Oxalates and possible reason some people get sick on carnivore

#7

I found myself getting away from a lot of those foods, not because I found out about oxylates but because the longer I was keto the more meat heavy my diet became. It was an almost natural progression. The “Keto” that I have in mind when adding in my caution is the one where people are still looking to replicate a more standard diet and relying heavily on almond flours and eating tons of greens (as per a youtube guy I can’t stand). So yes, Keto is pretty broad.

(Rebecca 🌸 Frankenfluffy) #8

I loved my carnivore experiment until the start of day 8, when I didn’t feel at all well. On day 9 I felt very unwell indeed, and day 10 I switched back to keto.

Actually I ate nothing on day 10 until the evening, when my evening meal featured a good deal of my favourite food: broccoli! On day 11 - or I should say, day 1 of a return to keto - I began to feel better.

I eat a lot of raw - and cooked - brassicas. I love the flavour and texture. I gather they are jam-packed with these oxalates. Wonder if oxalate dumping was to blame for feeling so unwell?

:thinking:

#9

Could well be. It manifests in different ways.

(Edith) #10

Websites about oxalate dumping will mention people feeling really good for several day’s when they remove oxalate containing foods and then the dumping begins, and then they feel terrible.

#11

Keto is a very broad diet indeed as it has vegans and carnivores alike… And people who eat bread and sweets and yogurt with fruits and fatbombs and bulletproof coffee and nut snacks and vegetables and sometimes not even much else. I usually don’t look at recipes as they are extremely often full with almond flour and cream cheese and I never ate those… Another ketoer’s diet is typically nothing like my own.
I never ate a significant amount of green leaves even on vegetarian keto as I dislike most of them, I was addicted to peanuts in the last year but realized I have some problems with them so I usually ate a tiny amount. One goal with carnivore is to get rid of this addiction. It went perfectly especially that I have no peanuts since weeks but I don’t miss it at all anyway. Maybe it’s the oxalates that I feel, who knows? Can a human body do that? My body is a bit sensitive and I usually subtly feel if something harms me. I never had problems with sesame seeds, though, maybe I just didn’t eat much enough for that? I eat chocolate but it’s not something I eat in big quantities and if I do, that feels odd but it may have other reasons, like, much fat without protein, I am not used to that. I don’t know the numbers just that these items have much oxalates and I used them a lot (edit: I researched things a bit, sesame seems not high in oxalates from my viewpoint but chocolate should be consumed in small amounts if oxalate is really a problem for me. It’s not hard to be safe in this case).

I hope I won’t have any negative effect on carnivore due to oxalates or anything else. I won’t lose weight quickly, that’s a given, maybe that helps enough. Or my weeks before carnivore when I ate almost no vegetables and it automatically lowered my plant consumption and I didn’t desire chocolate either.

Why normal ketoers don’t talk about oxalates just adore spinach? I always had the feeling it’s their Holy Grail. I even tried to eat it for magnesium (as my diet was really low in it). Failed epically as I can’t stomach that thing in significant amounts, not even once. But others LOVED it, ate it, made 90 days challenges and ate it every way in big quantities… Calcium wasn’t in abundance in my diet either, maybe it was in theirs though.

#12

I am a repeat oxalate dumper. Currently failing (only mildly) in another thread on a carnivore challenge.

Unlike @ctviggen Bob, my Keto diet was heavy in spinach, brassicas, almonds, pine nuts, turmeric, almond milk, coffee and dark chocolate. It’s not now.

I got caught in a spiral at one stage. Having diagnosed a magnesium deficiency in my response to Keto, I ate more nuts and leafy greens :leafy_green:. Even partaking in a regular green spinach based smoothie (idiot) that endeared me to the hippies at the general store next to the post office.

They, many of the leafy greens, have magnesium but come with oxalates. A further mistake was in chasing plant based magnesium, I separated my dairy intake from the greens because the calcium competes with magnesium absorption. But the calcium also binds the oxalic acid in the gut and prevents absorption. I thought I was opening the gate to magnesium but I was letting in the oxalate.

A special note on turmeric and almond milk. We all know a turmeric “latte” is made with coconut milk. But there is an evil barista :smiling_imp: :coffee: in a village/ country town about an hour away from here who makes it using almond milk. And it tastes so much better. Almond milk high in oxalates. No actual milk so oxalates not bound to calcium. Turmeric high in oxalates. Sweet spice cinnamon high in oxalates in the mix. And pepper to facilitate the turmeric metabolism, pepper full of oxalates. Turmeric lattes are so last decade.

To speed this story up, oxalates and oxalate dumping appear to be the root cause of the adverse effects I have encountered in the Keto diet 3years+ into it and were highlighted and exacerbated in recent carnivore experiments. I can attest to the experience (repeated) and fact that oxalate dumping adverse effects can and will (if you don’t know what is happening) put you in the hospital emergency room.

It has been a 2 year research project n=1 for me to work out what was happening, the root cause, despite having improved the way I ate.

Currently I am oxalate dumping in tandem with the new year resolve to clean up my eating in the carnivore challenge. The change from high oxalate ketogenic to carnivore can be tricky and dangerous, if you are a bear. :bear: In doing so I have had repeated atrial fibrillation episodes (the main adverse reaction and hospital visit worthy). In that repeatability I have found answers.

Now working on managing the clean up. Oxalate removal can take years.

Yes, @VirginiaEdie Edith @barefootbob Bob that was a good oxalate thread we had running there.

Oxalate dumping symptoms investigation on a carnivore dietary trial
#13

I’ve been extreme low carb for about 2 years and about 2.5 yrs doing carnivore. I dumped I guess all the crap I got in my body.

I do know during that time when I had bad eating and going off plan to the max, the next 3-4 days were horrible. Truly a carb poisioning to the body.

I don’t remember a lot of my detox time anymore. I know I lost my hair for a bit. Small amts coming out but that stopped pretty quick. I know I got very restless. Some nights having that restless leg and arms and that overall icky feeling all over my body. A lot of irritability when changing over into true carnivore.

I know I went thru more but it was a while ago but everyone can sure get different hardcore effects.

(Edith) #14

Thanks @Elizedge. I just joined that group yesterday. It is really very informative.

@FrankoBear, you may want to consider joining the Trying Low Oxalate Facebook group.

(Jane Srygley) #15

I joined it too! I’m Jane Marie in case you see me there :raising_hand_woman:t3: Thanks for linking me to the oxalate discussion. Probably good that got closed down :woman_facepalming:t3:

I think I may be experiencing some dumping. I returned 2 lbs of almond flour to the store and threw out all the tempeh and tofu I had leftover. I don’t like throwing away food but this stuff is not really food for humans now, is it? I still have some high-oxalate stuff in my house but I will probably purchase much less of it in the future. I was making keto bread or bagels, almond flour keto cookies and eating some kind of chocolate literally every day, so this will all be quite a change!

(Anna ) #16

I’ve been a member of TLO trying low oxalate since 2017, it’s a great community. I had no idea I had issues with oxalates until I started a pretty drastic elimination diet trying to figure out my food sensitivities. I started to feel sick, was running a fever and developed a pretty bad UTI. I must have typed the correct search terms into my browser since it showed me info on oxalates and dumping. I started talking D-Mannose and increased my oxalates right away, and in a couple more days I was much better.

The lesson I learned was that some people that eat a high oxalate diet, they can’t just stop eating oxalates abruptly. They have to lower their oxalate levels gradually over time. That was me. I ended up going on a low oxalate diet for two years, and trying to heal. I’m now eating low/moderate oxalates and I avoid the really high oxalate foods like spinach. It’s easy to avoid high oxalates on keto since many of the high oxalate foods are not keto foods (sweet potatoes, carrots, beets, grains). The amount of nuts that one can eat on keto and still be under 20 g of carbs is very little.

To lower your oxalate intake, look up on line a list of oxalate levels in foods. See what foods you are eating that contain oxalates, and you can count or ball park oxalate levels, making sure you have a similar level of oxalates daily, then lower them slowly each week until you are at low or no oxalates. I think most meats are low in oxalates but the liver is high in oxalates.

(Edith) #17

What is D-Mannose and what does it do?

(Anna ) #18

D-mannose is a supplement. It’s a type of simple sugar. It’s a natural way to treat UTI’s. I used to have a lot of UTI’s when I was young and got tired of going to the Dr and taking antibiotics for them. It’s supposed to work on UTI’s that caused by e.coli. Not sure if it does anything for UTI’s caused by oxalate dumping.

(Bunny) #19

How hard is it to drink lemon water?

Take lemon squeeze into water and sip: Oxalate problem solved?

“…I eat nothing but meat and water?”…this Reverend Jim Jones stuff is getting really creepy?

Lemon water is not poison kool-aid! …lol

(Edith) #20

Unless, of course, lemon juice makes your mouth break out in painful welts like it does to my mouth.

(Bunny) #21

All roads lead to a leaky gut?

#22

I think the main oxalic acid issue is about preparation: avoiding raw greens is good unless you dress them in alkalinizers like lemon and ACV. For cooked greens, most of the oxalic acid gets leached out - you just drain the liquid from steamed/boiled/fried greens.

So, imho the reason some ppl get sick on all-meat is more the overarching acidifying nature of it, particularly with cooked all-meat, in a diet lacking alkalinizers like citrus, vinegars, pickled veg, etc.

Oxalic acid is also easily reduced by removing the stems of veg, then steaming, boiling, or saute wilting the leaves of any of these vegetables for 5 mins. Gently squeeze out any remaining water from the vegetables.

What this means for pot liquor is confusing - as it’s also high in other good nutrients and meant that, say, traditional U.S. soul food with long simmered greens with animal fat made the difference in health for communities.

Remaining Qs:

I wonder if animal fat plays a role in binding oxalic acid?
Is the issue w/ almonds that they need to be blanched and/or soaked and rinsed, which is what also addresses phytic acid?

(Edith) #23

Possibly. Sensitivity to lemon seems to run In my family along with autoimmune issues. I know leaky gut leads to autoimmune problems.

(Bunny) #25

”…But in cases where adrenal fatigue has become a problem, leaky gut due to metabolic issues can lead to salicylate sensitivity quickly. Leaky gut occurs when the small intestine is too damaged to properly protect the gut, allowing food particles, bacteria, and toxins to enter the bloodstream. …” …More

(Bunny) #26

Also citrus or lemon sensitivity is a histamine intolerance and intestinal Diamine oxidase (DAO) deficiency?

Reference:

[1] “…DAO is found in very high concentrations in certain places? Namely, the small intestine, the first part of the large intestine, and the kidneys. Its job is to break down the histamine that we eat. If it cannot break it down because the enzyme doesn’t work, or if we do not have enough DAO on board, histamine is not broken down and begins to accumulate. Then, we can experience symptoms from excessive histamine and in some people, histamine intolerance. …” …More

[2] There are three main genes which are central to processing histamine:

  • HNMT – which requires SAMe as a cofactor (and this requires an effective MTHFR enzyme to help produce SAMe)
  • DAO – which requires vitamin B6 and copper
  • MAO – which requires vitamin B2 and iron
  • NAT2 – which requires CoA which stems from vitamin B5

If any one of these genes are slowed or burdened, then the removal of histamine is slowed – and symptoms of histamine intolerance occur. …More

(Edith) #27

Yes, that is true. I do seem to have some mild trouble with histamines. I figured this out about a year ago. I seemed to have reactions to more and more foods the longer I was eating keto. The biggy was heart palpitations. Low histamine diet helped but wasn’t the complete answer.

It turns out I was very deficient in magnesium. Once I got my magnesium levels back up, the reactions to food improved.

I ate a lot of oxalate containing food when I discovered keto. I believe the oxalates are what caused the magnesium deficiency which caused the palpitations. The interesting thing is many of the fruits and veggies that contain oxalate also tend to be high in histamine. It all seems to be intertwined.