodies have no way to make oxalate less toxic. Our only options are ways to make our bodies cope better, or get rid of it better, which includes getting it to be "eaten" by oxalate degrading microbes in our intestines. There is no evidence that the process of oxalate being metabolized can happen in our bodies other than our guts.
2. Oxalate leaves the body unchanged. The only thing that may happen to oxalate in the body is that (because it has two negative charges) it may often bind minerals. So what members need to know is that oxalate is just as toxic as it is leaving as it ever was, which is exactly why when large amounts of oxalate leave at once, it can sometimes produce serious symptoms! These symptoms are so grave that when someone with primary hyperoxaluria (PH) gets a new liver (that no longer makes oxalate), the sudden release of large amounts of oxalate from the rest of the body (where it is stored) can even end up being fatal. They don't know much about how to keep it from being fatal, which is why a PH patient is at much greater risk from a liver transplant compared to people getting a transplant for other reasons that don't involve dealing with oxalate.
3. The previous two points are why we do not recommend dropping your oxalate levels too quickly. It is all about quantity when you are talking about oxalate.
4. Oxalate is NOT a sensitivity issue. Oxalate is actually characterized as a poison (in sufficient quantity), and like all chemicals that are that toxic, the issue is how much you are exposed to at once. When we are taking in oxalate through the diet, especially habitually, the body will likely NOT react to it, but will stash it away somewhere out of the way (most often in your bones quantitatively). Once stored, oxalate may not show up symptomatically for years and years. The problem becomes its accumulation and how it can insidiously impair our body's chemistry over time.
5. “Dumping”, which is the process of how and when oxalate will leave our bodies, has not been well studied. Studies on primary hyperoxaluria have shown us that you release oxalate from tissues when your blood level goes down, which probably explains why lowering oxalate in the diet can often get this process started. This may have little to do with measuring what is happening in urine because there are multiple places to secrete oxalate, and we don't know very much about how the body decides when to concentrate its focus on urine vs intestine vs. lungs vs. skin. Susan Owens’ EJPN study showed plasma and urine did not correlate, especially in healthy controls where urinary secretion seemed limited.
6. It took Susan Owens’ Autism Oxalate Project a long time to realize that the goal is NOT to eliminate symptoms that are caused by oxalate, but instead to allow our bodies to secrete the oxalate as safely as possible, and we learned that this sometimes meant that reducing oxalate more slowly was far better.
7. It took a long time to realize that treatments that stop the release of oxalate may stop symptoms, but it is a mistake to thing they are "healing". Stopping the efforts of your body to secrete oxalate can amount to putting it off for later. Such treatments may improve how you feel temporarily, but it doesn't reduce oxalate's toxicity! THEREFORE, it is not appropriate to think that if treatment X (new supplement, new drug (diflucan), homeopathic treatment, etc.) got rid of symptoms that you believe "oxalate caused", that it is now correct to say or assume that approach TREATED oxalate or made you where you were no longer "oxalate sensitive". It just doesn't work like that. Nothing makes oxalate safe. (Read that last sentence again!) Calcium or minerals in the gut may make us absorb less, but it is still oxalate, and capable of later doing harm if it stays in the body at levels that are harmful.
8. In this support group, we have learned ways to make ourselves more comfortable during dumping without stopping the clearance process. Protecting our bodies from the oxidative stress oxalate causes is one good strategy accomplished with antioxidants or arginine or even antihistamines. BUT they are not "detoxifying" oxalate. They are just helping us tolerate the effects from oxalate as it leaves the body.
There is some information below about the toxicity of absorbed oxalate. Our whole goal is to allow the body to slowly get rid of our excess oxalate and limit its effects on our cells so we don't get serious symptoms later.

Quote from romaine on June 3, 2019, 2:04 pm

@bludicka, shortly before you posted here about oxalates I started and stopped eating turmeric for a few days.  The turmeric seemed to be making me feel worse after consuming a little for a few days so that is why I quit it.  After seeing your posts and looking at other articles on oxalates I saw that turmeric is considered high in them.  Also after reading your posts I swapped out black eyed peas for black beans and stopped eating brazil nuts and potato chips.   For the most part I kept eating sunflower seeds and butter.    My insomnia got worse and worse and I couldn't even take naps which I rely on to get me through the day.  I felt agitated in my mind and got fairly depressed.  I didn't notice anything in my body though, it seemed like the dumping was affecting my brain if it was indeed oxalate dumping.   I really didn't think I needed to decrease my oxalate intake more slowly but I now think I was dumping it too fast the last couple of weeks so I finally ate about 3 brazil nuts yesterday and started feeling better and even slept 8 hours!    I guess it could be the selenium in the nuts that helped but I do eat about 6 oz of beef a day and I also eat sunflower seeds which both have selenium so don't know if I was deficient or not.

Anyway, just wanted to thank you about writing about oxalates.  I read about them years ago and remembered that spinach was really high and mostly avoided it because of that, but didn't take the subject that seriously.

From what I remember, here is what I ate prior to the low A diet and a bit about after  and also how I felt, in case anyone is interested:   For months after I started low vitamin A, I had no relief of symptoms and wonder if it was because I was dumping oxalates too and too fast.  Before the low A diet, I ate swiss chard, carrots, almonds, black beans, sweet potatoes,  and maybe other foods high in oxalate.  After starting the diet I had dropped black beans at first but reintroduced them at some point and also ate almonds often though not everday.   A few weeks ago I dropped the almonds because when I bought a new bag after being out of them for a while, it seemed they made me feel worse.     To me this history of symptoms and what I ate seems to point to oxalate toxicity.  If anyone has any input, I'd appreciate that.   I started the low A diet about 8 months ago.

 

Quote from SheilaE on June 3, 2019, 5:16 pm

@romaine. A few years back I was reading about oxalates but it faded from my attention for some reason. Because of oxalates being mentioned again on this forum, I have been looking into this topic again. I have recently switched up the beans I am eating to black-eyed peas (low in oxalates) from black beans (high in oxalates).  Also I stopped making a zucchini chocolate cake (low A with cocoa and egg whites). Not sure if I have a problem with oxalates but it's easy enough for me to avoid both and cover both bases. Many high A and high oxalate foods overlap I notice.  I came across this recently:

https://www.thestranger.com/film/2016/07/20/24376822/a-100-year-old-woman-in-older-than-ireland-attributes-her-long-life-to-the-fact-she-never-ate-a-vegetabley.

 

Quote from Bella on June 3, 2019, 5:59 pm

Quote from romaine on June 3, 2019, 2:04 pm

@bludicka, shortly before you posted here about oxalates I started and stopped eating turmeric for a few days.  The turmeric seemed to be making me feel worse after consuming a little for a few days so that is why I quit it.  After seeing your posts and looking at other articles on oxalates I saw that turmeric is considered high in them.  Also after reading your posts I swapped out black eyed peas for black beans and stopped eating brazil nuts and potato chips.   For the most part I kept eating sunflower seeds and butter.    My insomnia got worse and worse and I couldn't even take naps which I rely on to get me through the day.  I felt agitated in my mind and got fairly depressed.  I didn't notice anything in my body though, it seemed like the dumping was affecting my brain if it was indeed oxalate dumping.   I really didn't think I needed to decrease my oxalate intake more slowly but I now think I was dumping it too fast the last couple of weeks so I finally ate about 3 brazil nuts yesterday and started feeling better and even slept 8 hours!    I guess it could be the selenium in the nuts that helped but I do eat about 6 oz of beef a day and I also eat sunflower seeds which both have selenium so don't know if I was deficient or not.

Anyway, just wanted to thank you about writing about oxalates.  I read about them years ago and remembered that spinach was really high and mostly avoided it because of that, but didn't take the subject that seriously.

From what I remember, here is what I ate prior to the low A diet and a bit about after  and also how I felt, in case anyone is interested:   For months after I started low vitamin A, I had no relief of symptoms and wonder if it was because I was dumping oxalates too and too fast.  Before the low A diet, I ate swiss chard, carrots, almonds, black beans, sweet potatoes,  and maybe other foods high in oxalate.  After starting the diet I had dropped black beans at first but reintroduced them at some point and also ate almonds often though not everday.   A few weeks ago I dropped the almonds because when I bought a new bag after being out of them for a while, it seemed they made me feel worse.     To me this history of symptoms and what I ate seems to point to oxalate toxicity.  If anyone has any input, I'd appreciate that.   I started the low A diet about 8 months ago.

 

I feel like I had the same mental type reaction from oxalates that you describe. I’m back to feeling significantly better after stopping the high oxalate foods that I had started eating for variety on a low A diet. Almonds, black beans, cocoa and potato chips were the main ones for me. I also believe my yeast issues and other female issues are related to oxalate and both are 90% better. I think I’ll keep with my current diet of low A and oxalate and recheck some labs at the end of July which will be over one year on low A for me. Interestingly I tolerate butter fine now that I’m not eating high oxalate foods.