Oxalates and Migrants: a Metaphor podcast

 As illegal, unwanted migrants swarm across our borders, we can compare what happens to our country and civilization with what happens within our own bodies by bad interlopers.  Just as our country has been being invaded for decades by demographically dissimilar to us peoples, destroying and overcrowding our systems of schooling, policing, health care, housing, and every other facet of our political system- so too has your body been invaded for many years by a bad chemical chiefly produced by plants- oxalates!  

We have been brainwashed into thinking that, like Popeye- “We’re strong to the finish if we eats our spinach!”  Unfortunately, this is not true, not true at all!  Spinach has been pointed out of ages as being loaded with iron, numerous vitamins like vitamin A and K, and is low carb and loaded with fiber and Vitamin C!  What’s not to like?

Well, plenty!  Almost all of the nutrients found in spinach (and in all vegetation, actually) are not bioavailable to us.  They are ‘frozen’ as it were, unassimilable by animals such as us.  And they come packaged with a huge amount of oxalates, which are a compound that steals the very nutrients we are hoping to get from the vegetable (like spinach) that we are consuming, and actually takes these same nutrients from out body and other foods, giving us a net loss of nutrients.  

But the oxalates are even worse than that, in that they build up in the body, in joints, organs (like the kidneys that try to neutralize them) and can wind up causing incredible damage over time- stiff joints, leaky gut, all kinds of nutrient deficiencies, and a marked inability to heal in soft tissue injuries, causing seemingly lifelong aches and pains.  In fact, I have come to believe that most of the aches and pains, poor digestion and many other problems that are normally attributed to simple old age and wear-and-tear are actually caused in actuality by this long-term build up of oxalates!  They are that harmful.

Ironically, we get these harmful compounds by eating foods (like spinach) that we have been told are ‘healthy and virtuous’, and so inadvertently slowly poison ourselves with the best of intentions!  But really: should we be surprised?  These recommendations from organizations like the US government, that advocates eating mostly whole grains (which are also loaded with oxalates), and to eat sparingly of things like red meat and eggs. (Both of which are probably the very healthiest foods we can consume).

And, of course, they also tell us to eat plenty of vegetables, most of which are also loaded with oxalates, and other plant chemicals that are in actuality anti-nutrients.  Meaning compounds that harm us, not help us.  The various government agencies, you should know by now, are not in place to help the average citizen any longer- they have become a part of the Government Swamp as Trump so accurately puts it.  They function to help big agriculture to sell more subsidized grains, and to mislead us into thinking certain things are bad for us that aren’t, and also to help continue the profits of big Pharmaceuticals (who only benefit when we get sick by selling us more drugs), and big Medicine, which is their middleman by way of expensive health care for largely preventable diseases and maladies.  

Once again, we are back to the metaphor of endless migrants coming to our shores, and making all of our systems less efficient until finally the point of total failure.  Islamic migrants?  A people that is sworn to our destruction, and our government has been welcoming them within our cities and states?  And to what benefit?  Just like human oxalates, they are dedicated to our destruction, and we are told to welcome them regardless!  

“Eat your spinach!  Welcome Muslims!!  It’s all good!!”

It’s not, none of it.  We should not eat spinach, or beets or beet greens, or rhubarb, or whole grains, or sweet potatoes, or white potatoes, fries and chips.  At least not much..  At the very least, we will get kidney stones which are very painful, and that is just an indication of the worse problems to follow if we don’t stop!

Similarly, by opening our borders to Muslims and other peoples who are very unlike the majority of us, we are setting up our very society, country, and civilization itself for future pain, destruction, and long-term ruination.  

So- close the border on Oxalates!  Start tracking how much you take in- go to SallyKNorton.com and see her tables of oxalates in various foodstuffs.  Start being mindful, and slowly cut back on these harmful foods loaded with oxalates.  

And similarly, close our nation’s borders!  Keep harmful people OUT.  Vote for Trump this election- that alone should be obvious.  In fact, vote ALL Republican- the party that ended slavery!  Take back control of our government by the people themselves, not the Big Government that also gives us the Food Pyramid, and Big Agriculture and Big Pharma and Big Medicine!!  

In our government, just as in our health- we should be assuming control over our own health and well-being.  Do not assign such weighty matters to BIG ANYTHING- do it yourself.  Remember- government should be small, and it should be made up of people just like ourselves.

Your Vegetables Want You Dead! Podcast

I know: sad but true!  Even broccoli, and to a greater extent the holy spinach wants to kill you and yours.  Because they, just like any animal, want to survive.  And, if you eat them, put them in salads, load your smoothie with them, or butter the grains that also want to kill you and eat them as toast- they will have their revenge!

You may have heard this said before, but it seems we all forget it- animals have teeth and claws (to fight for survival) or else are fleet of foot (to flee from predators.  But the lowly vegetable, rooted in place- how is he supposed to survive in an evolutionary, Darwinian landscape where any random creature can just walk up and eat them??

Chemical warfare!

Spinach is loaded with oxalates, an anti-nutrient that binds up the many beneficial nutrients within it so they cannot be used by a human animal.  The oxalates can cause numerous bad things, particularly if you have a permeable intestine which, interestingly, can be caused by oxalates.  This ‘leaky gut’ can allow all kinds of things to pass right through the gut lining to attack the very tissues of the body, causing things like IBS, joint pain, headaches, fatigue- the list goes on and on.  

Gluten and lectins are two more ‘chemical plant warfare’ agents that can mess with your digestion, depriving you of much needed nutrients, while making you susceptible to things like autoimmune disease!  This is why grains and beans are to be largely avoided, although when they are fermented (as in real sour dough bread from a starter- not simply flavored with vinegar) they can be beneficial.  This is why soy beans, fermented into natto or miso can be very potents activators of health indeed!

There are many more anti-nutrients, and paradoxically, many can also be beneficial- but only if eaten in very limited amounts!  Some are found in nightshades like tomatoes or peppers (solanine), but these can be great foods if you are not sensitive to them- but many are. 

I personally thought I was doing a great nutritional thing by eating beet greens in my smoothie for weeks, and I wound up with kidney stones!  Very painful, and to be avoided at all costs.  I found an herb that dissolved them, chanca piedra- but I spent a very painful time waiting for the herbal tincture to arrive via Amazon.

My bottom line advice?  All vegetables should be treated with caution, and paid attention to when consuming over time to see how they effect you.  Meat and seafood tend to have no side-effects when eaten, since they are a collection of nutrients, with no chemical side-effects to persuade you to leave them alone- they try to escape you in the hunt- that is their defense.  But those sneaky plants- they take revenge via poison!

Grains and seeds, like wheat, corn and barley are best avoided for the most part. Most people are OK with small amounts of corn, and as said before sour dough breads, particularly when sprouted and fermented are much better for you.  I find rye is the most symptom free for me, when sprouted and made in to sour dough.  But standard breads, buns, pastries, cakes and cookies are all bad- kind of a gateway to autoimmune disease, heart disease, and obesity and diabetes.  Just avoid standard grain products altogether.  

And you should confine your smoothies to cruciferous veggies like cauliflower and broccoli, but make sure both are organic, along with lettuce greens which are pretty much domesticated and rid of anti-nutrients.  Fill your smoothie with raw organic eggs, spirulina powder, whole fat kefir, ginger root, and berries and citrus.  Natto powder is also a wonderful addition, along with turmeric powder as well.

And for the rest of your diet?  Well, a big salad is fine, with a protein atop, and a real dressing with NO soy, canola, or other poison vegetable oil or dressing!  (This is very important)!  But, the main focus of your diet should be on animal protein.  MEAT and SEAFOOD.  

Something with a smiling (or snarling) face that was killed and cooked!

It was good for our forebears, who hunted the mammoth, and it is just as good for us!  Plants are just sneaky…

I HATE Oxalates! PaleoJay's Smoothie Cafe podcast.

Evil Oxalates presented by a Hippie!

I’ll admit, this is a new one for me.  A new, and painful lesson, to be sure- I got a kidney stone!  

Now, of course I had heard of kidney stones- my little brother actually had one a few years back, and went through a really painful, expensive operation to get it removed.  ‘But not me’, I thought- ‘I am always healthy, never need to get treated for anything, and prize my health beyond measure!  To this end, I always drink a daily Green Smoothie, with coconut milk (good), spices (good), cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower (good), along with kefir, apple cider vinegar, ginger root, and berries- all of which are good.  

But I also put in either a big portion of raw spinach, or a beet and beet greens- sometimes both!  I’ve been doing this for years and years…

Most of us think that any dark green is very healthy, indeed- I know I did.  I grew up with Popeye the Sailorman, who is ‘strong to the finish- when he eats his spinach- he’s Popeye the sailor man’.  Well, just add Popeye, one of my childhood heroes, to the list of authority figures like M.D.’s and medical clinics, left-wing politicians and others who are and always have been wrong.  (However well-meaning.)  But, it does turn out that kale is relatively low in oxalates, as are mustard greens!

As I already knew, plants are chemical warfare masters, coming up with things like phytic acid and gluten and gliadin, (among other toxic chemicals) that are loaded into wheat so that we mammals don’t eat them or their babies.  After all, since plants can’t run away or fight, chemical toxins are their only defense, really.  This is why wheat is so awful for us, particularly modern wheat.  But it is also why spinach and many other plants are also bad, because they are loaded with a chemical called an oxalate.

Nuts, beans, and peanuts are oxalate bombs- eat sparingly, along with your dark chocolate- after all, these things are treats- desserts, really- not a main food group!  And of course, grains are horrible, high sources of oxalate poisons, best eliminated entirely if possible.  

Of course, I’d heard of oxalates- but I had never heard just how bad they really are, especially if you take in enough that your body cannot readily get rid of them- then, they form oxalate crystals, and unfortunately I eventually got one, right inside my right kidney.  It hurts something awful, too, but I’ve learned how to deal with that- I just keep completely hydrated, drinking mostly water, but also lemon water and cranberry juice- as long as I stay really hydrated, there is no pain.  I expect to pass the stone naturally- I will keep you posted.  

The bad thing is, oxalates also do lots of other damage- to your teeth, to your gut lining (oh no-just like wheat!), to your bones, making them week- and also contributes to all kinds of symptoms that we normally ascribe to aging, and so they are largely ignored as “natural”.  They are not!  Headaches, tendon and muscle pain, brain fog- the more I read, the more oxalates sound just like gluten- bad news all around!

I am going on a low oxalate diet.  After awhile, I can again include small portions of these foods, but for now I want my body to get rid of its stores of this poison.  Black pepper, potatoes, spinach and beet greens are bad- spinach is by far the worst- raw or cooked!

The goal should not be to eliminate oxalates completely, but to gradually lower them to less than 50 to 60 mg. per day.  Potato chips have 21 mg. per ounce- choose corn chips instead.  Rhubarb and raspberries are very high indeed, and are two of my favorites.  Or at least, they used to be!  Likewise black pepper- at least for now.  After awhile, up to 1 tsp. per day is OK- and really, who eats more than that?  Even the spices turmeric and circumin have oxalates, and I even found that cranberries are quite high- I guess that cranberry juice is out now!  Circumin supplements are particularly high…  Turmeric is similar to black pepper, in that no more than 1 tsp. per day- and again, who consumes more than that?

Meat and meat based products, along with most fruits are quite free of oxalates!  This includes dairy, and this is wonderful news indeed.  It appears that vegetarians and vegans are particularly prone to high oxalate diets, and this makes perfect sense.  I found a good authority in www.sallyknorton.com  She is an expert in oxalates and in low oxalate diet and its benefits.  I recommend her site highly.

Also, it is quite difficult to really get a handle on what foods are, really, high in oxalates I’ve found.  Many say one food is “really high”, but if you check out this chart, you can see that, if eaten occasionally rather than daily, they really are no problem.  For instance, a baked potato (by the way, never eat the skin!) is about 18 mg per 100 grams- this is ok, for instance, kept to a weekly basis.  All alcohol is pretty much fine, although the lists love to say they are “off limits- except of course for the hallowed red wine- which, of course, the ‘intellectuals’ putting together these lists can’t imagine living without!  Beer is really low too, though they list it as high risk.  

This list is very helpful:  http://www.wakehealth.edu/Urology/Kidney-Stones/Oxalate-Content-of-Foods.htm

In addition, in order to bring my own condition to a speedy conclusion, I have ordered an herb tincture called Chanka Pedreo, which is widely recommend to help break down kidney stones.  Once again, I will do a personal N=1 experiment, and let you know my outcome. 

My own takeaway is that perhaps we need to go back to the rudiments of the original Paleo Diet, which recommended no potatoes, tomatoes, or other nightshades!  Once again, I shall keep you posted.  Good DAY!