Side Effects of Oxalic Acid From Spinach

[sanjay_sahani]

friends as i am based in india i am getting only spinach for my green smoothies which i am taking 2 glasses in morning and 2 glasses at night before sleep pls tell me the side effects of having too much oxalic acid from spinach which i have a green smoothie

[RawNut]

I don't think you can have too much so long as it's raw. Here is a quote from Gabriel Cousin's book, Conscious Eating:


Organic oxalic acid, defined as that which occurs in nature in its raw form, can actually be beneficial to the system. Once foods containing oxalic acid are cooked, according to the dean of juice therapy and author of Raw Vegetable Juices, Dr. Norman Walker, the oxalic acid becomes dead and irritating substance to the system. He feels that in its cooked form it binds irreversibly with the calcium and prevents calcium absorption. An excess of cooked oxalic acid may also form oxalic acid crystals in the kidney. In the live organic form of oxalic acid, Dr. Walker claims oxalic acid stones and calcium blockage do not occur because the organic oxalic acid can be metabolized appropriately. according to Dr. Walker, oxalic acid in its raw form is one of the important minerals needed to maintain tone and peristalsis of the bowel.

He also says no to worry about phytates in raw food. The body produces an enzyme called phytase that frees minerals from phytates. This does not work for cooked phytates because it has been denatured and the enzyme no longer fits it well enough to do its job.

There shouldn't be side effects of too much oxalates so long as the food is raw. It's the cooked you need to worry about and then, you could probably get kidney stones and osteoporosis.

Craig

[luckitri]

I LOVE spinach! I have ALWAYS LOVED spinach! I refuse to worry about oxalic acid. If I love it so much it must be good for me. If I tire of it I will stop eating it. This gets to be too much of an intellectual exercise for me - I just wanna eat and enjoy my food and do other things with my life. Don't worry about it! If you are having some kind of problem you may wish to consider this as possible cause but I suspect that you would lose your desire to have the spinach if something in it was harming you.

[asil]

Hi!

I agree not to worry too much about spinich as long as it's raw. But I was also wondering if you're able to make your own sprouts so that you can have some variety with your greens. It's cheap and easy! Also, is there really *no* other green available? No lettuce, celery, beet tops, radish tops, carrot tops?

Good luck! :)

[sanjay_sahani]

my dear friends thanks for your reply but let me tell you a bit of me i am based in india where i spinach is avialable as green and also no organic food is avialable here, so spinach that i have is not organic secondly i did have minor stones problem in kidney which was resovled by medication, i also have high blood pressure and have hot temper and inorder to minimizse the oxalic acid i add lemon to my green smoothie which is made from spinach no will i agian have stones problem? using spinach and will lemon reduce the side effects of oxalic acid?

[RawNut]

Sanjay_sahani,

Here is another discussion about this from the archives: http://www.rawfoodtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10779

I can see why you'd be worried now. There must be some other greens in India besides spinach. If I were you, I'd sprout my own as Asil mentioned, and I'd find out what edible weeds there are in the area to be gathered. I'd collect their seeds and plant them in a garden or spread them around the yard.

Personally, I don't believe raw oxalates are harmful BUT I've only heard of one source who says this. So, me being you again, I'd err on the side of caution.

Craig

[ShantiLove]

What about mustard leaves or koriander leaves ? I know that it makes the smoothe more "spicey", but could be done. I could imagine would be tasty with mango :D Or parsely ? a great ad to a green smoothies, and im shure you could finde other leaves that could be used. My husband is from Bangladesh and he tells me that they eat a lot of the leaves I mentioned, but im shure there is more kinds. Go to the marked and have a look. Tops from radish could be used aswell. Can you buy carrots ? then you can get carrot tops for you smoothies too :D have a look. A lot of vegies and fruits from villagers are almost organic since they cant afford to buy expencive pesticides, so try to buy from people like that :)
I know that indian people are not "salat" people, and I could imagine that lettuce could be hard to come by. A option could be to buy a good green powder, maby online, to have sometimes to get vararety (s?) in you smoothies. I know that they produce spirulina in India, maby you could get some of that to ad to you smoothies from time to time ?
I would rotate the greens as Victoria Boutenko advises if I was you. With a history of kidneystones and high blodpresure I think that you shoulden use spinat everyday. Every other day or so is ok, just not always.
But you have one advandage over the rest of us since you have acces to amasing sweet tree ripe fruits, so enjoy :D

[rawstrength]

Hi Sanjay,
Have you looked into foraging? You should be able to find lots of edible greens in the wild, especially in India. Also, wild foods are organic by nature. Ask old people to show you the edible plants in your area. Older people always seem to know. Or try to find a book about foraging for food in your area.

I wish you a speedy recovery from whatever ails you.