March 28, 2025 • 62 mins
Sally K. Norton shares her powerful journey from health-conscious eater to chronically ill patient, and the surprising discovery that changed everything. After decades of unexplained pain, surgeries, and symptoms that baffled doctors, Sally found that the real culprit was oxalates—compounds found in popular “superfoods” like spinach, almonds, and sweet potatoes. These molecules can crystallize in the body, causing inflammation and tissue damage. Ironically, those most committed to eating clean may suffer the most. Sally breaks down how oxalates build up over time, why they affect people differently, and why standard blood tests usually miss them.
This episode offers practical advice on identifying high-oxalate foods, transitioning to a lower-oxalate diet, and rethinking common beliefs around food. From fruit and coffee to why milk chocolate may be a better choice than dark, Sally offers a science-backed perspective that could be the missing piece in your health puzzle.
Connect with Sally:
Toxic Superfoods: How Oxalate Overload Is Making You Sick--and How to Get Better
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today's guest is Sally K Norton, an Ivy League
nutritionist and renowned expertin the field of oxalates.
She holds a bachelor's ofscience in nutrition at Cornell
University, a master's in publichealth from University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Sally has emerged as a leadingvoice on the impact of oxalates
and shares her extensiveresearch and insights in her
book Toxic Superfoods.
(00:21):
Sally, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Oh, it's fun to be with you today.
Thank you, Tony.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I have to say I'm super excited to have you on and
, you know, with this podcastI've had a bunch of different
people on talking about you knowtheir individual stories, about
you know finding their ownhealth path and health journey
and I come from a plant basedbackground that got into some,
some health issues and found myway into keto and then
(00:46):
eventually carnivore.
But, uh, you know you provide alot of science, kind of a low
carb space and carnivore andjust with all of your expertise.
I just want to again start thisout by thanking you for all
your efforts and the informationand the resource you put out
and it's it's really affectingpeople all over the globe.
So thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Thanks for tuning in.
I felt compelled to do thisresearch because I destroyed my
life, every aspect of my life,trying to eat healthy and
missing the mark terribly Like.
It was amazing how I would haveso much knowledge, deciding to
(01:25):
pursue nutrition, to do healthpromotion, in like 1977, when I
was 12, and working so hard todo the right thing.
You know, you would say, yourplant base.
It's been a big thing, thewhole veggie movement since the
70s.
And when I finally realized,despite working in medical
(01:45):
schools, working withintegrative practitioners,
working with alternativepractitioners, never none of us
knew what was wrong with me.
None of us could figure thisout.
And it turned out I waspoisoning myself with my healthy
, organic diet loaded withvegetables and I'm like, ah,
(02:06):
like how could?
If I couldn't figure it outwith all the resources, who
could?
And so I felt compelled toreally get some answers and
figure out how to explain whatthe science really says.
And I'm so honored that peopleare picking up on this message.
And the reason it's happeningis because this is a very common
(02:27):
problem and a lot of us are atthe end of our ropes about what
the heck we're trying so hard toeat well and we're not getting
the results we deserve.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
And you know, before we jump into oxalates and some
of the information that you havein your book, you know you
mentioned some things, but ifyou could share some of your
backstory and the challenges youknow you had, and then what led
you to that investigating ofoxalates?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I had what seemed like a lemon of a body.
I was having issues I mean, ifI think about it way back and it
was became real obvious incollege.
First of all, I needed reallystrong prescription lenses when
I went to college, and then Ineeded bifocals.
I needed both distance andclose correction in college.
(03:19):
So I'm in my I'm like 20, 21,21 and I already need old people
glasses what's up with that?
But at the same time I wasn'table to walk to dinner.
My feet were hurting so bad.
I was really struggling onCornell's campus to cope and
function and get to class.
I was in a tremendous amount ofpain with my feet and
(03:41):
eventually I had to leave andhave foot surgery on both feet
both feet at the same time,which is quite a big deal and I
didn't recover well from thatsurgery.
I, before the surgery and after, I swam a mile a day trying to
get some blood flow in there andtrying to help them heal.
I was given all these orthoticsand medications, especially
(04:03):
beforehand, over five years ofsuper, super high dose ibuprofen
, because that's all I can tellyou.
This is ridiculous.
And I eventually got off theorthotics and accidentally in
retrospect I realized I quiteating Swiss chard and I was
able to get in normal shoes andkind of look normal, but I was
(04:24):
never able to exercise in waysthat use your feet Like you know
.
Some ultimate Frisbee oranything like that Court sports,
forget it.
Even the sport of washing yourdishes required shoes.
So if I'm going to stand in myhouse or be in my house I had to
wear shoes with side support.
I couldn't go barefoot for 30years.
(04:45):
And then I also had all thisarthritis.
During those vegetarian yearsthrough the 20s I had so much
arthritis that there was acouple of times when I didn't
have the strength in my hands toturn the key in the lock at age
19 and all kinds of weird stuffthat was happening.
That was unexplained.
(05:06):
And if I think back, you knowwhen I was 12, I started having
severe back pain issues.
I would sometimes wake up withglitches in my back that would
leave me like just for a second,as I was waking up in the
morning, paralyzed, like Iliterally couldn't move my body.
So there's something reallyweird neurologically going on
there, like I literally couldn'tmove my body.
So there's something reallyweird neurologically going on
(05:28):
there.
And as a little kid I was puton penicillin a lot for strep,
throat and ear infections, tothe point where they took out my
tonsils at age five.
So I actually think you knowthere's a lot to the story where
that's often that's part of thestory.
Often you see these earlychildhood struggles with
infections and later, when I wasold enough to be a babysitter,
(05:48):
we had an epidemic of ear tubesand all the kids were having ear
problems all the time.
What is that?
Is that the soy formula and theearly baby foods, I would now
ask?
Probably so.
So I eventually had to give upmy career completely.
I had really bad bleeding, withhemorrhagic uterus, with
(06:12):
fibroids, and needed ahysterectomy, and my back was so
bad I was kneeling on my kneeshalf the day because I couldn't
sit in a chair.
You know, 50 hours a weekwriting research grants and
submitting them and ministeringresearch grants and I had a
hysterectomy.
I'm like whoa, miss healthyneeds hysterectomy.
(06:33):
And they got in there looseblood scarring on the colon,
endometriosis ovaries that werecompletely trashed and he's like
he's gotta go to go.
And I'm like, yeah, they'vebeen having trouble the last few
years.
This has been bad like fouryears.
He goes no, like forever.
How could someone who's triedso hard to live a healthy life
(06:55):
be such a mess?
And I didn't recover well fromthat surgery and my doctor's
like well, you look great, yournumbers are perfect, and this is
the thing about poisoningyourself with healthy foods is
your blood work, of course,looks pretty good because you
live in a good lifestyle, yourblood pressure is low,
everything's great, you're fine,except you're not.
(07:16):
So we'll send you to the sleepdoctor because we have no idea
what's wrong with you.
Well, that was a stroke ofgenius in a way, because the
sleep lab that puts all thewires all over your head and
your arms and legs and looks forlike weird stuff showed that my
brain couldn't stay asleep andit was waking up every well 29
(07:36):
times every hour, so that's likeevery two minutes.
No wonder I wasn't able to read.
Well, I wasn't able to do much.
I had no mental energy, realdifficulty focusing.
You know they use this lack ofsleep as a torture and it's
probably a great way to makesomeone crazy.
(07:56):
It was completely stopping mylife and it took three years of
research to figure out what'sgoing on, because you know, in
the literature they say thatthis sleep disorder, most sleep
disorders are a form of toxicityand the most likely cause is
endotoxemia from something likeSIBO.
(08:16):
We have bacterial overgrowthand you have too many bacteria
dying and putting out toxins andyou're poisoning your nervous
system with too muchfermentation basically going on,
and that I thought for sure,well, that must be it, because
I'm bloated and I just mydigestion is terrible, so I've
got to have it.
So I'm treating that, eventhough the test showed I didn't
(08:38):
have SIBO.
And somehow, in the course oftrying to fix my sleep disorder,
thinking that I had to fix mygut so I could sleep, so I could
live I experimented withoxalates in a way that gave me
this breakthrough insight thatmy arthritis because it started
coming back as I was adding inkiwi and things to my diet that
(08:59):
I now understood were highoxalate now understood were high
oxalate.
So anyway, I had to do thisdarn like avoid oxalates, enough
to get on a low oxalate dietbecause my arthritis was so bad
and I really didn't want to doit because I have a sleep
disorder and a digestive problemto fix.
I'm trying to fix that, but thearthritis is, you just can't
(09:20):
deal with it, you can't livelike that and I went on this
diet.
I quit my Swiss chard, which acouple times a week't live like
that and I went on this diet.
I quit my Swiss chard, which acouple times a week, daily sweet
potatoes and at that time itwas mostly daily kiwi Quit that
and within less less than 10days probably about a week my
brain was coming back.
All kinds of things are comingback.
My pain level was way down andwithin seven or eight months of
(09:47):
that time when I started, I wasnow able to wear high heels for
over seven hours at a wedding ina way that I had never done in
my whole life.
My feet were finally actinglike normal people's feet
people's feet.
Here I am 50 years old at thattime.
Finally, I have feet that work.
(10:09):
I was doing this for arthritisbut it turned out the
neurotoxicity, the connectivetissue problems, the
inflammation in the body, theconnective tissue problem being
foot pain can be a connectivetissue disorder.
Any kind of pain can be If theconnective tissues aren't having
their normal strength andelasticity.
Elasticity has limits,appropriate limits.
(10:32):
That maintains the shape,structure and function of that
tissue.
And the foot has particularstructures for its function.
It has multiple arches thatgive it this strength,
elasticity and toughness to beable to take impact over and
over again and maintain theirshape and their function.
Well, if your connective tissueis loose and weak and too
stretchy, that causes pain and Irealize now it was connective
(10:56):
tissue perpetual damage from thediet just a few kiwi every day
is enough to make thatconnective tissue not function
well.
And as I got off the oxalatesnow the normal activity, the
proper stretch and strength andstructure maintenance in the
foot, was restored.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
This could be wrong.
I don't know if this is true,but you do speeches when you do
like keynotes.
You actually do it barefoot.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
I have yes.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
That's badass.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
I love that do it barefoot I have.
Yes, that's badass, I love that.
Yeah, I do love barefoot living.
I do love my little toe shoesand way, way back in the day
Marxist, you know, has keyed meoff on that and it just makes
sense for me completely.
I never liked the structure.
The shoes I always wore wereSebago moccasins that have no
(11:46):
arch.
All it has is that side supportof that nice moccasin structure
which is a classic shoe.
Right, the classic structure ofa shoe is a moccasin.
But to let your toes functionis so exciting and let your feet
function and to kind ofCorvette-like to have road feel
right.
Your feet function into kind ofCorvette, like to have road
(12:07):
feel right.
Why are you up on a big bouncyMercury shoe that's just squishy
, soft and taking away yourstructure and disabling your
foot and thus your knees andyour hips and your alignment.
Yeah, I won't preach anymoreabout that.
Not everybody loves thebarefoot thing, but I do.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Yeah, I love it.
I just got a pair of.
I've never had earth runners.
Uh, I just got a pair, but I'ma big advocate.
I work out barefoot.
Uh, I know we're supposed to betalking about vegetables and
stuff, but like this isimportant.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Like the gym does not throw me out for throwing off
my shoes and sometimes my socks,I can go, they don't care,
they're cool.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
That's awesome.
Uh yeah, barefoot's the best.
And for context, for thelisteners, you start to kick out
some of these different foods.
Some of that might not befamiliar.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
What are oxalates and what foods are they commonly in
?
Oxalates?
Is this plural term oxalate,oxalates, oxalates?
Is this plural term oxalate,oxalates, oxalic acid.
The mother compound is oxalicacid, which is a little tiny two
carbon molecule with fouroxygens on it that has a charge,
a positive, a negative charge,and it can drop another proton
and have a double negativecharge.
So this is an ion, that an ionhas this charge of polarity.
(13:22):
I don't know if anybodyremembers chemistry in high
school, but water is a polarmolecule, right?
So it's water soluble.
Because it has charges, it hasdifferent sides that have
different plus minus tendencies.
So it's an important thing toremember because if you start
thinking about the foods thatthis acid can be in, it's not
(13:43):
going to be in a polar andnon-polar molecule like a fat,
so you can take a food that hashigh oxalic acid and the
oxalates.
So, because it has a charge, itconnects with things with
positive charge Minerals andwhen it's connected with a
mineral, that's an oxalate.
And the oxalates are calciumoxalate, which is the most
(14:05):
prominent one in nature.
Calcium oxalate is the mainingredient in almost all kidney
stones.
Something like 80 percent ofkidney stones are built from
calcium oxalate and your doctorwill call it a calcium stone,
but calcium is an innocentbystander that's been robbed
from some tissue like your urinewhile you're forming urine in
(14:27):
your kidneys and starts tocrystallize.
So you get the calcium oxalatecoming together and it has this
charge and it's prone tocrystallizing.
You get pairs of them lining up.
You get about eight or 12 pairsand they can precipitate out,
which is a chemical term forthings dissolved suddenly become
solids.
So dissolved ions become solidsand they form these little nano
(14:48):
crystals that start growinginto bigger crystals and they
can get.
For some people their kidneysaren't handling that
crystallization as well asothers there's 12 percent of the
population or so don't quitehave all the redundant systems
completely awesome enough tohandle that crystallization and
they're prone to kidney stones.
(15:09):
So too much oxalate in the dietsometimes the first sign you
have that's causing you problemsis a kidney stone, but in fact
that's a late stage sign.
It means you have beenoverdoing oxalate in your diet
for too long and there'sprobably a whole bunch of other
things going on in your bodybecause really this soluble
oxalic acid is leaving the bodythrough the water exit routes.
(15:32):
Right the kidneys get rid oftoxins in the blood that are
water soluble, versus the bileand the stuff that's happening
in the colon.
You're excreting toxins thatare more fat soluble through
liver and bile, but the kidneysare taking, cleaning out the
watery substance of the blood.
That takes out this oxalic acid, where you get this crystal
formation.
(15:52):
That's the end of the line ofsomething that came into your
body through your mouth, becausemost of the oxalate in your
diet despite all the mythologyand denial out there that likes
to claim otherwise, most all theoxalate in your diet is coming
from your diet and from youroxalate in your food is
providing what's in your body.
So let's get this straightbecause I said that wrong.
(16:13):
Most of the oxalate that's inyour bloodstream and in your
organs and ending up in yoururine is coming from your food.
And, number two, your vitamin cthe vitamin c that's fortified
in foods and in your supplements.
So you have complete controlover how much oxalic acid you
consume once you know what foodsare in.
So what the heck foods are theyin?
(16:34):
Spinach, chard, beet, greens,sorrel, quinoa, bran, beets,
sweet potatoes, almonds, cashews, peanuts, potatoes, dark
chocolate, tea.
You know, listen to them.
(16:55):
And most of those foods areconsidered really great, except
they're not, and this is thisfantasy that's never been proven
.
That was a concept in nutrition,in research circles, of this
sort of phytonutrients thatplants have special planty
(17:16):
things that have potentiallybeneficial qualities and we call
them nutrients which they'renot, because they're not
essentially necessary for celllife to have these phyto things
that are only in plantspolyphenols and tannins and this
kind of thing propertiesinteracting with your digestive
(17:49):
system, your body, yourmicrobiome, and as they get
processed by the bacteria inyour gut, sometimes they can do
some beneficial things for somepeople if they have the right
genetics and the right bacteria.
The rest of the time they'repretty questionable and usually
considered toxins, these plantyphytonutrients.
So we?
But we've been sold the spillof goods because it sells
supplements, it sells magazinecovers, it sells products.
(18:10):
It's really great for the wholeeconomic machinery of the food
industry because produce is oneof these perishable items that
bring you out for retailactivity because it's so
perishable you have to go backand get your lettuce supply
every four days or so to havefresh foods.
And we built a whole economybased on sort of california as
(18:33):
the veggie basket of the worldkind of thing and the nut basket
and all this transportation,big system of refrigeration and
so on that the produce basedidea for nutrition is built on.
So you know, we've been toldwe've got to have all these
vegetables, based on a conceptthat was really internal for the
(18:58):
researchers but got picked upfor marketing, and so we've been
told so long, veggies are goodfor you.
Good for you.
It goes back way long If youthink about World War I and
World War II.
There was this whole victorygarden thing, which was
propaganda to kind of say getbusy because you're helping the
war effort, you're desperately.
(19:19):
Your son just was killed orwhatever.
Just keep growing vegetables,it's good for the war effort.
You know, people are reallystruggling economically and
culturally and personally overthe devastation of world war,
one which is just awful,especially in in england and
britain.
Boy were they getting theirasses whipped.
You know, and it was, uh,government propaganda they did
(19:42):
this whole fake thing about wehave a special diet for the
english pilots so they can seebetter at night and bomb german
targets better, and we're givingthem carrots.
And this was to disguise the,the new technologies that was
allowing some success withnighttime raids, with bombing.
(20:04):
But we didn't want to revealthe technology so that the
government created this fakething about carrots and vision
and so on.
So we've been promotingvegetables just for government
propaganda, for war secrets.
You know it wasn't really forhealth.
So we're saturated and ingarbage information and in the
(20:24):
oxalate world there's so muchgarbage information out there
and so much I mean even in themedical literature, you're gonna
see titles and headlines arejust nonsense.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
I mean I've heard of the Victory Gardens thing but I
didn't know that's the carrotpiece of fighter pilots.
It's very interesting and theguidelines right.
It seems like people areputting you know, eat the
rainbow type stuff in theguidelines for health.
Is that just kind of likemisguided or, you think, very
(21:00):
purposeful?
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Well, it's hard to read into the motives of the
guidelines or any individualperson, but we have universally
accepted, really since the dawnof defining vitamins in the
early, you know, over a hundredyears ago, we were chemically
finding vitamins and figuringout where they were and why they
were necessary for health.
(21:22):
And in these early studies theycould use, you know, turnip
greens and things like this andsee a benefit to growing animals
in the lab and we're able tojustify the idea that vegetables
were providing importantnutrients.
And in that time we were arural country and people didn't
have the affluence we have nowand home gardens was pretty
(21:43):
standard.
So this was considered, fromthe elite's point of view, a way
to keep the poor nourished andletting them know they could
grow some of their own foods andthey could be vegetables and
you can can them yourself.
And if you use vegetables,that's a way to stay, keep the
population decently healthy,hopefully, and have the poor be
(22:04):
able to live on bad salaries,because the elites were not so
interested in the poor gettinggood salaries as they were
making sure that they didn'twaste their money on beef when
they could grow turnip greensyeah, yeah, it's.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Uh, it's very interesting what the the
guidelines have ever been.
I feel like the old school foodpyramid to my plates, to a
couple of other things.
Now that I just saw the otherday there's a ketogenic pyramid
that's like peer reviewed andthat's been out there.
Yeah, it just like startedpopping up on my feet in the
past couple of days of someresearch.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
So it's just like this ongoing endeavor of when I
started school at Cornell, therewas a big wave of oh, you know,
now vegetarian is consideredokay.
In the early 80s was the firsttime the American Dietetics
Association, which now has adifferent name, was willing to
concede that a vegetarian dietcould be nutritionally adequate
(23:01):
concede because we always knewthat animal foods were.
And this was kind of finally, apropaganda wave was winning and
invading that profession, andthat's because many professors
were doing vegetarian diets andwanted this to occur.
A lot of people come into thefield of nutrition already
(23:22):
believing vegetables are thebetter way to eat.
I mean, that's how we've beenraised for a long time.
You know, each parents havebeen telling their poor little
children around the dinner tableto eat their vegetables for a
long, long, long time, and so wegrow up with this bias that
vegetables are a requirement andthey're more moral, and so
there's a lot of moralism thatcan drive nutrition.
(23:44):
You can see how they would gotogether.
You know eat right, be good, dogood, and then you would
connect this kind of don't eatanimals as kind of a negative
idea, because there's obviousdeath there, where, with the
vegetable foods and the grains,the death is hidden under the
combines and the otherdestruction of the soil and the
(24:04):
chemicals involved and all ofthat where the death of the
animals we can pretend isn'thappening, where the death of
the animals we can pretend isn'thappening.
So I really think it was right.
Actually, from the dawn, withthe whole Seventh-day Adventist
thing, there was many movementsway back, way back when there
was no knowledge of nutritionanywhere, we didn't know about
(24:26):
vitamins yet, and there was thismoralism because we had
problems with alcoholism and wetended to turn to God and
preachers for guidance, and sothe puritanical kind of approach
was you're beating your wife,you're drunk all the time, you
need to quit eating meat becauseyou're sleeping around and the
meat is making you bad and themeat is making you masturbate.
(24:51):
Stop eating meat and be good.
You know there was really thispreaching going on and there was
people like graham, with thegraham crackers named after,
trying to live on just bran andapples, and some real elites
trying to do that way back.
And so there's been this longhistory of making associating
meatating with carnal pleasuresand immorality and associating
(25:15):
denial and partial starvation assomething good, because in many
traditions fasting is a form ofgetting closer to God.
So if you self-denial a form ofgetting closer to God.
So there's lots of angles wherethe culture's been infused with
the idea that plant foods aresuperior.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
If I'm not mistaken, it's also a piece of Dr
Kellogg's, if I'm not mistaken,where they did want people
lusting, so they gave them thecereal and then today it's on
every shelf and it's evenlabeled, you know, like this is
the healthy version.
Remember New Kellogg's withberries or what have you?
It's so interesting just to goin through this.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
He was a Seventh-day Adventist and he was setting
tight for Ellen White when hewas 12.
So he was traumatized by herwritings and very afraid of sex
and never consummated hismarriage and adopted all his
children.
Oh, wow it felt that nobodyshould touch their genitals, and
that was really the driver, andhe and his brother developed
these.
Well, he actually hired a womanwho was sort of a nursing
(26:22):
student to help him developthese moral foods, where you'd
replace meat with ground up nutsand they used nuts and created
the nut meats and created thesegrain based things that became
breakfast cereal and the wholething is really designed to sort
of castrate you.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
This timeline is insane.
It's very insane.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
It's fun, interesting stuff, and if people stop and
see that we're not thinkingstraight because we've been
saturated in cultural messagesand we don't know where they're
coming from.
We don't know where they camefrom, we just know their
cultural truisms and you do notwant to give up your cultural
truisms.
This gives you a sense ofsecurity.
Your kindergarten teacher toldyou this.
Your grandma told you this,your mom told you this.
(27:05):
It's got to be right.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
This is the scary part, and you can speak to this
a lot more than I can but theeffects of oxalates on the body
with the short and the long term.
There are people that havethese short term kind of side
effects versus.
You might not be seeing some ofthis stuff until 20, 30 years
(27:28):
down the road.
So for myself I've kicked.
I had a lot of like healthissues like belphritis and the
eyes was a big one for me, andthen once I kicked out
Vegetables basically and wentcarnivore and keto, like it.
I haven't had a flare-up at alland for me it's like, oh my god
, like I'm so glad that thatflare-up happened for me.
But I can see why people arelike you don't eat vegetables.
Oh, that's unhealthy.
(27:49):
I eat vegetables all the time.
I'm super healthy, I feel great, but today, right.
So can you speak about theshort-term versus the long-term
and where things getmisconstrued a little bit?
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Yeah, absolutely, and we could go into the details
about how the body ends upaccumulating, and maybe we'll
get there in a second.
But I think just first andforemost looking at the
principle of cause and effect indisease, your body does not
show often that you have adisease, going on until things
are really bad.
(28:21):
So you often don't get a cancerdiagnosis till you're stage
four and you're within sixmonths of death.
And you don't know you havehypertension until someone
measures it.
You may not know for a longtime that your liver is fatty or
that you're getting a form ofcirrhosis, sometimes with the
eyes.
You can tell because they'reburning, itching, driving you
crazy.
You need glasses, they'reputting out gunk, they're
(28:43):
getting ice dyes, you're gettingwhatever, but the doctor has no
idea what's causing it.
Right, so you can even havesymptoms.
But since there's never been aconnection between a, say, swiss
chard lifestyle and your eyeissues, you're not gonna connect
them.
And that's the point of my workis that there is a connection.
(29:03):
There is stress right away inthe body because when you eat
your high oxalate foods, likesweet potatoes for example,
you're getting both crystalsthat the plants make of calcium,
oxalate crystals, and you'regetting oxalic acid.
The crystals are so hard thatthey're harder than teeth and
you can literally wear yourteeth down.
That's how tough those are.
(29:24):
They're microscopic, likereally invisible glass dust.
In your food.
There's also the oxalic acidinvisible glass dust in your
food.
There's also the oxalic acid.
So the two of them together arepretty abusive to your mucosal
lining of your mouth, throat,stomach intestines and so on.
Elementary canal is all like ohgreat glass, not lovely.
Acid that's messing up mymembrane structures and my cells
(29:46):
oh lovely.
And the acid gets into thebloodstream from the stomach and
upper small intestine.
It goes between the cells andstarts acid gets into the
bloodstream from the stomach andupper small intestine.
It goes between the cells andstarts riding around in the
bloodstream affecting the wallsof your capillaries, arteries
and veins, affecting thefunction of the red blood cells
and the white blood cells.
And within 40 minutes of, say,a spinach smoothie, the
(30:08):
circulating monocytes in thewhite blood cell system are
putting out pro-inflammatorychemicals and they themselves
are not able to fight infection.
So you may not notice that yourhealthy vegetarian diet is
giving you sinus infections,yeast infections, repeated
bladder infections and that youstruggle and you're the guy
(30:29):
who's got to have a Kleenex boxnearby or something and you're
always like wondering if youshould call the doctor for the
next round of antibiotics,because your immune system isn't
working well.
And you're also your barrierfunction, so we use this term
barrier function the, the, thelinings of mucosal membranes are
providing a barrier between theoutside world and your inner
(30:50):
world.
So the mucosal membranes areproviding a barrier between the
outside world and your innerworld.
So the mucosal membranes ofyour nose and your eyes and your
stomach and so on, that's allprotecting you.
Your bladder lining, those areimportant tissues that have to
have integrity and health.
They have qualities that allowsyou to interface with toxins
and bacteria and so on andsuccessfully carry on.
(31:10):
But the damage from the crystalsand the oxalic acid exposure
every meal, day in and day out,because you had hash browns for
breakfast and you put spinach onyour subway sandwich and then
you had sweet potatoes fordinner and then you had some
chocolate and some snacks of thealmonds or something, you're
exposing that bloodstream forhours.
The worst peak is probably atfour hours, but already at 40
(31:33):
minutes your blood cells aredamaged and it's going to
continue that exposure in thebloodstream for hours, maybe
eight or ten hours.
After breakfast, after lunch,after dinner, you get a little
break.
By morning you finally got alittle break because you've had
12 or 13 hours without food andright away you're back at it
with some like chia bowl or somefoolish modern food.
(31:54):
Oh no, so you're basicallycreating a what's considered
transient and very hard tomeasure almost impossible
measure high oxalate levels inyour bloodstream.
And that bloodstream isdelivering it not just in the
capillaries and the arteries,but it's going straight into the
cells of the liver and then,through the bloodstream it
(32:15):
passes from there up into theheart and is infusing the heart
tissue and then going into thelungs infusing the lung tissue.
Coming back to the heart again.
This is just the path thatblood takes as it goes past your
intestines and this is theroute it takes and then it gets
pumped out from that lastchamber of the heart into the
(32:36):
peripheral circulation andeventually gets picked up by the
kidneys and a lot of it isgetting peed out.
But in the meantime it's allover the body and it can get
anywhere and it starts tocollect in tissues.
Certain tissues are more pronethan others.
It will collect there,especially if there's any kind
of cell death or cellregeneration.
So if your cells are justnaturally reproducing and
(32:58):
healing, they're prone tocollecting oxalate.
If they're injured, if there'slittle bits of cell debris
around, that helps thatprecipitation process where the
acid starts becomingcrystallized and then it sticks
to the dead material that can'tdefend itself and you can start
getting these accumulations.
And the eye is one of the mostcommon areas for accumulations
(33:19):
to occur.
The bones, the bone marrow, thekidneys, the eyes, that's like
the top four, but it's in yourbrain, it's messing up your
nervous system potentially, andwhere it's collecting is pretty
unique to each individual person.
So there's a littleidiosyncratic kind of tendency
here where each person ends upwith a different picture of what
(33:41):
kinds of problems show up, whenthey show up, how many show up,
where they are in the body isvery individual, which makes it
hard, under our typical style ofthinking about symptoms and
causes and diagnoses, to see it.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
When you mentioned the antibiotics thing, it hits
me home so much because, again,with the flare-ups in my eyes,
they could not figure it out.
Basically, I got put ondoxycycline multiple.
I'm talking every month.
I was on doxycycline, so I'mstill having my spinach smoothie
with my chia seeds and all thatstuff and eating plant-based
(34:18):
thinking.
I'm doing well or eating right,and I'm on antibiotics.
I'm doing this.
I'm just perpetuating this overand over again.
I say it all the time.
To me it wasn't like the mostcraziest like health issue in
the world, but it was affectingmy life.
It was literally affecting mylife, because it looked like I
got punched in the face once amonth in my eyes.
(34:39):
So, um, but yeah, just that wasthe big thing for me.
I mean, I'm so lucky I foundthis path and kind of went to
the keto and carnivore space.
But I think I was lucky becauseif I didn't take the leap of
faith and try it out, I don'tknow where I would be right now.
I don't know how my health orhow I would feel, how my eyes
(35:00):
would have been.
You know, at some point I wasactually getting pretty big bald
spots in my head too as well.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
So Did your hair come back.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
It did I wish it.
I mean every guy thinks wishesit was a little fuller in my mid
to late 30s here.
But no, I was getting like alittle almost like quarter size
bald spots in my head.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Yeah, patchy hair.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Yeah, and I actually had it.
I got it when I was plant-based.
It was more prevalent, but Iactually had it when I was a kid
and they're like, oh, it'salopecia.
He's got alopecia and so theywere in.
Jack, I forgot what theyejected me with, but then they
said, oh, it's either alopeciaor he's really stressed out.
I'm like I'm 10.
I don't know how much stress Icould have in my life at 10, but
(35:46):
uh, I just remember going tothe doctor, getting shots in the
back of my head and eventually.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
I came back.
Oh, that's dramatic.
Yeah, that's not what you wantto be doing at 10.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
No, not at all yeah and this chronic doxy.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
This is a real sign and we shouldn't settle for.
You just need antibiotics, likethat's what the system's
willing to do, and the consumeror the sick person has very
little other choice.
And this information is soempowering empowering and it's
so easy like to pick five or sixfoods that you don't need and
(36:20):
just set them aside, because itdoes end up getting very serious
if you let this go over time.
So you can go along feelingfine, nothing's wrong, but
you're putting up with normalstuff and you're kind of like
pretending it's not really athing, because, after all, you
don't want to open yourself upto the idea that you need to
change what you do.
(36:40):
So you're just going to pretendeverything's okay until it's
really not, or you're going tokeep trying.
This is the worst case than thecommon case.
You start having issues withbrain fog, fatigue, aches and
pains, whatever.
You've got tendonitis, you'vegot plantar fasciitis, you've
got carpal tunnel, you've gotwhatever.
And you can't hike anymore andyou're no fun and you're talking
(37:03):
about your symptoms and you'retrying hard.
So you get a blender and youstart making spinach smoothies
and having more chia bubblesbecause this healthy stuff is
going to be great for me and Igot to stop eating all that
bacon and fat and butter.
And you're going all healthyand it's getting worse.
And this is just gets me in mymoral core, like if you're
(37:24):
making an effort to change yourlife, change your diet, eat
better, try to be healthy so youcan win at life, and and it's
having the opposite effect.
It's just so unfair becausethose people who are proactive
and making, trying to make adifference for themselves and
their families by eating wellare being punished for doing so
in the long run.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Yeah, 100%.
And when people either peopleget symptoms early on or get
this information like, okay, Iwant to make a change right.
What are some first steps thatthey should be looking at?
Because I get the question alot from my family members, from
people on the podcast, of do Igo carnivore right away,
(38:04):
carnivore right away?
I'm like, I'm like I don't knowif that's the best.
They want to go carnivore, likeyou know, cold turkey.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Or is it a slow trickle effect of like start
slowly taking things out Right?
So for for people who are justnot quite symptomatic yet with
the oxalate problems and you'rejust trying to like really
improve your diet, you want tostart with getting enough
protein, you know.
So get used to getting animalproteins at every meal.
It's just start gettingcomfortable with that.
And in the meantime, let's lookat these high oxalate foods in
your diet.
So what are they?
(38:37):
Pick your top five things andit may only be potatoes, spinach
, salads and blackberries.
You know it could only be ashort list.
And then you what you need toknow about all the other
high-oxid foods.
You don't adopt them by mistakeand just trade one bad
high-oxid food for another.
So the first thing you want todo is get like my worst
(38:58):
offenders list.
You can get that on my website.
You can in toxic superfoods thebook there's.
It's like listed three times atleast in there.
You can get the beginner'sguide from my website.
Tons of tables in there, right?
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
With lists over and over again to try to get you
know.
It's very hard to learn thisnew information.
You need to rely on a reliablesource and don't expect yourself
to memorize anything and don'tjust go out there on the
internet, because the internethas no good idea about what's
high oxalate and what isn't.
Your average dietitian has noidea either.
Like the level of foolishignorance on even where the
(39:33):
oxalate and food is reallyshocking.
I was my innocence was overwhen I started like just looking
for like usda and so on.
Usda numbers are horriblenumbers put out by the american.
Uh, what do we call them now?
The dietitians?
The dietitian organization ofamerica is putting out tables in
(39:56):
textbooks that are completelyfull of garbage data.
So it takes a real looking atprimary literature and looking
at how they tested the food andthe quality of those tests to
really pull out testing to knowwhat foods are high and what the
numbers are.
And that's what I've done withthe data companion and in my
book is try to get it right.
(40:17):
And that doesn't mean it's 100%perfect.
But knowing what foods are highoxalate would be kind of like
learning high fat, low fat, highprotein, no protein, like just
getting to know your food with aslightly more important angle.
Your macros don't begin tomatter as much as your toxicity
embedded in natural foods.
So that learning process,patience, patience, patience and
(40:41):
come back to the well.
Come back.
Come back and let it soak inand get this knowledge as part
of who you are, because theculture won't reinforce it,
you're just going to be out inthe world.
It's like, oh, that stuff is sogood for you.
You got to have spinach, yougot a vegetable and you're
getting disabled bycontradictory messages and the
new information doesn't hang inyour brain that well.
(41:03):
So the biggest thing is likeaccept that this is valuable
information for your well-being.
If not today, you're going toage a lot better.
You're going to do a lot better.
You're going to have betterbones, better tendons, happier
kidneys, better teeth.
You're not going to have toothpain.
You're not going to lose yourteeth and have dental caries.
(41:23):
So many good things can happenif you stop poisoning yourself
with this stuff.
So many good things can happenif you stop poisoning yourself
with this stuff and so pick thethings, like if you're doing
Swiss chard, I promise you, ifyou never eat Swiss chard again,
you're not going to miss it,you won't.
And almond milk?
Just coconut milk instead.
So those are two things you cando real fast.
(41:44):
No more chard and no morealmond milk.
Use something else.
Dairy milk would be best.
If you can't do the dairy milk,try a coconut milk.
You know spinach most all thegreens are low oxalate.
All the lettuces, watercress,arugula, all the stuff from the
cabbage family, cabbage itself,turnip greens, kale collard that
stuff is pretty low.
Even kale is pretty low.
(42:05):
So spinach, chard and beetgreens three little tiny things
you can live without in the darkleafy green family.
The problem is preventionmessages are saying dark leafy
greens and those are the onespeople pick.
So let's go for, like, mediumleafy greens and have some nice
romaine lettuce and have a goodtime.
Those little swaps are prettyeasy.
And instead of the almonds andthe nuts like crazy, why not
(42:28):
some cheese or some salami orsome pumpkin seeds?
If you want to go with theplant-based, you can literally
stay vegan or vegetarian andlower your oxalate level and
save your body.
You don't have to go carnivorenecessarily to benefit from the
oxalate information.
And this is lovely, becausepeople who are resistant to the
(42:51):
idea of a meat-centric diet cangradually over time, get
comfortable with the idea thatvegetables aren't all they're
cracked up to be and oncethey've done this low oxalate
long enough, that makes themrealize that we're actually
intended to eat animal foods andthey'll start to relax and you
can convince them to have somebacon, scrambled eggs and cheese
(43:13):
souffle and things that aremore animal based and kind of
relax.
It's actually easier to notforce yourself to have 11
servings of this or that, likevegetables are a little bit
optional people and you can justrelax a little.
So, taking time to move yourmindset, which is moving away
(43:35):
from the culture, take somepatience and some people are
quick changers and other peoplejust you know they maybe need
support someone in their familywho's like, yeah, bacon's okay
yeah, I, I, I get things all thetime.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
I went through a huge like weight, like my weight
would go up and down, up anddown, like big yo-yo type stuff.
And then I finally in a placewhere I've I love the way that I
look right now I, I performwell, my strength is good, like
everything is great.
And people come up to me andthey ask me if they haven't seen
me in a very long time andthey'll be like oh my god, you
(44:12):
look great.
You look, you look kind of thesame as you did in high school,
a little bit like you look likewhat do you do?
And I'll tell them yeah, I kindof just, you know real low carb
and I just do kind of carnivore.
And they're like immediatelythe switch of like, oh, like
you're gonna have a heart attackkind of thing.
It's like immediately shut off.
But you mentioned it like we'vebeen taught this since we've
(44:32):
been knee high to the ground.
Our parents have taught us this.
And again, like reward systemof eating your vegetables, to
like you can't have the rest ofthis until you eat your, your
vegetables.
You're like OK, I guess.
And then I had Courtney Luna on.
She's a lovely individual youknow, courtney, and uh, yeah
she's great and she talks aboutsalads, because I've mentioned I
(44:53):
.
Go in your cookbook.
It says you have salads likepeople get a little, a little
concerned, like the carnivorecommunity.
She's like yeah, it's a meatsalad.
She goes people, if you reallylook at the salads, people are
only putting the lettuce andstuff in there because they
think they need that.
But what do you really want?
You want, look at the salads,people are only putting the
lettuce and stuff in therebecause they think they need
that.
But what do you really want?
You want the bacon, the hardboiled eggs, like the dressing,
(45:14):
and all the cheese.
That's what you go for and thenlike there's.
You just like finish thelettuce because I feel like I'm
supposed to do that.
Well, you don't need to do that.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Like it's not a big thing, but I think the of the
lettuce is kind of like the tacoshell, what you want is the
taco filling right, exactly,yeah, it's the holder, I mean
nice parmesan cheese and likethe classic caesar salad tons of
cheese in there.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
Yeah, anchovies interesting, I'm all for that.
Yeah, I've had, uh, I've hadher cookbook and I I've actually
given it to my sister.
I have a twin sister who'sgoing on carnivore and low, low
carb and she's lost tons ofweight.
It looks phenomenal.
She'll send me stuff from thecookbook.
But we're affecting I know I'mgoing on a tangent of affecting
people but people in my innercircle or my circle around me
(46:02):
have been affected by my changesand asking me questions.
And this is the piece why I dothe podcast and this is why I
love sharing these stories,because it really only takes a
few people just to kind of startmaking a little bit of a
difference.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
So it's very exciting in the oxalate aware sort of
community you might call itwhere people who are learning
this are seeing it in thegrocery store or someone might.
They might meet someone in anelevator who's saying I've got
this severe thing.
I'm here to see the doctor andI'm really afraid.
I think they're gonna tell me Ionly have so many months to
(46:36):
live and my people willrecognize it.
Oh, you have fibrosis.
Do you also have thyroidproblems?
Do you have arthritis?
Have you had a kidney stone?
Have this, that?
And they're like yeah, yeah,yeah, what.
Yeah, what do you eat?
It's like you need to check outSally's book.
Like, so this is going on, thissort of doctoring.
It goes on in checkout aisles,it goes on in the produce aisle.
(46:56):
Like people really really carewhen they see what this has done
to their health and they seeother people around doing it and
actually it's much easier toaffect a stranger than your
sister typically.
Speaker 1 (47:07):
Yeah, I want to touch base on this before we start to
wrap up.
Is oxalate dumping right?
Somebody that has gotten thesesymptoms and whatever they
showcase and they want to gointo a low-carb space or at
(47:27):
least eliminate oxalates?
What's a worry or concern aboutoxalate dumping and what is it?
Speaker 2 (47:33):
Right.
So there is this accumulationof eating at every meal for
years and years and it's toomuch for the bloodstream to hold
on to, too much for thebloodstream delivered to the
kidneys and the body'sprotecting the kidneys and
having to hold on to it.
It's in your bone marrow, yourbones, your eyes, your teeth,
your jaw, your organs, yourbrain you name it your liver,
(47:54):
your heart.
There is oxley depositspotentially anywhere in your
body and that is a workaround.
That is a waiting and holdingpattern, waiting for the moment
where the tissues candeaccumulate this stuff and
clean it out.
They're just doing it becausethey have to, because you keep
eating it, eating and eating it.
But if you stop eating enoughoxalate to really make the rest
(48:17):
of the tissues concerned, ifthey put it into the bloodstream
or give it to the kidneys rightnow, it could kill everybody,
like they're.
This is wise thinking on thepart of the teeth or whatever
like.
Let's just leave it here.
So there's a change in yourwhole metabolism from this
holding mode or sequestrationmode to a recovery,
(48:37):
deaccumulation mode, and if itall turns on at once because you
went low really fast and nowyou're not eating any oxalates
at all, within three days, thecells can outfit themselves and
turn around and start putting itout of them and putting it into
the bloodstream.
Now, putting oxalic acid intoyour bloodstream from your
thyroid gland or your teeth oryour shoulder joint could start
(48:59):
to affect the calcium levels inyour blood.
You see, because oxalic aciddoes what Grabs minerals, it
loves calcium, calcium loves it.
So right there in the bloodstream you could start lowering
your calcium available, calciumions in the blood.
This is a terrible idea thatcalcium level, these ions in
your blood, the blood has to bejust so.
(49:20):
If not, the pacemaker in theheart isn't working right and
you start getting arrhythmias,you get hypertension, you get
heart pounding, you get a stroke.
You can you'll end up in theemergency room.
If this, if your calcium levelsare are dipping so low.
And when the calcium levels arelow, what does the body got to
do?
It's got to turn on a hormonethat tells the bones give me
(49:40):
some calcium, I need calcium sowe keep the heart running, we
need this now.
So you start again miningcalcium out of your blood.
Every time you oxalates, you'remining calcium and you're
ending up peeing out calcium.
You're wasting potassium,you're becoming mineral
deficient.
Now you're so mineral deficientbecause you've eaten these high
oxalate foods for long.
Now you're putting it back intothe bloodstream in a mineral
(50:01):
deficient body and you'remessing with your electrolytes
and you're messing with the cellfunction throughout the body
and it can get really toxic formany reasons beyond that.
The immune system is the oneturning on, lighting up,
attacking and eating crystals,and this is all pro-inflammatory
cytokines.
And these cytokines andchemicals that go involved with
(50:23):
the monocytes trying tophagocytize or eat these
crystals can change tissues andliterally change their DNA.
It causes energy crises incells.
You get aberrant expression,expression meaning you've got
this DNA in yourself, which is agiant cookbook of recipes about
how to be a cell.
And there's you can be a bonecell, you can be a tendon cell,
you can be all those things.
Well, if you're like breastcell, you can learn to become a
(50:45):
bone cell and start producingcalcium.
And so oxalate causescalcification of the body
because it's damaging the DNAand damaging the genetic
expression, and cells arechanging over from normal to
some weird bone-like cell.
They're also becoming cancerous.
So this thumping involves yourimmune system attacking crystals
(51:08):
and creating a very sort ofimmune, toxic body where the
whole reversal of this toxicitythat you now have a body
overloaded with oxalate and nowyou have to get rid of it.
But the getting rid of it is abit of a dangerous process.
So this is why I'm often tellingpeople well, how is your beet
juice going?
(51:28):
We need to put back.
If you say you're carnivore,you're zero oxalate diet, and
that's giving carte blanche tothis body deaccumulation,
dumping it out all over theplace and you want to slow that
down.
So you tell the body.
No, that's too much all at once.
Let's calm everybody down.
You're much better just leavingit there instead of moving it
around.
Hazmat materials need to stayin place until you have a proper
(51:49):
way of handling it and movingit out of the site.
You don't just whip up hazmatmaterials and just stir up a pot
.
You have to be very careful.
So you tell the body be morecareful and you take some tea or
some sweet potato or some beetjuice or some dark chocolate and
you can slow that decumulate,because you will sometimes
you'll get quite sick with thisdumping.
(52:12):
You can.
It's more than just arrhythmias,it's misery and you can see it
sometimes with the urine becausethe you'd be peeing out enough
oxalate that.
Sometimes that's crystallizingand you see cloudy urine.
Speaker 1 (52:24):
That's a sign for also helping the binding of the
oxalates is is it preferable tohave more of like a dairy or
like a hard cheese as well?
Speaker 2 (52:34):
yes, you want, we need to up.
The calcium is the number onebinder.
You don't need other binders.
Calcium is the binder and weneed calcium happening like four
times a day and usually youneed to add a supplement.
Really, if you're really sickwith oxalates, you're going to
need to add calcium as asupplement, usually starting at
bedtime.
You need to match that up withmagnesium for balance and for
(52:58):
gut function, because sometimestoo much cheese or too many
forms of calcium can be a littlebit constipating for some
people and usually some traceminerals to kind of balance out
the effects of more calciumwhich you need in the gut.
We're mostly taking it to keepit in the gut because you only
absorb maybe 20 percent ofcalcium that you consume.
It's mostly staying as a binderin the gut but also affecting
(53:21):
absorption of other things, soadding trace minerals, and so we
get into supplements often tomanage this mess.
Because you're electrolytedeficient, you need more
potassium, you need that, youneed the calcium as a binder,
you need more magnesium, youneed the trace minerals as well.
So often there's supports and Italk about a lot of that in
toxic superfoods.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
I think that's super important to let people know
about, like that is could be thepotential of oxalate dumping if
you kind of cut cold turkey.
But I kind of also want totransition to leaving some hot
takes into this fruit coffee, uh, and dark chocolate, all right,
those are the three things Ialways get asked about as well.
(54:03):
Uh, what's your stance on fruit?
Is it the same as just findingthe low oxalates or it's
something to?
It's a little bit moreacceptable than vegetables?
Speaker 2 (54:12):
Fruit is way less soluble, it's more the crystals.
So the crystals stick to thefibers and the things in the
fruit and you're not getting asmuch oxalate from those fruits.
But the fruits that are bad arestarfruit kiwis of whole
pomegranate, not so good whenyou turn it to juice.
(54:33):
Most of them are much lower inoxalate.
So if you, if you can handlethe sugars of fruit, juice would
be the lowest oxalate form offruit.
But generally, except for thoseones I mentioned, fruits are
mostly okay unless you're doingtons of grapefruit and tons of
certain like the clementines andtangelos tend to be high.
But fruits are a much betterdeal and I think some people
(54:56):
really, especially us middleaged women, cannot stick with a.
What I think is a therapeuticapproach of pure keto, ultra low
carb is short-term therapy,long-term stress.
So I encourage people, if theyfeel they're sleeping better,
not getting leg cramps andgenerally have more energy and
are happier, that carbs likefruits are probably a good idea
(55:20):
for those people.
Coffee I've never been a coffeeperson.
I think life is okay without it, but it is the number one
acceptable addiction out thereand people are so bonded with it
.
But it is the number oneacceptable addiction out there
and people are so bonded with itit's part of the ritual of
their day.
It's a great comfy teddy bearfor an adult you know little
security blanket kind of thingand it's something you can save
(55:42):
for later when you want to bereally up in your game.
I don't think you want to tellyourself you can't have coffee.
If you're doing all these othergreat changes, you really should
get credit for any positivechange.
You know and say I'm going tosell the coffee question until
I'm ready to tackle it, but behonest with the fact that that
coffee's kind of a crutch andthen dark chocolate is high
(56:04):
oxalate, full of cadmium, leadand theobromide and problems.
But you, if you get a niceclean one that's been tested,
that's low in cadmium and lead,I actually encourage people you
can use it as an oxalate dosingtool and have some hot cocoa or
some, because it's convenient.
You know you can be traveling.
Except for the low lead onesare very rare.
(56:25):
Most of the commercialchocolates are loaded with
contaminants of heavy metals soyou want to really moderate that
as much as you dare would uh,would uh milk.
Speaker 1 (56:37):
If you're gonna go the route of having chocolate,
is milk chocolate the betteroption, and it's just like,
contrary to like.
Oh, dark chocolate's way betterfor you, but right guess not.
Speaker 2 (56:48):
The oxalate part in the chocolate is the dark part,
it's the white part, the fat.
You know the white Easter bunnythat's got none of the cocoa in
it, that doesn't have anyoxalate in it, because, remember
, we started early on sayingoxalate is water soluble and it
doesn't stay in the fatty part.
So dark chocolate is usingheavy the cocoa part.
(57:12):
The cacao darkness darker thehigher the oxalate.
So go down on your percent,dark all the way to milk and
you're better off.
Speaker 1 (57:16):
And ending with some upcoming new things that are
happening.
We kind of talked to Offairabout your.
Is it the Data Companion bookthat's going to be available?
Speaker 2 (57:25):
Well, the Data Companion came out in 2024 in
May, and that's very popular.
I'm surprised.
I thought this reference, withall this information and a bunch
in the front, was really forthe professionals like yourself
who have clients and you want toknow the resources for them, or
a dietician or a doctor'soffice.
(57:45):
But people have told me thatthis book is working as like an
easier, simple, quick, quickdive into oxalate versus this
book, which is intended toexplain all the questions like
why do we know about this?
Why is your doctor not knowabout it?
Aren't plants good for me?
And how, what is thisaccumulation thing like?
This explains all yourquestions.
This one tells you this is whatyou need to know to do it.
(58:08):
So a lot of people just want todive to doing and they like this
.
So I have a pdf cookbook that'sgot about 185 recipes in it.
That's not that convenientbecause it's a pdf and I'm
getting it converted to a printon demand so you can have one
that looks just like this.
That's a cookbook for 188recipes at least it's going to
have, and that has that's foryour family members who are
(58:29):
still eating vegetables.
There's lots of ways how to docabbage, what to do with the
turnip and rutabaga, and how tocook an egg properly like some
really basic skills, how to cookorgan meats, proper salad
dressings, uh, you know.
There's just really a lot oflearning.
For those of you who areremembering that cooking at home
is one of the key things youcan do to start improving your
(58:50):
health, Absolutely, and then anybig events, anything you're
looking forward to coming up.
Well, we got meat stock comingup this spring in Gatlinburg.
That's going to be a muchbigger party than it's been the
last couple of years, so it's awhole different scene every year
.
I think that's going to behugely exciting and even though
(59:10):
it's sold out, there are ahandful of people who can't go
and you can do a ticket exchangeand join us there.
And you know, sometimes thefuture is not always known, but
we're seeing more and moreopportunities for getting
together and hopefully more ofthat's going to be happening
opportunities for gettingtogether and hopefully more of
(59:32):
that's going to be happening.
Speaker 1 (59:35):
I'm a little upset.
I'm not going to make meatstock.
I've already booked acertification for that weekend
and it's my father's birthdaytoo.
But 2026, the next one, notthis one, the next one, Wow are
we almost at 2026?
I'm so futuristic 2026, I'mdefinitely going to go.
But if anybody is interested inthat, I saw the lineup I've
talked about it on the podcast abunch of just like the who's
who of everybody and justrubbing elbows and getting
(59:57):
together.
Yeah and it's.
Speaker 2 (59:59):
East Coast-y, because most of these parties nutrition
parties have been happening inTexas and California.
Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
And the East Coast has been getting neglected, and
so what I love about it is thisdown home East thing, and we're
right from the get go.
We're very Oxlade conscious inthat world with the guys who put
it together Scott mainly hasbeen.
He interviewed me multipletimes and he's quite sensitive
to the Oxlade topic and Oxladegets its due respect.
(01:00:27):
That's nice too.
Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
I really appreciate that.
Scott's the man.
But thank you so much and forcoming on.
I really, really appreciate it.
It's definitely a pleasure tohave you on and I will also put
any of Sally's recommendationsor and or links in the show
notes so people have access aswell.
So again, thank you so much forcoming on the show.
Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
This in the show notes, so people have access as
well.
So again, thank you so much forcoming on the show, tony.
Speaker 1 (01:00:53):
This was really fun to be with you today.
Thank you, thank you and thanksto everybody listening to
another episode of the PrimalFoundations podcast.
Today's guest is Sally K Norton, an Ivy League
nutritionist and renowned expertin the field of oxalates.
She holds a bachelor's ofscience in nutrition at Cornell
University, a master's in publichealth from University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Sally has emerged as a leadingvoice on the impact of oxalates
and shares her extensiveresearch and insights in her
book Toxic Superfoods.
(00:21):
Sally, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Oh, it's fun to be with you today.
Thank you, Tony.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I have to say I'm super excited to have you on and
, you know, with this podcastI've had a bunch of different
people on talking about you knowtheir individual stories, about
you know finding their ownhealth path and health journey
and I come from a plant basedbackground that got into some,
some health issues and found myway into keto and then
(00:46):
eventually carnivore.
But, uh, you know you provide alot of science, kind of a low
carb space and carnivore andjust with all of your expertise.
I just want to again start thisout by thanking you for all
your efforts and the informationand the resource you put out
and it's it's really affectingpeople all over the globe.
So thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Thanks for tuning in.
I felt compelled to do thisresearch because I destroyed my
life, every aspect of my life,trying to eat healthy and
missing the mark terribly Like.
It was amazing how I would haveso much knowledge, deciding to
(01:25):
pursue nutrition, to do healthpromotion, in like 1977, when I
was 12, and working so hard todo the right thing.
You know, you would say, yourplant base.
It's been a big thing, thewhole veggie movement since the
70s.
And when I finally realized,despite working in medical
(01:45):
schools, working withintegrative practitioners,
working with alternativepractitioners, never none of us
knew what was wrong with me.
None of us could figure thisout.
And it turned out I waspoisoning myself with my healthy
, organic diet loaded withvegetables and I'm like, ah,
(02:06):
like how could?
If I couldn't figure it outwith all the resources, who
could?
And so I felt compelled toreally get some answers and
figure out how to explain whatthe science really says.
And I'm so honored that peopleare picking up on this message.
And the reason it's happeningis because this is a very common
(02:27):
problem and a lot of us are atthe end of our ropes about what
the heck we're trying so hard toeat well and we're not getting
the results we deserve.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
And you know, before we jump into oxalates and some
of the information that you havein your book, you know you
mentioned some things, but ifyou could share some of your
backstory and the challenges youknow you had, and then what led
you to that investigating ofoxalates?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I had what seemed like a lemon of a body.
I was having issues I mean, ifI think about it way back and it
was became real obvious incollege.
First of all, I needed reallystrong prescription lenses when
I went to college, and then Ineeded bifocals.
I needed both distance andclose correction in college.
(03:19):
So I'm in my I'm like 20, 21,21 and I already need old people
glasses what's up with that?
But at the same time I wasn'table to walk to dinner.
My feet were hurting so bad.
I was really struggling onCornell's campus to cope and
function and get to class.
I was in a tremendous amount ofpain with my feet and
(03:41):
eventually I had to leave andhave foot surgery on both feet
both feet at the same time,which is quite a big deal and I
didn't recover well from thatsurgery.
I, before the surgery and after, I swam a mile a day trying to
get some blood flow in there andtrying to help them heal.
I was given all these orthoticsand medications, especially
(04:03):
beforehand, over five years ofsuper, super high dose ibuprofen
, because that's all I can tellyou.
This is ridiculous.
And I eventually got off theorthotics and accidentally in
retrospect I realized I quiteating Swiss chard and I was
able to get in normal shoes andkind of look normal, but I was
(04:24):
never able to exercise in waysthat use your feet Like you know
.
Some ultimate Frisbee oranything like that Court sports,
forget it.
Even the sport of washing yourdishes required shoes.
So if I'm going to stand in myhouse or be in my house I had to
wear shoes with side support.
I couldn't go barefoot for 30years.
(04:45):
And then I also had all thisarthritis.
During those vegetarian yearsthrough the 20s I had so much
arthritis that there was acouple of times when I didn't
have the strength in my hands toturn the key in the lock at age
19 and all kinds of weird stuffthat was happening.
That was unexplained.
(05:06):
And if I think back, you knowwhen I was 12, I started having
severe back pain issues.
I would sometimes wake up withglitches in my back that would
leave me like just for a second,as I was waking up in the
morning, paralyzed, like Iliterally couldn't move my body.
So there's something reallyweird neurologically going on
there, like I literally couldn'tmove my body.
So there's something reallyweird neurologically going on
(05:28):
there.
And as a little kid I was puton penicillin a lot for strep,
throat and ear infections, tothe point where they took out my
tonsils at age five.
So I actually think you knowthere's a lot to the story where
that's often that's part of thestory.
Often you see these earlychildhood struggles with
infections and later, when I wasold enough to be a babysitter,
(05:48):
we had an epidemic of ear tubesand all the kids were having ear
problems all the time.
What is that?
Is that the soy formula and theearly baby foods, I would now
ask?
Probably so.
So I eventually had to give upmy career completely.
I had really bad bleeding, withhemorrhagic uterus, with
(06:12):
fibroids, and needed ahysterectomy, and my back was so
bad I was kneeling on my kneeshalf the day because I couldn't
sit in a chair.
You know, 50 hours a weekwriting research grants and
submitting them and ministeringresearch grants and I had a
hysterectomy.
I'm like whoa, miss healthyneeds hysterectomy.
(06:33):
And they got in there looseblood scarring on the colon,
endometriosis ovaries that werecompletely trashed and he's like
he's gotta go to go.
And I'm like, yeah, they'vebeen having trouble the last few
years.
This has been bad like fouryears.
He goes no, like forever.
How could someone who's triedso hard to live a healthy life
(06:55):
be such a mess?
And I didn't recover well fromthat surgery and my doctor's
like well, you look great, yournumbers are perfect, and this is
the thing about poisoningyourself with healthy foods is
your blood work, of course,looks pretty good because you
live in a good lifestyle, yourblood pressure is low,
everything's great, you're fine,except you're not.
(07:16):
So we'll send you to the sleepdoctor because we have no idea
what's wrong with you.
Well, that was a stroke ofgenius in a way, because the
sleep lab that puts all thewires all over your head and
your arms and legs and looks forlike weird stuff showed that my
brain couldn't stay asleep andit was waking up every well 29
(07:36):
times every hour, so that's likeevery two minutes.
No wonder I wasn't able to read.
Well, I wasn't able to do much.
I had no mental energy, realdifficulty focusing.
You know they use this lack ofsleep as a torture and it's
probably a great way to makesomeone crazy.
(07:56):
It was completely stopping mylife and it took three years of
research to figure out what'sgoing on, because you know, in
the literature they say thatthis sleep disorder, most sleep
disorders are a form of toxicityand the most likely cause is
endotoxemia from something likeSIBO.
(08:16):
We have bacterial overgrowthand you have too many bacteria
dying and putting out toxins andyou're poisoning your nervous
system with too muchfermentation basically going on,
and that I thought for sure,well, that must be it, because
I'm bloated and I just mydigestion is terrible, so I've
got to have it.
So I'm treating that, eventhough the test showed I didn't
(08:38):
have SIBO.
And somehow, in the course oftrying to fix my sleep disorder,
thinking that I had to fix mygut so I could sleep, so I could
live I experimented withoxalates in a way that gave me
this breakthrough insight thatmy arthritis because it started
coming back as I was adding inkiwi and things to my diet that
(08:59):
I now understood were highoxalate now understood were high
oxalate.
So anyway, I had to do thisdarn like avoid oxalates, enough
to get on a low oxalate dietbecause my arthritis was so bad
and I really didn't want to doit because I have a sleep
disorder and a digestive problemto fix.
I'm trying to fix that, but thearthritis is, you just can't
(09:20):
deal with it, you can't livelike that and I went on this
diet.
I quit my Swiss chard, which acouple times a week't live like
that and I went on this diet.
I quit my Swiss chard, which acouple times a week, daily sweet
potatoes and at that time itwas mostly daily kiwi Quit that
and within less less than 10days probably about a week my
brain was coming back.
All kinds of things are comingback.
My pain level was way down andwithin seven or eight months of
(09:47):
that time when I started, I wasnow able to wear high heels for
over seven hours at a wedding ina way that I had never done in
my whole life.
My feet were finally actinglike normal people's feet
people's feet.
Here I am 50 years old at thattime.
Finally, I have feet that work.
(10:09):
I was doing this for arthritisbut it turned out the
neurotoxicity, the connectivetissue problems, the
inflammation in the body, theconnective tissue problem being
foot pain can be a connectivetissue disorder.
Any kind of pain can be If theconnective tissues aren't having
their normal strength andelasticity.
Elasticity has limits,appropriate limits.
(10:32):
That maintains the shape,structure and function of that
tissue.
And the foot has particularstructures for its function.
It has multiple arches thatgive it this strength,
elasticity and toughness to beable to take impact over and
over again and maintain theirshape and their function.
Well, if your connective tissueis loose and weak and too
stretchy, that causes pain and Irealize now it was connective
(10:56):
tissue perpetual damage from thediet just a few kiwi every day
is enough to make thatconnective tissue not function
well.
And as I got off the oxalatesnow the normal activity, the
proper stretch and strength andstructure maintenance in the
foot, was restored.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
This could be wrong.
I don't know if this is true,but you do speeches when you do
like keynotes.
You actually do it barefoot.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
I have yes.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
That's badass.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
I love that do it barefoot I have.
Yes, that's badass, I love that.
Yeah, I do love barefoot living.
I do love my little toe shoesand way, way back in the day
Marxist, you know, has keyed meoff on that and it just makes
sense for me completely.
I never liked the structure.
The shoes I always wore wereSebago moccasins that have no
(11:46):
arch.
All it has is that side supportof that nice moccasin structure
which is a classic shoe.
Right, the classic structure ofa shoe is a moccasin.
But to let your toes functionis so exciting and let your feet
function and to kind ofCorvette-like to have road feel
right.
Your feet function into kind ofCorvette, like to have road
(12:07):
feel right.
Why are you up on a big bouncyMercury shoe that's just squishy
, soft and taking away yourstructure and disabling your
foot and thus your knees andyour hips and your alignment.
Yeah, I won't preach anymoreabout that.
Not everybody loves thebarefoot thing, but I do.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Yeah, I love it.
I just got a pair of.
I've never had earth runners.
Uh, I just got a pair, but I'ma big advocate.
I work out barefoot.
Uh, I know we're supposed to betalking about vegetables and
stuff, but like this isimportant.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Like the gym does not throw me out for throwing off
my shoes and sometimes my socks,I can go, they don't care,
they're cool.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
That's awesome.
Uh yeah, barefoot's the best.
And for context, for thelisteners, you start to kick out
some of these different foods.
Some of that might not befamiliar.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
What are oxalates and what foods are they commonly in
?
Oxalates?
Is this plural term oxalate,oxalates, oxalates?
Is this plural term oxalate,oxalates, oxalic acid.
The mother compound is oxalicacid, which is a little tiny two
carbon molecule with fouroxygens on it that has a charge,
a positive, a negative charge,and it can drop another proton
and have a double negativecharge.
So this is an ion, that an ionhas this charge of polarity.
(13:22):
I don't know if anybodyremembers chemistry in high
school, but water is a polarmolecule, right?
So it's water soluble.
Because it has charges, it hasdifferent sides that have
different plus minus tendencies.
So it's an important thing toremember because if you start
thinking about the foods thatthis acid can be in, it's not
(13:43):
going to be in a polar andnon-polar molecule like a fat,
so you can take a food that hashigh oxalic acid and the
oxalates.
So, because it has a charge, itconnects with things with
positive charge Minerals andwhen it's connected with a
mineral, that's an oxalate.
And the oxalates are calciumoxalate, which is the most
(14:05):
prominent one in nature.
Calcium oxalate is the mainingredient in almost all kidney
stones.
Something like 80 percent ofkidney stones are built from
calcium oxalate and your doctorwill call it a calcium stone,
but calcium is an innocentbystander that's been robbed
from some tissue like your urinewhile you're forming urine in
(14:27):
your kidneys and starts tocrystallize.
So you get the calcium oxalatecoming together and it has this
charge and it's prone tocrystallizing.
You get pairs of them lining up.
You get about eight or 12 pairsand they can precipitate out,
which is a chemical term forthings dissolved suddenly become
solids.
So dissolved ions become solidsand they form these little nano
(14:48):
crystals that start growinginto bigger crystals and they
can get.
For some people their kidneysaren't handling that
crystallization as well asothers there's 12 percent of the
population or so don't quitehave all the redundant systems
completely awesome enough tohandle that crystallization and
they're prone to kidney stones.
(15:09):
So too much oxalate in the dietsometimes the first sign you
have that's causing you problemsis a kidney stone, but in fact
that's a late stage sign.
It means you have beenoverdoing oxalate in your diet
for too long and there'sprobably a whole bunch of other
things going on in your bodybecause really this soluble
oxalic acid is leaving the bodythrough the water exit routes.
(15:32):
Right the kidneys get rid oftoxins in the blood that are
water soluble, versus the bileand the stuff that's happening
in the colon.
You're excreting toxins thatare more fat soluble through
liver and bile, but the kidneysare taking, cleaning out the
watery substance of the blood.
That takes out this oxalic acid, where you get this crystal
formation.
(15:52):
That's the end of the line ofsomething that came into your
body through your mouth, becausemost of the oxalate in your
diet despite all the mythologyand denial out there that likes
to claim otherwise, most all theoxalate in your diet is coming
from your diet and from youroxalate in your food is
providing what's in your body.
So let's get this straightbecause I said that wrong.
(16:13):
Most of the oxalate that's inyour bloodstream and in your
organs and ending up in yoururine is coming from your food.
And, number two, your vitamin cthe vitamin c that's fortified
in foods and in your supplements.
So you have complete controlover how much oxalic acid you
consume once you know what foodsare in.
So what the heck foods are theyin?
(16:34):
Spinach, chard, beet, greens,sorrel, quinoa, bran, beets,
sweet potatoes, almonds, cashews, peanuts, potatoes, dark
chocolate, tea.
You know, listen to them.
(16:55):
And most of those foods areconsidered really great, except
they're not, and this is thisfantasy that's never been proven
.
That was a concept in nutrition,in research circles, of this
sort of phytonutrients thatplants have special planty
(17:16):
things that have potentiallybeneficial qualities and we call
them nutrients which they'renot, because they're not
essentially necessary for celllife to have these phyto things
that are only in plantspolyphenols and tannins and this
kind of thing propertiesinteracting with your digestive
(17:49):
system, your body, yourmicrobiome, and as they get
processed by the bacteria inyour gut, sometimes they can do
some beneficial things for somepeople if they have the right
genetics and the right bacteria.
The rest of the time they'repretty questionable and usually
considered toxins, these plantyphytonutrients.
So we?
But we've been sold the spillof goods because it sells
supplements, it sells magazinecovers, it sells products.
(18:10):
It's really great for the wholeeconomic machinery of the food
industry because produce is oneof these perishable items that
bring you out for retailactivity because it's so
perishable you have to go backand get your lettuce supply
every four days or so to havefresh foods.
And we built a whole economybased on sort of california as
(18:33):
the veggie basket of the worldkind of thing and the nut basket
and all this transportation,big system of refrigeration and
so on that the produce basedidea for nutrition is built on.
So you know, we've been toldwe've got to have all these
vegetables, based on a conceptthat was really internal for the
(18:58):
researchers but got picked upfor marketing, and so we've been
told so long, veggies are goodfor you.
Good for you.
It goes back way long If youthink about World War I and
World War II.
There was this whole victorygarden thing, which was
propaganda to kind of say getbusy because you're helping the
war effort, you're desperately.
(19:19):
Your son just was killed orwhatever.
Just keep growing vegetables,it's good for the war effort.
You know, people are reallystruggling economically and
culturally and personally overthe devastation of world war,
one which is just awful,especially in in england and
britain.
Boy were they getting theirasses whipped.
You know, and it was, uh,government propaganda they did
(19:42):
this whole fake thing about wehave a special diet for the
english pilots so they can seebetter at night and bomb german
targets better, and we're givingthem carrots.
And this was to disguise the,the new technologies that was
allowing some success withnighttime raids, with bombing.
(20:04):
But we didn't want to revealthe technology so that the
government created this fakething about carrots and vision
and so on.
So we've been promotingvegetables just for government
propaganda, for war secrets.
You know it wasn't really forhealth.
So we're saturated and ingarbage information and in the
(20:24):
oxalate world there's so muchgarbage information out there
and so much I mean even in themedical literature, you're gonna
see titles and headlines arejust nonsense.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
I mean I've heard of the Victory Gardens thing but I
didn't know that's the carrotpiece of fighter pilots.
It's very interesting and theguidelines right.
It seems like people areputting you know, eat the
rainbow type stuff in theguidelines for health.
Is that just kind of likemisguided or, you think, very
(21:00):
purposeful?
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Well, it's hard to read into the motives of the
guidelines or any individualperson, but we have universally
accepted, really since the dawnof defining vitamins in the
early, you know, over a hundredyears ago, we were chemically
finding vitamins and figuringout where they were and why they
were necessary for health.
(21:22):
And in these early studies theycould use, you know, turnip
greens and things like this andsee a benefit to growing animals
in the lab and we're able tojustify the idea that vegetables
were providing importantnutrients.
And in that time we were arural country and people didn't
have the affluence we have nowand home gardens was pretty
(21:43):
standard.
So this was considered, fromthe elite's point of view, a way
to keep the poor nourished andletting them know they could
grow some of their own foods andthey could be vegetables and
you can can them yourself.
And if you use vegetables,that's a way to stay, keep the
population decently healthy,hopefully, and have the poor be
(22:04):
able to live on bad salaries,because the elites were not so
interested in the poor gettinggood salaries as they were
making sure that they didn'twaste their money on beef when
they could grow turnip greensyeah, yeah, it's.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Uh, it's very interesting what the the
guidelines have ever been.
I feel like the old school foodpyramid to my plates, to a
couple of other things.
Now that I just saw the otherday there's a ketogenic pyramid
that's like peer reviewed andthat's been out there.
Yeah, it just like startedpopping up on my feet in the
past couple of days of someresearch.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
So it's just like this ongoing endeavor of when I
started school at Cornell, therewas a big wave of oh, you know,
now vegetarian is consideredokay.
In the early 80s was the firsttime the American Dietetics
Association, which now has adifferent name, was willing to
concede that a vegetarian dietcould be nutritionally adequate
(23:01):
concede because we always knewthat animal foods were.
And this was kind of finally, apropaganda wave was winning and
invading that profession, andthat's because many professors
were doing vegetarian diets andwanted this to occur.
A lot of people come into thefield of nutrition already
(23:22):
believing vegetables are thebetter way to eat.
I mean, that's how we've beenraised for a long time.
You know, each parents havebeen telling their poor little
children around the dinner tableto eat their vegetables for a
long, long, long time, and so wegrow up with this bias that
vegetables are a requirement andthey're more moral, and so
there's a lot of moralism thatcan drive nutrition.
(23:44):
You can see how they would gotogether.
You know eat right, be good, dogood, and then you would
connect this kind of don't eatanimals as kind of a negative
idea, because there's obviousdeath there, where, with the
vegetable foods and the grains,the death is hidden under the
combines and the otherdestruction of the soil and the
(24:04):
chemicals involved and all ofthat where the death of the
animals we can pretend isn'thappening, where the death of
the animals we can pretend isn'thappening.
So I really think it was right.
Actually, from the dawn, withthe whole Seventh-day Adventist
thing, there was many movementsway back, way back when there
was no knowledge of nutritionanywhere, we didn't know about
(24:26):
vitamins yet, and there was thismoralism because we had
problems with alcoholism and wetended to turn to God and
preachers for guidance, and sothe puritanical kind of approach
was you're beating your wife,you're drunk all the time, you
need to quit eating meat becauseyou're sleeping around and the
meat is making you bad and themeat is making you masturbate.
(24:51):
Stop eating meat and be good.
You know there was really thispreaching going on and there was
people like graham, with thegraham crackers named after,
trying to live on just bran andapples, and some real elites
trying to do that way back.
And so there's been this longhistory of making associating
meatating with carnal pleasuresand immorality and associating
(25:15):
denial and partial starvation assomething good, because in many
traditions fasting is a form ofgetting closer to God.
So if you self-denial a form ofgetting closer to God.
So there's lots of angles wherethe culture's been infused with
the idea that plant foods aresuperior.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
If I'm not mistaken, it's also a piece of Dr
Kellogg's, if I'm not mistaken,where they did want people
lusting, so they gave them thecereal and then today it's on
every shelf and it's evenlabeled, you know, like this is
the healthy version.
Remember New Kellogg's withberries or what have you?
It's so interesting just to goin through this.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
He was a Seventh-day Adventist and he was setting
tight for Ellen White when hewas 12.
So he was traumatized by herwritings and very afraid of sex
and never consummated hismarriage and adopted all his
children.
Oh, wow it felt that nobodyshould touch their genitals, and
that was really the driver, andhe and his brother developed
these.
Well, he actually hired a womanwho was sort of a nursing
(26:22):
student to help him developthese moral foods, where you'd
replace meat with ground up nutsand they used nuts and created
the nut meats and created thesegrain based things that became
breakfast cereal and the wholething is really designed to sort
of castrate you.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
This timeline is insane.
It's very insane.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
It's fun, interesting stuff, and if people stop and
see that we're not thinkingstraight because we've been
saturated in cultural messagesand we don't know where they're
coming from.
We don't know where they camefrom, we just know their
cultural truisms and you do notwant to give up your cultural
truisms.
This gives you a sense ofsecurity.
Your kindergarten teacher toldyou this.
Your grandma told you this,your mom told you this.
(27:05):
It's got to be right.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
This is the scary part, and you can speak to this
a lot more than I can but theeffects of oxalates on the body
with the short and the long term.
There are people that havethese short term kind of side
effects versus.
You might not be seeing some ofthis stuff until 20, 30 years
(27:28):
down the road.
So for myself I've kicked.
I had a lot of like healthissues like belphritis and the
eyes was a big one for me, andthen once I kicked out
Vegetables basically and wentcarnivore and keto, like it.
I haven't had a flare-up at alland for me it's like, oh my god
, like I'm so glad that thatflare-up happened for me.
But I can see why people arelike you don't eat vegetables.
Oh, that's unhealthy.
(27:49):
I eat vegetables all the time.
I'm super healthy, I feel great, but today, right.
So can you speak about theshort-term versus the long-term
and where things getmisconstrued a little bit?
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Yeah, absolutely, and we could go into the details
about how the body ends upaccumulating, and maybe we'll
get there in a second.
But I think just first andforemost looking at the
principle of cause and effect indisease, your body does not
show often that you have adisease, going on until things
are really bad.
(28:21):
So you often don't get a cancerdiagnosis till you're stage
four and you're within sixmonths of death.
And you don't know you havehypertension until someone
measures it.
You may not know for a longtime that your liver is fatty or
that you're getting a form ofcirrhosis, sometimes with the
eyes.
You can tell because they'reburning, itching, driving you
crazy.
You need glasses, they'reputting out gunk, they're
(28:43):
getting ice dyes, you're gettingwhatever, but the doctor has no
idea what's causing it.
Right, so you can even havesymptoms.
But since there's never been aconnection between a, say, swiss
chard lifestyle and your eyeissues, you're not gonna connect
them.
And that's the point of my workis that there is a connection.
(29:03):
There is stress right away inthe body because when you eat
your high oxalate foods, likesweet potatoes for example,
you're getting both crystalsthat the plants make of calcium,
oxalate crystals, and you'regetting oxalic acid.
The crystals are so hard thatthey're harder than teeth and
you can literally wear yourteeth down.
That's how tough those are.
(29:24):
They're microscopic, likereally invisible glass dust.
In your food.
There's also the oxalic acidinvisible glass dust in your
food.
There's also the oxalic acid.
So the two of them together arepretty abusive to your mucosal
lining of your mouth, throat,stomach intestines and so on.
Elementary canal is all like ohgreat glass, not lovely.
Acid that's messing up mymembrane structures and my cells
(29:46):
oh lovely.
And the acid gets into thebloodstream from the stomach and
upper small intestine.
It goes between the cells andstarts acid gets into the
bloodstream from the stomach andupper small intestine.
It goes between the cells andstarts riding around in the
bloodstream affecting the wallsof your capillaries, arteries
and veins, affecting thefunction of the red blood cells
and the white blood cells.
And within 40 minutes of, say,a spinach smoothie, the
(30:08):
circulating monocytes in thewhite blood cell system are
putting out pro-inflammatorychemicals and they themselves
are not able to fight infection.
So you may not notice that yourhealthy vegetarian diet is
giving you sinus infections,yeast infections, repeated
bladder infections and that youstruggle and you're the guy
(30:29):
who's got to have a Kleenex boxnearby or something and you're
always like wondering if youshould call the doctor for the
next round of antibiotics,because your immune system isn't
working well.
And you're also your barrierfunction, so we use this term
barrier function the, the, thelinings of mucosal membranes are
providing a barrier between theoutside world and your inner
(30:50):
world.
So the mucosal membranes areproviding a barrier between the
outside world and your innerworld.
So the mucosal membranes ofyour nose and your eyes and your
stomach and so on, that's allprotecting you.
Your bladder lining, those areimportant tissues that have to
have integrity and health.
They have qualities that allowsyou to interface with toxins
and bacteria and so on andsuccessfully carry on.
(31:10):
But the damage from the crystalsand the oxalic acid exposure
every meal, day in and day out,because you had hash browns for
breakfast and you put spinach onyour subway sandwich and then
you had sweet potatoes fordinner and then you had some
chocolate and some snacks of thealmonds or something, you're
exposing that bloodstream forhours.
The worst peak is probably atfour hours, but already at 40
(31:33):
minutes your blood cells aredamaged and it's going to
continue that exposure in thebloodstream for hours, maybe
eight or ten hours.
After breakfast, after lunch,after dinner, you get a little
break.
By morning you finally got alittle break because you've had
12 or 13 hours without food andright away you're back at it
with some like chia bowl or somefoolish modern food.
(31:54):
Oh no, so you're basicallycreating a what's considered
transient and very hard tomeasure almost impossible
measure high oxalate levels inyour bloodstream.
And that bloodstream isdelivering it not just in the
capillaries and the arteries,but it's going straight into the
cells of the liver and then,through the bloodstream it
(32:15):
passes from there up into theheart and is infusing the heart
tissue and then going into thelungs infusing the lung tissue.
Coming back to the heart again.
This is just the path thatblood takes as it goes past your
intestines and this is theroute it takes and then it gets
pumped out from that lastchamber of the heart into the
(32:36):
peripheral circulation andeventually gets picked up by the
kidneys and a lot of it isgetting peed out.
But in the meantime it's allover the body and it can get
anywhere and it starts tocollect in tissues.
Certain tissues are more pronethan others.
It will collect there,especially if there's any kind
of cell death or cellregeneration.
So if your cells are justnaturally reproducing and
(32:58):
healing, they're prone tocollecting oxalate.
If they're injured, if there'slittle bits of cell debris
around, that helps thatprecipitation process where the
acid starts becomingcrystallized and then it sticks
to the dead material that can'tdefend itself and you can start
getting these accumulations.
And the eye is one of the mostcommon areas for accumulations
(33:19):
to occur.
The bones, the bone marrow, thekidneys, the eyes, that's like
the top four, but it's in yourbrain, it's messing up your
nervous system potentially, andwhere it's collecting is pretty
unique to each individual person.
So there's a littleidiosyncratic kind of tendency
here where each person ends upwith a different picture of what
(33:41):
kinds of problems show up, whenthey show up, how many show up,
where they are in the body isvery individual, which makes it
hard, under our typical style ofthinking about symptoms and
causes and diagnoses, to see it.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
When you mentioned the antibiotics thing, it hits
me home so much because, again,with the flare-ups in my eyes,
they could not figure it out.
Basically, I got put ondoxycycline multiple.
I'm talking every month.
I was on doxycycline, so I'mstill having my spinach smoothie
with my chia seeds and all thatstuff and eating plant-based
(34:18):
thinking.
I'm doing well or eating right,and I'm on antibiotics.
I'm doing this.
I'm just perpetuating this overand over again.
I say it all the time.
To me it wasn't like the mostcraziest like health issue in
the world, but it was affectingmy life.
It was literally affecting mylife, because it looked like I
got punched in the face once amonth in my eyes.
(34:39):
So, um, but yeah, just that wasthe big thing for me.
I mean, I'm so lucky I foundthis path and kind of went to
the keto and carnivore space.
But I think I was lucky becauseif I didn't take the leap of
faith and try it out, I don'tknow where I would be right now.
I don't know how my health orhow I would feel, how my eyes
(35:00):
would have been.
You know, at some point I wasactually getting pretty big bald
spots in my head too as well.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
So Did your hair come back.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
It did I wish it.
I mean every guy thinks wishesit was a little fuller in my mid
to late 30s here.
But no, I was getting like alittle almost like quarter size
bald spots in my head.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Yeah, patchy hair.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Yeah, and I actually had it.
I got it when I was plant-based.
It was more prevalent, but Iactually had it when I was a kid
and they're like, oh, it'salopecia.
He's got alopecia and so theywere in.
Jack, I forgot what theyejected me with, but then they
said, oh, it's either alopeciaor he's really stressed out.
I'm like I'm 10.
I don't know how much stress Icould have in my life at 10, but
(35:46):
uh, I just remember going tothe doctor, getting shots in the
back of my head and eventually.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
I came back.
Oh, that's dramatic.
Yeah, that's not what you wantto be doing at 10.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
No, not at all yeah and this chronic doxy.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
This is a real sign and we shouldn't settle for.
You just need antibiotics, likethat's what the system's
willing to do, and the consumeror the sick person has very
little other choice.
And this information is soempowering empowering and it's
so easy like to pick five or sixfoods that you don't need and
(36:20):
just set them aside, because itdoes end up getting very serious
if you let this go over time.
So you can go along feelingfine, nothing's wrong, but
you're putting up with normalstuff and you're kind of like
pretending it's not really athing, because, after all, you
don't want to open yourself upto the idea that you need to
change what you do.
(36:40):
So you're just going to pretendeverything's okay until it's
really not, or you're going tokeep trying.
This is the worst case than thecommon case.
You start having issues withbrain fog, fatigue, aches and
pains, whatever.
You've got tendonitis, you'vegot plantar fasciitis, you've
got carpal tunnel, you've gotwhatever.
And you can't hike anymore andyou're no fun and you're talking
(37:03):
about your symptoms and you'retrying hard.
So you get a blender and youstart making spinach smoothies
and having more chia bubblesbecause this healthy stuff is
going to be great for me and Igot to stop eating all that
bacon and fat and butter.
And you're going all healthyand it's getting worse.
And this is just gets me in mymoral core, like if you're
(37:24):
making an effort to change yourlife, change your diet, eat
better, try to be healthy so youcan win at life, and and it's
having the opposite effect.
It's just so unfair becausethose people who are proactive
and making, trying to make adifference for themselves and
their families by eating wellare being punished for doing so
in the long run.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Yeah, 100%.
And when people either peopleget symptoms early on or get
this information like, okay, Iwant to make a change right.
What are some first steps thatthey should be looking at?
Because I get the question alot from my family members, from
people on the podcast, of do Igo carnivore right away,
(38:04):
carnivore right away?
I'm like, I'm like I don't knowif that's the best.
They want to go carnivore, likeyou know, cold turkey.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Or is it a slow trickle effect of like start
slowly taking things out Right?
So for for people who are justnot quite symptomatic yet with
the oxalate problems and you'rejust trying to like really
improve your diet, you want tostart with getting enough
protein, you know.
So get used to getting animalproteins at every meal.
It's just start gettingcomfortable with that.
And in the meantime, let's lookat these high oxalate foods in
your diet.
So what are they?
(38:37):
Pick your top five things andit may only be potatoes, spinach
, salads and blackberries.
You know it could only be ashort list.
And then you what you need toknow about all the other
high-oxid foods.
You don't adopt them by mistakeand just trade one bad
high-oxid food for another.
So the first thing you want todo is get like my worst
(38:58):
offenders list.
You can get that on my website.
You can in toxic superfoods thebook there's.
It's like listed three times atleast in there.
You can get the beginner'sguide from my website.
Tons of tables in there, right?
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
With lists over and over again to try to get you
know.
It's very hard to learn thisnew information.
You need to rely on a reliablesource and don't expect yourself
to memorize anything and don'tjust go out there on the
internet, because the internethas no good idea about what's
high oxalate and what isn't.
Your average dietitian has noidea either.
Like the level of foolishignorance on even where the
(39:33):
oxalate and food is reallyshocking.
I was my innocence was overwhen I started like just looking
for like usda and so on.
Usda numbers are horriblenumbers put out by the american.
Uh, what do we call them now?
The dietitians?
The dietitian organization ofamerica is putting out tables in
(39:56):
textbooks that are completelyfull of garbage data.
So it takes a real looking atprimary literature and looking
at how they tested the food andthe quality of those tests to
really pull out testing to knowwhat foods are high and what the
numbers are.
And that's what I've done withthe data companion and in my
book is try to get it right.
(40:17):
And that doesn't mean it's 100%perfect.
But knowing what foods are highoxalate would be kind of like
learning high fat, low fat, highprotein, no protein, like just
getting to know your food with aslightly more important angle.
Your macros don't begin tomatter as much as your toxicity
embedded in natural foods.
So that learning process,patience, patience, patience and
(40:41):
come back to the well.
Come back.
Come back and let it soak inand get this knowledge as part
of who you are, because theculture won't reinforce it,
you're just going to be out inthe world.
It's like, oh, that stuff is sogood for you.
You got to have spinach, yougot a vegetable and you're
getting disabled bycontradictory messages and the
new information doesn't hang inyour brain that well.
(41:03):
So the biggest thing is likeaccept that this is valuable
information for your well-being.
If not today, you're going toage a lot better.
You're going to do a lot better.
You're going to have betterbones, better tendons, happier
kidneys, better teeth.
You're not going to have toothpain.
You're not going to lose yourteeth and have dental caries.
(41:23):
So many good things can happenif you stop poisoning yourself
with this stuff.
So many good things can happenif you stop poisoning yourself
with this stuff and so pick thethings, like if you're doing
Swiss chard, I promise you, ifyou never eat Swiss chard again,
you're not going to miss it,you won't.
And almond milk?
Just coconut milk instead.
So those are two things you cando real fast.
(41:44):
No more chard and no morealmond milk.
Use something else.
Dairy milk would be best.
If you can't do the dairy milk,try a coconut milk.
You know spinach most all thegreens are low oxalate.
All the lettuces, watercress,arugula, all the stuff from the
cabbage family, cabbage itself,turnip greens, kale collard that
stuff is pretty low.
Even kale is pretty low.
(42:05):
So spinach, chard and beetgreens three little tiny things
you can live without in the darkleafy green family.
The problem is preventionmessages are saying dark leafy
greens and those are the onespeople pick.
So let's go for, like, mediumleafy greens and have some nice
romaine lettuce and have a goodtime.
Those little swaps are prettyeasy.
And instead of the almonds andthe nuts like crazy, why not
(42:28):
some cheese or some salami orsome pumpkin seeds?
If you want to go with theplant-based, you can literally
stay vegan or vegetarian andlower your oxalate level and
save your body.
You don't have to go carnivorenecessarily to benefit from the
oxalate information.
And this is lovely, becausepeople who are resistant to the
(42:51):
idea of a meat-centric diet cangradually over time, get
comfortable with the idea thatvegetables aren't all they're
cracked up to be and oncethey've done this low oxalate
long enough, that makes themrealize that we're actually
intended to eat animal foods andthey'll start to relax and you
can convince them to have somebacon, scrambled eggs and cheese
(43:13):
souffle and things that aremore animal based and kind of
relax.
It's actually easier to notforce yourself to have 11
servings of this or that, likevegetables are a little bit
optional people and you can justrelax a little.
So, taking time to move yourmindset, which is moving away
(43:35):
from the culture, take somepatience and some people are
quick changers and other peoplejust you know they maybe need
support someone in their familywho's like, yeah, bacon's okay
yeah, I, I, I get things all thetime.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
I went through a huge like weight, like my weight
would go up and down, up anddown, like big yo-yo type stuff.
And then I finally in a placewhere I've I love the way that I
look right now I, I performwell, my strength is good, like
everything is great.
And people come up to me andthey ask me if they haven't seen
me in a very long time andthey'll be like oh my god, you
(44:12):
look great.
You look, you look kind of thesame as you did in high school,
a little bit like you look likewhat do you do?
And I'll tell them yeah, I kindof just, you know real low carb
and I just do kind of carnivore.
And they're like immediatelythe switch of like, oh, like
you're gonna have a heart attackkind of thing.
It's like immediately shut off.
But you mentioned it like we'vebeen taught this since we've
(44:32):
been knee high to the ground.
Our parents have taught us this.
And again, like reward systemof eating your vegetables, to
like you can't have the rest ofthis until you eat your, your
vegetables.
You're like OK, I guess.
And then I had Courtney Luna on.
She's a lovely individual youknow, courtney, and uh, yeah
she's great and she talks aboutsalads, because I've mentioned I
(44:53):
.
Go in your cookbook.
It says you have salads likepeople get a little, a little
concerned, like the carnivorecommunity.
She's like yeah, it's a meatsalad.
She goes people, if you reallylook at the salads, people are
only putting the lettuce andstuff in there because they
think they need that.
But what do you really want?
You want, look at the salads,people are only putting the
lettuce and stuff in therebecause they think they need
that.
But what do you really want?
You want the bacon, the hardboiled eggs, like the dressing,
(45:14):
and all the cheese.
That's what you go for and thenlike there's.
You just like finish thelettuce because I feel like I'm
supposed to do that.
Well, you don't need to do that.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Like it's not a big thing, but I think the of the
lettuce is kind of like the tacoshell, what you want is the
taco filling right, exactly,yeah, it's the holder, I mean
nice parmesan cheese and likethe classic caesar salad tons of
cheese in there.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
Yeah, anchovies interesting, I'm all for that.
Yeah, I've had, uh, I've hadher cookbook and I I've actually
given it to my sister.
I have a twin sister who'sgoing on carnivore and low, low
carb and she's lost tons ofweight.
It looks phenomenal.
She'll send me stuff from thecookbook.
But we're affecting I know I'mgoing on a tangent of affecting
people but people in my innercircle or my circle around me
(46:02):
have been affected by my changesand asking me questions.
And this is the piece why I dothe podcast and this is why I
love sharing these stories,because it really only takes a
few people just to kind of startmaking a little bit of a
difference.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
So it's very exciting in the oxalate aware sort of
community you might call itwhere people who are learning
this are seeing it in thegrocery store or someone might.
They might meet someone in anelevator who's saying I've got
this severe thing.
I'm here to see the doctor andI'm really afraid.
I think they're gonna tell me Ionly have so many months to
(46:36):
live and my people willrecognize it.
Oh, you have fibrosis.
Do you also have thyroidproblems?
Do you have arthritis?
Have you had a kidney stone?
Have this, that?
And they're like yeah, yeah,yeah, what.
Yeah, what do you eat?
It's like you need to check outSally's book.
Like, so this is going on, thissort of doctoring.
It goes on in checkout aisles,it goes on in the produce aisle.
(46:56):
Like people really really carewhen they see what this has done
to their health and they seeother people around doing it and
actually it's much easier toaffect a stranger than your
sister typically.
Speaker 1 (47:07):
Yeah, I want to touch base on this before we start to
wrap up.
Is oxalate dumping right?
Somebody that has gotten thesesymptoms and whatever they
showcase and they want to gointo a low-carb space or at
(47:27):
least eliminate oxalates?
What's a worry or concern aboutoxalate dumping and what is it?
Speaker 2 (47:33):
Right.
So there is this accumulationof eating at every meal for
years and years and it's toomuch for the bloodstream to hold
on to, too much for thebloodstream delivered to the
kidneys and the body'sprotecting the kidneys and
having to hold on to it.
It's in your bone marrow, yourbones, your eyes, your teeth,
your jaw, your organs, yourbrain you name it your liver,
(47:54):
your heart.
There is oxley depositspotentially anywhere in your
body and that is a workaround.
That is a waiting and holdingpattern, waiting for the moment
where the tissues candeaccumulate this stuff and
clean it out.
They're just doing it becausethey have to, because you keep
eating it, eating and eating it.
But if you stop eating enoughoxalate to really make the rest
(48:17):
of the tissues concerned, ifthey put it into the bloodstream
or give it to the kidneys rightnow, it could kill everybody,
like they're.
This is wise thinking on thepart of the teeth or whatever
like.
Let's just leave it here.
So there's a change in yourwhole metabolism from this
holding mode or sequestrationmode to a recovery,
(48:37):
deaccumulation mode, and if itall turns on at once because you
went low really fast and nowyou're not eating any oxalates
at all, within three days, thecells can outfit themselves and
turn around and start putting itout of them and putting it into
the bloodstream.
Now, putting oxalic acid intoyour bloodstream from your
thyroid gland or your teeth oryour shoulder joint could start
(48:59):
to affect the calcium levels inyour blood.
You see, because oxalic aciddoes what Grabs minerals, it
loves calcium, calcium loves it.
So right there in the bloodstream you could start lowering
your calcium available, calciumions in the blood.
This is a terrible idea thatcalcium level, these ions in
your blood, the blood has to bejust so.
(49:20):
If not, the pacemaker in theheart isn't working right and
you start getting arrhythmias,you get hypertension, you get
heart pounding, you get a stroke.
You can you'll end up in theemergency room.
If this, if your calcium levelsare are dipping so low.
And when the calcium levels arelow, what does the body got to
do?
It's got to turn on a hormonethat tells the bones give me
(49:40):
some calcium, I need calcium sowe keep the heart running, we
need this now.
So you start again miningcalcium out of your blood.
Every time you oxalates, you'remining calcium and you're
ending up peeing out calcium.
You're wasting potassium,you're becoming mineral
deficient.
Now you're so mineral deficientbecause you've eaten these high
oxalate foods for long.
Now you're putting it back intothe bloodstream in a mineral
(50:01):
deficient body and you'remessing with your electrolytes
and you're messing with the cellfunction throughout the body
and it can get really toxic formany reasons beyond that.
The immune system is the oneturning on, lighting up,
attacking and eating crystals,and this is all pro-inflammatory
cytokines.
And these cytokines andchemicals that go involved with
(50:23):
the monocytes trying tophagocytize or eat these
crystals can change tissues andliterally change their DNA.
It causes energy crises incells.
You get aberrant expression,expression meaning you've got
this DNA in yourself, which is agiant cookbook of recipes about
how to be a cell.
And there's you can be a bonecell, you can be a tendon cell,
you can be all those things.
Well, if you're like breastcell, you can learn to become a
(50:45):
bone cell and start producingcalcium.
And so oxalate causescalcification of the body
because it's damaging the DNAand damaging the genetic
expression, and cells arechanging over from normal to
some weird bone-like cell.
They're also becoming cancerous.
So this thumping involves yourimmune system attacking crystals
(51:08):
and creating a very sort ofimmune, toxic body where the
whole reversal of this toxicitythat you now have a body
overloaded with oxalate and nowyou have to get rid of it.
But the getting rid of it is abit of a dangerous process.
So this is why I'm often tellingpeople well, how is your beet
juice going?
(51:28):
We need to put back.
If you say you're carnivore,you're zero oxalate diet, and
that's giving carte blanche tothis body deaccumulation,
dumping it out all over theplace and you want to slow that
down.
So you tell the body.
No, that's too much all at once.
Let's calm everybody down.
You're much better just leavingit there instead of moving it
around.
Hazmat materials need to stayin place until you have a proper
(51:49):
way of handling it and movingit out of the site.
You don't just whip up hazmatmaterials and just stir up a pot
.
You have to be very careful.
So you tell the body be morecareful and you take some tea or
some sweet potato or some beetjuice or some dark chocolate and
you can slow that decumulate,because you will sometimes
you'll get quite sick with thisdumping.
(52:12):
You can.
It's more than just arrhythmias,it's misery and you can see it
sometimes with the urine becausethe you'd be peeing out enough
oxalate that.
Sometimes that's crystallizingand you see cloudy urine.
Speaker 1 (52:24):
That's a sign for also helping the binding of the
oxalates is is it preferable tohave more of like a dairy or
like a hard cheese as well?
Speaker 2 (52:34):
yes, you want, we need to up.
The calcium is the number onebinder.
You don't need other binders.
Calcium is the binder and weneed calcium happening like four
times a day and usually youneed to add a supplement.
Really, if you're really sickwith oxalates, you're going to
need to add calcium as asupplement, usually starting at
bedtime.
You need to match that up withmagnesium for balance and for
(52:58):
gut function, because sometimestoo much cheese or too many
forms of calcium can be a littlebit constipating for some
people and usually some traceminerals to kind of balance out
the effects of more calciumwhich you need in the gut.
We're mostly taking it to keepit in the gut because you only
absorb maybe 20 percent ofcalcium that you consume.
It's mostly staying as a binderin the gut but also affecting
(53:21):
absorption of other things, soadding trace minerals, and so we
get into supplements often tomanage this mess.
Because you're electrolytedeficient, you need more
potassium, you need that, youneed the calcium as a binder,
you need more magnesium, youneed the trace minerals as well.
So often there's supports and Italk about a lot of that in
toxic superfoods.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
I think that's super important to let people know
about, like that is could be thepotential of oxalate dumping if
you kind of cut cold turkey.
But I kind of also want totransition to leaving some hot
takes into this fruit coffee, uh, and dark chocolate, all right,
those are the three things Ialways get asked about as well.
(54:03):
Uh, what's your stance on fruit?
Is it the same as just findingthe low oxalates or it's
something to?
It's a little bit moreacceptable than vegetables?
Speaker 2 (54:12):
Fruit is way less soluble, it's more the crystals.
So the crystals stick to thefibers and the things in the
fruit and you're not getting asmuch oxalate from those fruits.
But the fruits that are bad arestarfruit kiwis of whole
pomegranate, not so good whenyou turn it to juice.
(54:33):
Most of them are much lower inoxalate.
So if you, if you can handlethe sugars of fruit, juice would
be the lowest oxalate form offruit.
But generally, except for thoseones I mentioned, fruits are
mostly okay unless you're doingtons of grapefruit and tons of
certain like the clementines andtangelos tend to be high.
But fruits are a much betterdeal and I think some people
(54:56):
really, especially us middleaged women, cannot stick with a.
What I think is a therapeuticapproach of pure keto, ultra low
carb is short-term therapy,long-term stress.
So I encourage people, if theyfeel they're sleeping better,
not getting leg cramps andgenerally have more energy and
are happier, that carbs likefruits are probably a good idea
(55:20):
for those people.
Coffee I've never been a coffeeperson.
I think life is okay without it, but it is the number one
acceptable addiction out thereand people are so bonded with it
.
But it is the number oneacceptable addiction out there
and people are so bonded with itit's part of the ritual of
their day.
It's a great comfy teddy bearfor an adult you know little
security blanket kind of thingand it's something you can save
(55:42):
for later when you want to bereally up in your game.
I don't think you want to tellyourself you can't have coffee.
If you're doing all these othergreat changes, you really should
get credit for any positivechange.
You know and say I'm going tosell the coffee question until
I'm ready to tackle it, but behonest with the fact that that
coffee's kind of a crutch andthen dark chocolate is high
(56:04):
oxalate, full of cadmium, leadand theobromide and problems.
But you, if you get a niceclean one that's been tested,
that's low in cadmium and lead,I actually encourage people you
can use it as an oxalate dosingtool and have some hot cocoa or
some, because it's convenient.
You know you can be traveling.
Except for the low lead onesare very rare.
(56:25):
Most of the commercialchocolates are loaded with
contaminants of heavy metals soyou want to really moderate that
as much as you dare would uh,would uh milk.
Speaker 1 (56:37):
If you're gonna go the route of having chocolate,
is milk chocolate the betteroption, and it's just like,
contrary to like.
Oh, dark chocolate's way betterfor you, but right guess not.
Speaker 2 (56:48):
The oxalate part in the chocolate is the dark part,
it's the white part, the fat.
You know the white Easter bunnythat's got none of the cocoa in
it, that doesn't have anyoxalate in it, because, remember
, we started early on sayingoxalate is water soluble and it
doesn't stay in the fatty part.
So dark chocolate is usingheavy the cocoa part.
(57:12):
The cacao darkness darker thehigher the oxalate.
So go down on your percent,dark all the way to milk and
you're better off.
Speaker 1 (57:16):
And ending with some upcoming new things that are
happening.
We kind of talked to Offairabout your.
Is it the Data Companion bookthat's going to be available?
Speaker 2 (57:25):
Well, the Data Companion came out in 2024 in
May, and that's very popular.
I'm surprised.
I thought this reference, withall this information and a bunch
in the front, was really forthe professionals like yourself
who have clients and you want toknow the resources for them, or
a dietician or a doctor'soffice.
(57:45):
But people have told me thatthis book is working as like an
easier, simple, quick, quickdive into oxalate versus this
book, which is intended toexplain all the questions like
why do we know about this?
Why is your doctor not knowabout it?
Aren't plants good for me?
And how, what is thisaccumulation thing like?
This explains all yourquestions.
This one tells you this is whatyou need to know to do it.
(58:08):
So a lot of people just want todive to doing and they like this
.
So I have a pdf cookbook that'sgot about 185 recipes in it.
That's not that convenientbecause it's a pdf and I'm
getting it converted to a printon demand so you can have one
that looks just like this.
That's a cookbook for 188recipes at least it's going to
have, and that has that's foryour family members who are
(58:29):
still eating vegetables.
There's lots of ways how to docabbage, what to do with the
turnip and rutabaga, and how tocook an egg properly like some
really basic skills, how to cookorgan meats, proper salad
dressings, uh, you know.
There's just really a lot oflearning.
For those of you who areremembering that cooking at home
is one of the key things youcan do to start improving your
(58:50):
health, Absolutely, and then anybig events, anything you're
looking forward to coming up.
Well, we got meat stock comingup this spring in Gatlinburg.
That's going to be a muchbigger party than it's been the
last couple of years, so it's awhole different scene every year
.
I think that's going to behugely exciting and even though
(59:10):
it's sold out, there are ahandful of people who can't go
and you can do a ticket exchangeand join us there.
And you know, sometimes thefuture is not always known, but
we're seeing more and moreopportunities for getting
together and hopefully more ofthat's going to be happening
opportunities for gettingtogether and hopefully more of
(59:32):
that's going to be happening.
Speaker 1 (59:35):
I'm a little upset.
I'm not going to make meatstock.
I've already booked acertification for that weekend
and it's my father's birthdaytoo.
But 2026, the next one, notthis one, the next one, Wow are
we almost at 2026?
I'm so futuristic 2026, I'mdefinitely going to go.
But if anybody is interested inthat, I saw the lineup I've
talked about it on the podcast abunch of just like the who's
who of everybody and justrubbing elbows and getting
(59:57):
together.
Yeah and it's.
Speaker 2 (59:59):
East Coast-y, because most of these parties nutrition
parties have been happening inTexas and California.
Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
And the East Coast has been getting neglected, and
so what I love about it is thisdown home East thing, and we're
right from the get go.
We're very Oxlade conscious inthat world with the guys who put
it together Scott mainly hasbeen.
He interviewed me multipletimes and he's quite sensitive
to the Oxlade topic and Oxladegets its due respect.
(01:00:27):
That's nice too.
Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
I really appreciate that.
Scott's the man.
But thank you so much and forcoming on.
I really, really appreciate it.
It's definitely a pleasure tohave you on and I will also put
any of Sally's recommendationsor and or links in the show
notes so people have access aswell.
So again, thank you so much forcoming on the show.
Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
This in the show notes, so people have access as
well.
So again, thank you so much forcoming on the show, tony.
Speaker 1 (01:00:53):
This was really fun to be with you today.
Thank you, thank you and thanksto everybody listening to
another episode of the PrimalFoundations podcast.
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