Low Oxalate Diet?

Hi Chris,

I too have had trouble finding one good list to go by when it comes to a low oxalate diet, a lot of the information is contradictory.  This is one provided by the lab that diagnosed my stone type http://www.litholink.com/downloads/Stone_LowOxalateDiet.pdf.  It is a little more comprehensive than the list my doctor gave me.  There is another list out there that is pretty good and lists almost any kind of food you can imagine and whether it is high, medium, low oxalate in a pdf file http://ohf.org/diet.html.  I was able to get the Low Oxalate Cookbook through interlibrary loan (because it is out of print and very expensive to find a copy), but I honestly haven't made any of the recipes.  The recipes seem similar to traditional ones I already have, they just have low-oxalate ingredient substitutions.

I find it particularly challenging to maintain a healthy diet AND have it be low oxalate.  Most of the high oxalate foods are vegetables and grains and it gets very frustrating.  My biggest frustration is tomotoes...some sources say it's high, others say it's no so bad....I say I love them too much to give them up completely, so I have just cut back.  There is no way I am giving up red sauce!

- Erin

Still confused about some foods/beverages. I read a study that said a cup of tea a day helps keep new calcium stones from forming but on other lists of no-no foods, tea is listed as one of the worst. Some studies say that coffee is bad but others don't. Is it the caffeine that determines the oxalate level? Is de-caf OK? ... or is it the fact that both tea and coffee are diarrheatics? (sp?)

You might ask your doctor about Potassium Citrate, you need a prescription for it. It is a urinary alkalizer. calcium oxylate stones form when your urine is too acidic. and really has no side effects.

ErinG,

There's another good cookbook that won't break the bank here:

http://www.thevpfoundation.org/vpfcookbook.htm