Today, I'm going to talk about what else to eat when you have oxalate sensitivity.
So stay tuned.
If you're new here.
Welcome.
My name's Amanda Malachesky.
I'm a Certified Functional Health Coach, and a Digestive and Allergy Detective.
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As with many food sensitivities, if you have an oxalate sensitivity you might be wondering,
"What the heck can I eat?
Or what should I eat?"
So today, I'm going to answer this question and provide a couple of alternatives for some
high oxalate foods.
This is how I help my clients think about personalizing their diet, and I know that
you can too.
So let's get started.
So the first thing you're going to want to do is grab my oxalate food list, or grab another
oxalate food list that you might like to use.
An oxalate food sensitivity is a little bit different than other food sensitivities because
when you have oxalate sensitivity, you don't want to suddenly and drastically remove all
oxalates because this can lead to something called oxalate dumping.
Basically, it can lead to a sudden increase in your symptoms.
The strategy here is to kind of gradually reduce your oxygen intake over maybe four
to six weeks.
And then, keep it at a low level from then on while you deal with your root causes of
your oxalate sensitivity.
I talk a little bit more about this in my earlier video, How to Reduce Oxalate Sensitivity,
so you might want to go watch that after you watch this video to get a little bit more
info on that.
And to get my oxalate handout, you can head to confluencenutrition.com/oxalates.
Or if you want a really, really detailed oxalate list that has just about every known food
imaginable, you can head over to the Facebook group called Trying Low Oxalates.
That's a really, really detailed list over there.
So now that you have the list, you can see that they're divided up into high, medium
and low oxalate foods.
And some of the foods in the high column have an asterisk next to them, which means that
they are very high oxalate.
And remembering, of course, that you don't want to suddenly and drastically reduce your
oxalate foods because you may have symptoms you do want to focus first on these high and
very high oxalate foods to reduce them.
So these include things like peanuts, chia, almonds, soy and chard, kale, rhubarb.
These are kind of the traditionally thought of high oxalate foods.
That said, I have found that oxalate sensitivity isn't universal.
So probably you'll find that you don't react to every single one of those high oxalate
foods.
And so, the way to think into this and get clarity for yourself is to use the tool that
I call the food symptom diary.
You can grab a copy of mine by heading over to confluencenutrition.com/food-symptom-diary.
And I have a whole video where I talk about how to use this tool to get clear on your
food sensitivities.
And that's called How to Use a Food Symptom Diary for IBS, so go ahead and check that
out.
But, basically, you want to use this tool to identify foods are your particular kryptonite,
which ones are the ones that you're reacting to?
You may not need to remove every single one of these foods because some of them, for some
reason or whatever, may not be triggering your symptoms even though they are high oxalate
foods.
So, for example, sweet potato's on the very high oxalate list, but I find that I can tolerate
them just fine as long as I don't eat the skin.
So you might experiment with things, and try and get clear on which ones are your triggers
and go from there.
So next we're going to talk about substituting some oxalate foods.
So a lot of the foods in the very high list are greens.
And leafy greens are super important and healthy for us.
But if they're causing symptoms, we want to avoid them.
So some of the high oxalate foods are greens like spinach, chard and kale.
But for some reason, dinosaur kale, or also called Lacinato kale is not high oxalate,
so you can continue to eat that.
And then some other alternatives for greens include mustard greens and bok choy.
And, of course, lettuce is going to be fine for you to eat too if you'd like to eat salads.
Collard greens are on the medium oxalate list.
So they may or may not be okay.
So this is a case where you might want to trial that with your food symptom diary and
see how you do.
Regarding nuts, peanuts, almonds, sesame seeds, and chia seeds are all high oxalates.
So some alternatives are going to be pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and flax seeds.
So you might want to shift some things there in your diet.
Citrus peel is high oxalate, so the recipes that call for citrus zest that might be a
trigger for you, but citrus fruit is a low oxalate foods, so maybe just eating the inner
fruit, or juice of citrus might be okay for you.
And regarding grains, amaranth, quinoa and buckwheat are all high oxalate grains.
Whereas rice, oats, and millet are low oxalate grains, so you might fiddle around with that
ratio and see how you do there.
For a little bit more detail, you can check out the oxalate handout.
One thing that isn't shown on this list, but that I consider a high oxalate food is wheat
and gluten products because we is typically sprayed with glyphosate during the harvesting
and drying process post-harvest.
And glyphosate is an oxalate, and so if you're eating a lot of wheat products that have been
sprayed with oxalate, you may be getting excess dietary oxalates.
So for this, and lots of other reasons, I generally recommend avoiding wheat and gluten
products.
So all this being said, as with any therapeutic diet, it's super important that you customize
it for you.
We really want to keep the widest possible variety of foods in your diet and not get
into this pattern of avoiding or being scared of foods.
I really can't emphasize this enough, you need to get clear on what your specific and
unique triggers are and use that, and not necessarily rely on a pre-made list that says
what you should or shouldn't eat.
I'm going to say that it's probably unlikely that you're sensitive to every single food
on this list, so you'll want to work with the food symptom diary and the oxalate food
list to get clear on what your specific triggers are, so that you can reduce your symptoms
while you work on resolving your root causes of the sensitivity in the first place.
Which oxalate foods are your worst triggers?
Tell me about it in the comments below.
I hope this video has helped you clarify which specific oxalate foods are causing your symptoms.
And I want you to know that if you are experiencing an oxalate sensitivity, I recommend that you
go check out my other videos on the topic.
I have several at this point, so go check those out.
I've left links for those below this video for you.
And if you've still got questions about how to think about these situations or how you
might work into resolving your situation, I encourage you to go check out my roadmap
to gut recovery.
It's an action guide that helps you get started, right now, taking steps to resolve your gut
challenges at their roots.
You can grab a free copy of that by visiting confluencenutrition.com/roadmap.
Or if you're ready for some help customizing what you're already doing, I'm an expert at
helping people create a doable, sustainable plan.
So if that sounds like help that you're ready for, I invite you to schedule a free 30 minute
assessment session with me where we can talk about what it would look like to work together.
You can schedule that by visiting confluencenutrition.com/contact.
So go ahead and get started, mapping your specific oxalate triggers and get feeling
better.
And please consider liking or sharing this video if it helped you.
And I'll look forward to seeing you next time.
Take care.