How to Manage Your Oxalate Intake when Following a Plant-Based Diet [Episode #800]

This week’s topic is: How to Manage Your Oxalate Intake when Following a Plant-Based Diet

The purpose of today’s show is to give you confidence to cut through the confusion of a lot of information that’s being passed around today that continues to make it seem more confusing about these daily rituals and practices and basic aspects of living, like what we’re supposed to eat. I truly believe that we are meant to align to nature and nature’s bounty. And when we do that, we become our healthiest, most vibrant in our fullest power, our fullest creativity, our fullest vitality.

And what I want to talk about today is really focusing on what is the most important thing and avoiding extremes. We’ll get into the research today and into some practical tips and action steps that you can take so that you can rest assured that individual genetic constitution plays a factor.

It is important that you listen to your body as there are differences between your body and everyone else’s bodies that we want to consider for sure. I’m very excited about the practicality of today’s show and how we can live this lifestyle of health and wellbeing and feeling this deep intrinsic connection to nature, which I believe is really at the root of our being. It’s at the root of our health. It’s at the root of our vitality.

Have you been wondering about this very topic? If you want to know the answer to this question sent in by a Beauty just like you, listen now to find out!

Remember you can submit your questions at https://mysolluna.com/askkimberly/

[Question Answered]

Marisol – London

I love eating a plant based diet and I was reading about Oxalates and confused, what are they and should I be concerned about it?

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Transcript:

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

Kimberly: 00:01 Hi, love and welcome back to our Thursday Q&A show where our topic today is How to Manage Your Oxalate Intake when Following a Plant-Based Diet. So the purpose of today’s show is to give you confidence to cut through confusion of a lot of information that’s being passed around today that continues to make it seem more confusing about these daily rituals and practices and basic aspects of living, like what we’re supposed to eat. I truly believe that we are meant to align to nature and nature’s bounty. And when we do that, we become our healthiest, most vibrant in our fullest power, our fullest creativity, our fullest vitality. And what I want to talk about today is really focusing on what is the most important thing and avoiding extremes, <laugh>. So I used to think that, oh, these diets that are encouraging us to avoid a full macronutrient, which in the past was fat, there’s a lot of avoiding carbs.

Kimberly:01:18 That seemed imbalanced to me because in the correct form, we need all the macronutrients, but now we’re living in a world where it’s gone even further. There are diets out there like the carnivore diet, which is, um, issuing all vegetables now, and sort of, you know, other sorts of iterations of this where we’re meant to question eating natural plant-based foods. So we’ll get into the research today. We’ll get into some practical tips and action steps that you can take so that you can rest assured that individual genetic constitution plays a factor. It is important that you listen to your body and there are differences between your body and everyone else’s bodies that we want to consider for sure. But there are, um, there’s research around this as well, which will give you clarity around this issue and around eating vegetables and the power of that and the importance of that and the longevity and the broad cultural research that’s been, um, that’s been conducted around this.

Kimberly:02:34 And so I’m very excited about the practicality of today’s show and how we can live this lifestyle of health and wellbeing and feeling this deep intrinsic connection to nature, which I believe is really at the root of our being. It’s at the root of our health. It’s at the root of our vitality.

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Kimberly:03:33 And you just never know which one will really create a shift in your life. And it’s also this bi this constant nurturing of energy and inspiration coming in. That’s a really potent form of self-care. Please also share the show with anyone that you think would benefit. I encourage sharing. It’s a big part of my personal practice. As I look through my schedule every day, I look through my, I don’t call it a to-do list, I call it a to create list. I always try to share as a goal, five things a day. I’m sharing a personal practice with you of nothing that I gained from personally, just, okay, this person could use this, or, oh, I’m gonna pass along this tidbit, or this contact, or whatever it is. And I truly believe that sharing is a huge part of abundance. It hooks us up into the greater matrix, the network of energy it brings more into us.

Kimberly:04:35 So this episode or any episode you think could benefit someone else, I highly recommend that you share and share anything as well beyond the show that you think would benefit others. And finally, wanted to call out that this Friday, which is July 7th, but if you’re listening to this at a later time, monthly, we are having a community live zoom. This is a free zoom where I am looking forward to connecting with you further. You can ask me questions live. So if you love this show, you’ll li you’ll love the live q and as and, um, this opportunity to meditate together and for me to give you important, relevant health and wellbeing and spiritual information for each month. This is free for anyone that subscribes to any sauna products. It could be our SBO probiotics, it could be one of our skincare products. Any of them.

Kimberly:05:34 You will automatically be invited into this inner circle, this zoom. So please check it out. Um, you’ll get information as you subscribe, and we’ll make it more prominent on the website as well. You can also write in if you have any questions about this, but I’m really excited about bringing this forward in a regular way.

Question around the topic of: How to Manage Your Oxalate Intake when Following a Plant-Based Diet: I love eating a plant based diet and I was reading about Oxalates and confused, what are they and should I be concerned about it?

Okay, all of that being said, let’s get into our show today about oxalates. And so our question comes from Marisol, who lives in London. Thank you so much for bringing this forward, my love sending you so much love over there to London, to this land and this country that I love so much. And I feel such a deep connection to the UK and I’ve spent a lot of time there. And you write, I love eating a plant-based diet, and I was reading about oxalates and I’m confused. What are they and should I be concerned about it?

Kimberly:06:28 So as I mentioned earlier, we’re living in the world right now of mass confusion, where everything, even things as simple that we used to take for granted, like eating a carrot or eating a tomato, eating a banana, eating kale are being called into question. And so the first thing I wanna bring up at the top of the show, we’re gonna get into the research right now, is that there is a lot around portion size that needs to be considered. So when I wrote the Beauty Detox Solution, I came across a lot of data around soy, for instance, that felt very concerning at the time around being a trypsinogen blocker. Um, you know, having estrogenic promoting benefits such as promoting man boobs in men and messing with your hormones. A lot of this was put forth by the Westin Price Institute and other, um, just other places we need to look at where the research and the studies and the information is really being promoted.

Kimberly:07:38 By the time I wrote my fifth book, recipes for Your perfectly Imperfect Life, which was, you know, I think nine years later, I had continued to look deeper and deeper and realized that there was a lot around portion size. So for instance, the Blue Zones, um, which is the, the places in the world, the five places in the world where there are the healthiest, longest living people in Japan, there is quite a bit of tofu consumption and Tempe consumption. And again, we, we consider how much the average person would eat. So a lot of the concerns that I had with soy were alleviated when I realized I’m not gonna be eating 10 pounds of soy a day. There are people that have allergens, that have reactivity to soy and other allergens, right? Tree nuts and all sorts of things. But if you’re not allergic to a certain food, we must consider the actual portion size and how much of an impact that has on you because there are truths.

Kimberly:08:48 But again, when we consider how much we’re actually eating, how much does this affect me? So that’s something we wanna consider as we’re moving into this discussion, whether it be lectins or oxalates or other compounds in foods, how much is there in the portion sizes I’m eating that are going to trigger some of these, you know, dangers, so-called dangers which are creating a lot of confusion in the world today? When we look at society as a whole, we have to zoom out and consider what are the biggest factors here that are creating, um, disease and un unhealthiness. And so we see the obvious ones. There’s sugar, there is processed foods, there is a lack of fiber, there’s a lack of antioxidants. There is ho uh, harmful fats, whether it be the cooked vegetable fats that are in a lot of different health, uh, or junk foods.

Kimberly:09:49 Definitely in the junk foods there are these, you know, questionable it’s called into questions today. But these high saturated fats in meats and dairy products that can potentially create a lot of blockage in the body. And so we wanna just look at the pros and cons of the diet overall. We wanna consider vegetables and what we get from vegetables overall, which is thousands of phyto protective phytonutrients and antioxidants and fiber and minerals and vitamins. And so it’s really important that we don’t get caught up in the minutia in the weeds of these individual issues, but we look at the whole picture, what is the most important thing for me to be focusing on? Now we can talk about some of the more specific aspects of this. So we’re gonna be linking to research and studies, which I definitely recommend that you check out if you wanna go further into the, this discussion.

Kimberly:10:59 But there’s research published in the Journal of Food Composition in an analysis which looks at the oxalate content on a variety of plant-based foods and how oxalates can affect our bodies potentially and create buildup in the bodies into issues like kidney stones. So there are different plant foods that contain different amounts, and it is also the oxalates are affected by the ways in which we prepare and the ways in which we cook our foods. So for instance, when we boil foods, when we steam them, when we cook them, we lower the oxalate content in foods that contain them, such as spinach versus, um, baking them or microwaving them. I am not a proponent of microwaves in general. I’ve written blogs about this. We do not own microwaves, but just for your knowledge, microwaving isn’t really a reliable form of reducing oxalate content. So one of the things that I recommend is variety.

Kimberly:12:16 So we can have raw spinach, raw greens in our glow green smoothie, but you may consider cooking, steaming, sauteing your spinach, for instance, at dinner time, or having broccoli or having sweet potatoes or just variety is a really big piece of this puzzle. When we eat a lot of the same food all the time, that’s when we can run into potential issues with buildup in the body of anything, whether it’s kale or spinach. And this is one of the reasons that I have always recommended rotating your greens in your glowing green smoothie so you’re not just getting the same exact nutritional, um, profile of a certain food over and over again. So it’s really important to, um, um, consider the role of calcium in conjunction when we’re talking with oxalates. And so there’s a study published in the Journal of American Dietetic Association, which talks about when we increase our calcium intake, particularly through the foods that we’re eating, it can help bind to oxalates in the gut, reducing their absorption and potentially lowering the risk of kidney stone formation.

Kimberly:13:39 So calcium rich plant foods include sesame seed, black beans, calcium is also in the greens themselves. There is calcium that you will find in almonds and almond milk. It’s also added into non-dairy milks such as oat milk and in a whole variety of foods we’ve done shows on calcium. There’s also articles and blogs that I’ve written on calcium, which we will link to in the show notes if you’d like to check that out further. So it’s about creating this balance in the body. So by following the beauty detox, the Salina Diet, you will get enough calcium as long as you create variety in your diet. It’s something that I’ve never found an issue with in consuming. It’s something that, again, if we’re not just eating the same thing over and over again, but we’re creating, uh, width and breadth and variety in our diet, the calcium aspect does come in to buffer the oxalate concern.

Kimberly:14:55 And so there’s another, um, article, or sorry, more research that I’d love to point out here that we will link to in the show notes in the journal nutrients. Nice, uh, brief name here, um, of this journal. Sometimes they’re quite long. And it shows that there are strategies to reduce oxalate content in food. Um, so the, the first study, you can look at some of the food that contain oxalates, so you can really make a informed decision about which ones have higher amounts. And then also this particular study shows that by soaking seeds and nuts overnight, for instance, which is something I’ve also really, um, recommended, you can discard the water and then a lot of the oxalates go out in the water themselves. So remember that oxalates are naturally occurring compounds and they can build up in the body as a waste product. But again, soaking and, you know, sprouting and, you know, throwing out the water also boiling fermentation techniques can definitely help to reduce the, um, the oxalate content.

Tips and Tools on How to Manage Your Oxalate Intake when Following a Plant-Based Diet

Kimberly:16:16 So now let’s talk about, let’s talk about it in a little bit more detail and depth as we go into some specific tips and tools. So remember, again, this is everybody’s body is individual. Everybody’s body has a, has a slightly different composition. We interact with foods differently. We have different, um, health issues, we have different tendencies. And so it’s important to understand that it is not a one size fit all. And different people have different tolerances of oxalates. So again, oxalates are just a, a naturally occurring compound for some people. They tend to build up into kidney stones, um, in the body. And so this is specifically a renal issue that’s of great concern. Um, and so we wanna look at variety. We wanna look at does, you know, do, is our family have a history of of kidney stones? Is there something in my particular genetic constitutional makeup that makes me more susceptible to oxalates? And so you can consult your, you know, your healthcare professional, you can, um, you know, con consult, get certain tests, look into this if you are concerned.

#1 Tip: How to Manage Your Oxalate Intake when Following a Plant-Based Diet: Educate Yourself

Kimberly:17:26 So the first part of this is this educational process about, you know, tuning it, turning it inward. What is, you know, how does this affect me potentially and educating yourself about which foods have are higher in oxalates. So I’ll call out some right now, which includes spinach, rhubarb beets, beet greens, Swiss charred nuts, especially almonds and cashews seed such as sesame seeds and certainly Es. So just by being aware of which ones have certain, um, which ones are higher in oxalates, gives you the ability to rotate those to apply certain cooking methods. Preparation methods, as I mentioned, um, soaking your nuts, for instance, can really help reduce these issues. Um, or cooking the Swiss chard or using more romaine lettuce in your G Gs versus Swiss chard.

#2 Tip: How to Manage Your Oxalate Intake when Following a Plant-Based Diet: Variety is Key

Kimberly:18:37 And certain things like that can give you a lot of information there. A lot of tools. Number two, variety, which I’ve been <laugh> mentioning throughout. It’s really important to rotate your greens. So you don’t wanna get into a, a lull or a period of all you’re eating is spinach, which could potentially put you into, you know, a high oxalate period. I love spinach, I love the taste of spinach. It tastes really great to me. But I do make a point of rotation. I go into periods where I shift into arugula, which can be a little spicy in the G G s I grow a variety of greens. We have a lettuce grow, um, which is wonderful. And we also, you know, have farmer’s markets around. So I make it a point to get a lot of different lettuces and butter lettuce and just, um, whatever looks great, different kale varieties, parsley.

#3 Tip: How to Manage Your Oxalate Intake when Following a Plant-Based Diet: Moderate High-Oxalate Foods

Kimberly:19:52 I specifically in my own diet, take breaks from spinach because I love it so much and I know I can overload and I don’t want to. So variety is really important. A rule of thumb that I make is every two to three weeks I try to change up the greens in my G g s. So I notice if I’m just, you know, leaning into spinach a bit more and then I lean into something else, whether it’s bok choy or again just, you know, the red romaine, the, the, there’s so many different lettuces out there. And so it’s a great opportunity, it’s a great, um, motivation to go to the farmer’s market and to check out different greens. And so you wanna balance your, um, your moderate high moderate to high oxalate foods. You don’t have to avoid them completely. I’m eating high oxalate foods, but just being aware that, okay, if I’m eating spinach more, I’m going to steam it.

Kimberly:20:53 I’m going to cook it a bit. If I’m eating it at dinner, I’m having a lot in my G Gs. I actually don’t eat it a lot at dinner, I will turn to the cauliflower or the mushrooms, I’ll use other green or other vegetables to create that balance that are not considered high oxalate. I also, you know, I know beet greens are high. I don’t care for them as much as spinach. So for me it’s a mix and match practically of what we’re drawn to and what’s easier for us to avoid.

#4 Tip: How to Manage Your Oxalate Intake when Following a Plant-Based Diet: Cooking Techniques

Kimberly: And then remember the cooking techniques that we mentioned earlier. I consider seeds and that’s a really important part of the diet or my diet. And so soaking and sprouting is a really powerful way to reduce these compounds. Whether it’s trypsinogen blockers, it makes it easier to absorb the protein. Um, lectins, oxalate certain things.

Kimberly:21:50 Soaking and sprouting your nuts and your legumes is a really powerful way to reduce that. If you are someone that’s really busy, it’s hard for you to do that. It’s a little bit, um, arduous. I get it. Nowadays you can purchase a lot of sprouted nuts. And I get this at, you know, the grocery store that I use a lot. It’s convenient for me. It comes in my Instacart is Sprouts, literally the name Sprouts. And they offer a lot of these sprouted nuts. And same thing in Hawaii where I shop. So it’s a little bit of an extra cost, but it can be worth it if you are concerned. And you, again, it’s not easy for you to create this flow of sprouting in your, in your daily life. It’s something that you might wanna look into and incorporate the next thing. So just consider soaking, sprouting, um, fermenting, um, cooking some of these foods more.

Kimberly:22:52 I mean, beets, to be honest, I don’t really eat raw. I love baked beets. I love roasted beets. I don’t eat them all the time because I find it a little bit harder to cook beets versus, you know, just, um, cooking or sauteing. The cauliflower just seems so much easier. The peeling the whole aspect of beets is a little bit more difficult. I find it a bit more challenging, but just work it into your diet.

#5 Tip: How to Manage Your Oxalate Intake when Following a Plant-Based Diet: Hydration

The next thing is to hydrate well. So there is some, um, research out there about proper hydration being correlated with higher renal functioning. So if you’re drinking a lot of water, if you avoid dehydration, you can also avoid the concentration of oxalates in your urine, which can potentially build up into kidney stone formation. So just drinking water through the day, keeping that water on your desk, in your car, in your purse, wherever you are, just most people, I think we did it.

Kimberly:23:56 I think the, the, the, um, number is 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated when you look at the research out there. So it is really important to be aware of that. It’s important to ward off against that everything works synergistically. So the more hydrated we are in full of this beautiful flow of water, the less, um, potential health issues can crop up in general.

#6 Tip: How to Manage Your Oxalate Intake when Following a Plant-Based Diet: Calcium-Rich Foods

And the next point is to remember to pair oxalates with calcium rich foods to avoid that potential absorption of the oxalates. And so you can do this for instance, by, um, pairing the spinach. So you know, greens have calcium in them. So by nature of eating other greens along with your G Gs, that’s the beauty of combining these different greens like the romaine lettuce or the arugula, the parsley, um, other foods or having tahini creating a tahini dressing on your spinach salad, for instance.
Kimberly:

25:10 These different ways of combining calcium rich foods with oxalate rich foods as a way of helping to prevent the absorption. And so we’re just looking for variety overall. Remember that there’s calcium in tofu, there’s also calcium a lot in these, um, plant-based milks out there. So just looking, you know, old across your diet and making sure that you’re getting enough calcium will also really protect your own body. And then the last thing I really want to enforce here is the individual constitution. The individuality of your beautiful body. If you are concerned, you know, work with a healthcare professional, get some individualized guidance. See what’s going on in your body, in your family history, and remember that this is really about your body. It’s really about a well-rounded, balanced, plant-based diet for you. So everybody is different. I had a member of our sauna team who was susceptible.

Kimberly:26:22 She was living our diet, but she did have, and this was happening prior to joining our team and prior to living the beauty detox way, she did have kidney stones. So what she did was she mixed and matched her greens. She really leaned into a more romaine lettuce focused g g s. She made modifications for her body and she was still able to be vegan and plant-based and, you know, heal her body and be very healthy. But she did modify things for her, for her individual constitution, and she’s doing great. She fully decided to cut out Swiss charred and she, you know, worked with, um, avoiding the high oxalate foods. You know, the, the actual <laugh> facts and the actual, um, factors here that we’re talking about, the actual tips. So it is possible to do, I have worked with and known people personally that have worked around this issue.

Kimberly:27:25 So please check out the show notes. Please remember that variety is key here. Zooming out what’s most important, it’s not avoiding vegetables altogether. It’s seeing that, okay, these vegetables have this and this is how my body feels with certain foods. And that in the context of eating a rich, um, you know, well-rounded diet, I can balance these things. I f you know, I want you to feel empowered to align to nature, to eat natural foods, to eat fruit and vegetables and, you know, seeds and nuts and grains, of course, considering individual concerns, health concerns. So for instance, I ate low sugar fruit for a while while I was getting my gut back into balance. So of course there’s individuality, but the overall context is that nature provides this beautiful bounty of foods which are so powerful. When we eat these plant-based foods, there is more light coming through us, we feel more clear, we are more connected to nature and to the true self, the spirit inside of us.

#7 Tip: How to Manage Your Oxalate Intake when Following a Plant-Based Diet: Consider individual factors

Kimberly:28:38 I really believe this. And then in content. And then, you know, externally, we are more beautiful. We feel more beautiful, we have more beautiful energy, there’s more glow about us. So please consider individual factors, but please do not let fear take over when know that you can consider these factors and then work with it within a, a diet that is full of balance and variety and you know, intelligence and well chosen foods. So I hope this gives you some clarity, gives you confidence. Again, you can check out the show notes to go further in as well as other articles related to this topic. I am so excited to connect with you further. So remember that we have these zooms every month. You can continue to ask me questions here on the show, of course. And remember that I’ll be on social media as well at underscore Kimberly Snyder. There’s lots of ways to connect. I’m very honored and excited about our personal connection

Kimberly: 29:40 Here, being you being in the community, us being here together. So I’ll be back here Monday for our next interview show. Until then, sending you so much love and so much gratitude. Namaste.