oxalates / oxalic acid

[thuphaer]

Hey,

I'm always interested in reading/learning/experimenting regarding food. I've been eating ancestral for a few years mostly something which looks a bit like primal (as in MarksDailyApple) but I've also done a few whole30's.

I'm currently reading Nourishing Traditions and I have recently started experimenting with fermentation.

Questions to everybody who reads this post:
How big of a percentage of raw food versus cooked food do you eat ? 
Are you concerned about oxalates such as Oxalic acid in (raw) spinach ?

[eveheart]

Questions to everybody who reads this post:
How big of a percentage of raw food versus cooked food do you eat ? 
Are you concerned about oxalates such as Oxalic acid in (raw) spinach ?

Welcome to the Raw Paleo Diet Forum.

I eat about 99%+ raw by buying whole foods and then not cooking them. Right now, I have one jar of olives that were processed in heat to seal the jar. All my other food is whole and raw.

Spinach does not figure prominently in my menu. As a recent cultivar, it's not exactly an ancestral food. I can't imagine how paleolithic man could have even cooked spinach-like food considering that they didn't have cooking containers, and direct heat is not useful for leaves. Also, spinach would not be growing at this time of year in my climate, so the point is moot. My favorite green is tangy mustard greens in the spring, and I nibble the leaves if their taste appeals to me.

[TylerDurden]

Generally speaking, any  vegetable that tastes very bitter when raw  should be avoided as this means it has lots of antinutrients in it. I personally avoid even raw vegetables that taste bland, other than raw salad, as I find that they are nutritionally useless.

My raw/cooked percentages vary all over the place. In the past, I have eaten and drunk 100% rawpalaeo(ie not even alcohol) for as long as 12 months at a time with just one cooked meal at the end of each year, that one usually being at  Christmas - and I did this routine for many years. In recent times, I have allowed myself to sometimes eat cooked foods on key social occasions as I cannot always ask for raw fish(sashimi) or raw steak tartare every time I eat with someone, plus Christmas is an issue if I have to share a bird with others. Whatever the case, I  would not recommend anyone to eat anything less than 95% raw if they are suffering from health problems.

[Iguana]

Welcome !

How big of a percentage of raw food versus cooked food do you eat ?

100% raw since January 1987.
 

Are you concerned about oxalates such as Oxalic acid in (raw) spinach ?

No, I’m not concerned. I sometimes eat a bit of spinach as long as it is palatable.

[PaleoPhil]

This looks interesting:

Pocket Guide to Kidney Stone Prevention: Dietary and Medical Therapy
edited by Manoj Monga, Kristina L. Penniston, David S. Goldfar
Springer, Nov 1, 2014
 
Given that humans have long depended on bacteria to regulate oxalate degredation, it makes sense that a healthy gut "microbiome" (outnumbering the host's own genes 150-fold) ( 8 ) could reduce oxalate absorption and urinary excretion. However, disruptions in the host-microbe environment are common and may include antibiotic use, a diet suboptimal for prebiotic material (food providing non-digestible matter required by bacteria as a substrate), altered GI physiology, and inflammatory bowel diseases, especially those that shorten gut transit time.

8. Wu GD, Lewis JD. Analysis of the human gut microbiota and association with disease. Clin Gastroenterol Hepat. 2013; 7:774-7
 
 
Oxalate Degradation by Gastrointestinal Bacteria from Humans
MILTON J. ALLISON, HERBERT M. COOK, DAVID B. MILNE, SANDRA GALLAGHER AND RALPH V. CLAYMAN
J. Nutr. 116: 455-460, 1986.
http://jn.nutrition.org/content/116/3/455.full.pdf

ABSTRACT Anaerobic bacteria that metabolize oxalic acid have only recently been isolated from the rumen and from other gastrointestinal habitats. They constitute a new genus and species, Oxalobacter formigenes. This report presents the first comparison of cultural counts of these organisms from human feces and indicates that numbers as high as 107/g may be present in feces from normal humans. Rates of oxalate degradation by mixed bacterial populations in feces from seven normal humans ranged from 0.1 to 4.8 /imol/(g- h). With fecal samples from eight patients that had undergone jejunoileal bypass surgery, rates were much lower [0-0.006 ^mol/(g-h)]. We propose that oxalic acid degradation by Oxalobacter formigenes may influence absorption of oxalate from the intestine and that lower rates or lack of oxalate degradation in the colons of jejunoileal bypass patients may contribute to the increased absorption of dietary oxalate and the hyperoxaluria commonly associated with such patients.


Probiotics and Other Key Determinants of Dietary Oxalate Absorption
Michael Liebman and Ismail A. Al-Wahsh
Department of Family and Consumer Sciences (Human Nutrition), University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071
http://advances.nutrition.org/content/2/3/254.full

... Oxalate degradation by oxalate-degrading bacteria within the GIT is another key factor that could affect oxalate absorption and degree of oxaluria. Studies that have assessed the efficacy of oral ingestion of probiotics that provide bacteria with oxalate-degrading capacity have led to promising but generally mixed results, and this remains a fertile area for future studies.


Gut Microbiota in Health and Disease
Inna Sekirov , Shannon L. Russell , L. Caetano M. Antunes , B. Brett Finlay
Physiological ReviewsPublished 1 July 2010Vol. 90no. 3, 859-904DOI: 10.1152/physrev.00045.2009
http://physrev.physiology.org/content/90/3/859

In addition to the microbiota's contribution to metabolism of medicines administered with therapeutic purposes, it also has the ability to metabolize certain dietary compounds into metabolically active forms that proceed to influence various aspects of host health. For instance, gut Bifidobacterium strains conjugate dietary linoleic acid (223), which has a wide variety of biological effects (45). Oral microbiota was required for reduction of dietary nitrate to biologically active nitrite (235). Additionally, Oxalobacter formigenes has the ability to degrade dietary oxalates, reducing urinary oxalate excretion (275), which prompted its successful use in clinical trials as a therapeutic and prophylactic option in calcium oxalate nephrolithiasis and associated renal failure (124). Furthermore, gut inhabitants can prove invaluable in preventing adverse outcomes following inadvertent environmental exposure to toxic compounds: the toxicity of hydrazine, a highly toxic compound used in a variety of industrial processes, is greatly reduced by the gut microbiota (302).

[Hanna]

This looks interesting:

Yes. Phil, your contributions make this forum worth reading!

[van]

Welcome !
100% raw since January 1987.
 
No, I’m not concerned. I sometimes eat a bit of spinach as long as it is palatable.

 
  This is where Instincto pays big dividends,,  as an experiment, eat raw unseasoned spinach leaf by leaf and see how many you can eat before your mouth is telling you to stop.    And then if you care to,  pour olive oil, vinegar, avocado salt, pepper, etc.. on the rest of the spinach,  and try the same experiment.  You might be amazed.

[PaleoPhil]

Thanks Hanna, yours as well.

[goodsamaritan]

http://www.nutritionatc.hawaii.edu/HO/2012/488.htm

Oxalic acid in star fruit can kill kidney patients

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We had a similar announcement from our Philippine department of health warning about this fruit... and I tell my children just the same.