Low oxalate diet. @whee.

[camwyn]

Okay, so I'm buckling down and making sure that I actually eat a diet relatively low in oxalates, so as to avoid the whole kidney stone thing happening yet again. I haven't had calcium oxalate confirmed as an issue by my doctor, but it's been pegged by several studies as being behind repeat kidney stone incidence. (Plain old calcium intake, on the other hand, doesn't affect the stones much and may in fact reduce the amount of stone formation.) To reduce stone formation I need to cut down on phosphate-containing soft drinks- not a problem, I'm not a big soda fan- on calcium oxalate-heavy foods, and on sodium. Again, not a problem on the latter. The problem is that high oxalate foods figure pretty heavily in my list of favorites...


Beer - lager draft, Tuborg, Pilsner
Chocolate milk
Cocoa
Ovaltine
Tea, black, Indian
Cinnamon, ground (1½ tsps or more)
Pepper (in excess of 1 tsp per day)
Ginger (1 tbsp)
Soy sauce
Blackberries
Blueberries
Grapes, Concord
Currants, red
Dewberries
Figs, dried
Gooseberries
Kiwi
Lemon peel
Lime peel
Orange peel
Raspberries, red and black
Rhubarb
Strawberries
Tangerines
Bread, whole wheat
Cheerios (1 cup)
Graham crackers
Graham flour
Grits, white corn
Kamut
Oatmeal
Popcorn (4 cups, popped) (Orville Redenbacher)
Soybean crackers
Spelt
Stone ground flour
Wheat bran
Wheat germ
Whole wheat flour
Yellow Dock
Beans, green, waxed, dried
Baked beans in tomato sauce, canned
Nuts
Peanuts
Pecans
Garbanzo beans, canned
Peanut butter
Sesame seeds
Soybean curd (tofu)
Sunflower seeds
Pretty much all soy products
Fig Newtons
Fruitcake (1 slice)
Marmalade
Beets - tops, roots, greens
Celery
Collards
Dandelion greens
Eggplant
Escarole
Green beans, snap, pod, runner
Kale
Leeks
Okra
Parsley
Parsnips
Peppers, green
Pokeweed
Popcorn
Potatoes
Potatoes, sweet
Pumpkin
Rhubarb
Rutabagas
Sorrel
Spinach
Squash, yellow, summer
Swiss chard
Tomato sauce, canned
Turnip greens
Watercress
Yams
Chocolate, plain
Cocoa, dry powder
Ovaltine, powder


Animal foods? Much lower in oxalates. Slight problem: the same studies that show that calcium intake is okay generally indicate that excessively high levels of animal protein are associated with major major stone formation. So... yeah. And chick peas and spinach and beets were pretty much the backbone of my vegetable intake at the office, since I usually ordered salads containing those- with sunflower seeds- when I didn't like the rest of the lunch menu. And nuts, particularly peanuts and cashews, were my favorite office snack. Man, I really thought that of all the foods in my life that'd come back to haunt me, it'd be the cheeseburgers first....

Gonna be fun working on getting everything into line.

Comments

[eevieivy.livejournal.com]

Sadness. I'm not seeing fresh tomatoes, mozzarella or basil on there at least?

Good luck!

[camwyn]

Fresh tomatoes and basil are considered moderate oxalate foods, so they could swing either way depending on the amount being consumed. As long as I'm careful I can have those.

At least lentils are low oxalate. I can swap those for chick peas (my favorite legume ever) without much sadness.

[derien.livejournal.com]

My god, what's left to eat??

[camwyn]

Animal food, although as I noted, though much animal protein and you get the stones again. http://www.branwen.com/rowan/oxalate.htm has a list of all three categories, low medium and high. Women who suffer itching at Downbelow Station, particularly post-menopausal women, are the targets of that particular web site- oxalates in the urine can cause vulvar pain/itching liek wo.

[e-mily.livejournal.com]

..........

Again, what the hell is left to EAT?

[agoodshinkickin.livejournal.com]

Crap, I kind of forgot I was supposed to be adhering to that diet my own self.

Crap crap crappity crap crap.

[kyrielle]

It is interesting to me that the site you link in comments lists carob as low oxalate, while another site I found lists it as high. Carob is sometimes recommended as a chocolate substitute, so what category it's in might matter....

[kyrielle]

Also, maybe if you go out of your way to eat so many things high in oxalates, maybe you just need to cut back rather than completely avoid? It may be a case not that you are especially vulnerable health-wise, but that you get so much that it hits you anyway. Something to ask your doctor (or more likely, a recommended nutritionist) perhaps?

Things You Can Eat

[ygrane.livejournal.com]

Kasha, quinoa, barley, lentils, corn, carrots, leeks, onions, garlic, apples, melon, tapioca, tapioca flour.

*Hugs*

This looks horrifying and no fun at all. :-( I hope someone can help you with some meal-planning and ways to keep these foods in your diet in modest amounts.

Look into a baking mix called Chebe. It's lovely and allergen free. ^_^

[e-mily.livejournal.com]

..............

Oh god, looking at this list makes me want to die.

There's so many things that are GOOD for you on that list!

I'm so sorry, Cam.

[camwyn]

It's okay. Right now I'm mostly just working on cutting down on the foods on the high oxalate list rather than eliminating them entirely, because: SPINACH. And CHICK PEAS. And WHOLE WHEAT. I mean, c'mon. I worked my whole life to be fond of those in the face of a culture that thought it was funny to say 'ew, spinach!' and 'nom nom, white bread!' and 'bleh, legumes!', and this happens?

[bodldops.livejournal.com]

I... do not think I'd survive on a low-oxalate diet. Good luck to you!

(Pets have it so much easier. It comes in a can, and looks rather like any other dog or cat food.)

[angry-geologist.livejournal.com]

My sincere condolences- you don't appear to be able to eat... well, anything!

Well, cranberries are still a go, ne?

[gramarye1971]

*boggles at list*

Good lord. I'd starve. You have my absolute sympathy in this.

[sylveraven.livejournal.com]

....that list contains chocolate, potatoes and pretty much every fruit I ever eat. I think if I ever start developing kidney stones, I'm going to have to just get used to having them. Because I'd never eat again.

That sucks!

[cameoflage.livejournal.com]

This. (Minus the potatoes. I hate potatoes. In most formats, anyways.)

[tibicina.livejournal.com]

Rhubarb seems to have made the list twice. And... I'd find that really tough. I mean, there are a lot of things on that list I don't like, but the majority of the things on that list I eat all the time and would have a really hard time cutting out of my diet.

[skyshark.livejournal.com]

D:! Oh, NOT fair!

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