Sally K. Norton

Vitality Coach, Speaker & Health Consultant

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December 21, 2017 by Sally K Norton

Winter Solstice and Imperceptible Change

Still life night scene photo: Winter Lit Lantern standing on snow with frosted greens and pine cones

Finding Your Own Brighter Days Ahead During the Yuletide

Today, in the Northern Hemisphere, our winter solstice sun appears at its lowest point in the sky. Many traditions and cultures honor these short days and long nights as a sacred and special time.

This time of year is associated with light – electric string lights, the burning yule log, and candles. Hanukkah in the Jewish tradition is the Festival of Lights, which just completed the 8 days of ritual illumination of the menorah. There’s the advent wreath of the Christian faith (weekly lighting of candles) and the all-night bonfire of the Yule log. The lights are reminders of our inner light, an affirmation of our higher and better selves, and hope for brighter days ahead – as we move through our darkest days.

Winter Festivities – Coping with Darkness and Chill

The trimmings, the sweets, the parties and the hoopla of the season are all intended to help carry us through this dark and cold time of the year. Without our social connections and the promise of brighter days ahead, the winter blues might be overwhelming. Parties and holiday gatherings remind us that we’re all in it together. And it can, indeed, be good medicine because we humans long for a sense of belonging, to feel that deep bond of family and community, to be part of a “tribe”.

Of course, we get distracted by all the “wanting”—feelings of lack, and a focus on stuff, or even our longings for perfect health.  And we easily miss the central point:  to love one another, to offer companionship and reinforce our connections through the trimmings and the gifts (the ones we give!). We tell ourselves that it is the cookies, the drinks, the food and the gifts that make the holiday special. Try them out all by yourself, and see if you can honestly say that is the case.

The Way Out of Winter Solstice Darkness

And then there is the pressure to be positive, cheery, merry, and bright. But you may have your pain, grief, or worry—your own reality that seems at odds with all the outward festivity. What if melancholy does have you in its grips? Does all this ‘cheer’ make you feel even more alone with your pain? It could, and you don’t need to apologize for that. Let me offer you permission to feel what is real for you.

I don’t mean to suggest that it is best to wallow in sorrow or become some version of Scrooge.  I’m just saying that you need and deserve some compassion—from yourself. And some loving input—from yourself. So, if you’re not feeling the “be-of-good-cheer” vibe, try this: Claim your right to be supported, by you, first and foremost.  Find 10 minutes of peace and calm to sit with pen and paper. Write a list of “wellness” actions you might take on your own behalf. Choose actions that would give you a solid and level foundation from which things will, at least, not get worse. Look for your own paths to healing, and be willing to take steps in those directions. Touch an inner compass, and find the place within you where purpose lives.

Imperceptible Change

The truth is that things don’t stay the same. Even though our sunken sun appears to be the same for several days before and after the solstice, we are still moving towards spring. So if you feel sad and perhaps even a bit hopeless, just know things won’t stay this way forever—especially because you’ve befriended yourself.

Winter solstice marks the beginning of the return of longer and brighter days, though there are many weeks of winter ahead. While we might be feeling the long darkness of night, the days are indeed growing, though we won’t see the difference at first. Yet by December 25th, where Christmas tucked itself into the calendar in place of a Roman winter festival*, daylight hours are indisputably getting longer. Hooray!

Remember, the dying of the sun and the passing of the year also mark a rebirth of the sun, of the cycles of life, and of hope, faith, and love in our hearts. May you nurture your own heart and soul this season.

Sending you my love!

Three young women in black with their snow person construction

Snow Fun


*December 25 was adopted as the date for Christmas in Europe in order to superimpose on the pre-existing mid-winter festivals. The Romans held a festival on December 25 of Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, “the birthday of the unconquered sun.”  The Romans also had a week-long winter festival called Saturnalia that included public feasting, dancing, singing and gambling. Houses were decorated with evergreens and bunches of holly were given as tokens of friendship. When this festival was absorbed into the Christian calendar, holly, evergreens, and other symbols were adopted as well.

November 19, 2017 by Sally K Norton

Choices to lessen suffering and open our hearts to joy and Thanksgiving.

My trip to the farmers market today was beautiful. In a magical perfection, bright yellow and orange leaves fluttered everywhere in the swirling wind, contrasting with the strong, steady, black-bark covered limbs arching over streets and sidewalks. Everyone at the market seemed calm and very content to be there. It put me in a mood to slow down, just be, and reflect about the ways we cope, consume, eat.

South of the James Farmers Market

And, I want to suggest to you that, this Thanksgiving, you eat whatever you want.

But, before you do, be sure you really want it. And that you know why. Do we ever know why we do what we do? We say we want to be out of pain, physically, emotionally, and yet… Too often our actions don’t always fit our true wants. Perhaps, we are so busy wanting that we cling to our cravings and beloved symbols of comfort, especially when we get emotionally triggered.  And our desire to be loved is often being the biggest “want” of all.

Emotionally triggered? Do you think it’s possible at this time of year? Honestly:  do you think it’s not possible? A lot of us go into super-charge mode emotionally, putting ourselves on a hair trigger, easily upset by the smallest of things. It works great for retailers who put all kinds of irresistible comforts, stimulants, and distractions right under our noses. It doesn’t usually play out so well at family gatherings, however.

How will you be in this moment, this time we call Thanksgiving? This is the time we say is the opening of the Season of Joy. Can it be so for you? What would make it so? Is it about the sugar-coated, pecan-topped sweet potatoes, really? Foods like these may serve our past habits and past memories. And so, we tell ourselves that they are security, ground, and comfort—and a pleasure we need and deserve.

Clinging to the Past

The old way of doing things provides a railing that we hold on to as we navigate the steps of relationships, change, and uncertainty. But, truly, life is best lived in a state of uncertainty. That is where discovery lies.  That is where novelty, growth, and the best in life reside.  Perhaps, too, clinging to our old choices, habits, and memories is just an escape from uncertainty. So often we don’t dare be fully present, or embrace our new path. Perhaps because we fear feeling sad. Sad is bad enough at any time, but horrible in the Season of Joy.

This is an ideal time to build our confidence in our ability to drop our old ways and choose wisely. As Pema Chödrön, puts it: “Natural intelligence is always accessible to us. When we’re not caught in the trap of hope and fear, we intuitively know what’s the right thing to do. If we’re not obscuring our intelligence with anger, self-pity, or craving, we know what will help and what will make things worse” [for us emotionally].

Let your own capacity to feel appreciation, gratitude, tenderness, and a sense of humor be your core, your warmth, your comfort, your peace, your celebration. This is great time to nurture our inner warmth, first to ourselves and then to everyone around us. Light a small fire inside, let it glow with your life energy. Let it be reason enough for the season. Let it give you peace, let it free up your intelligence and be a fuel for making wiser choices. De-escalate the meaning and value of former favorites, and look forward to trying new things that are good for you.

Happy Thanksgiving!! And, remember, a low-oxalate holiday begins with your mindset.

Sources:

Pema Chödrön (2009) Taking the Leap. Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears. p.5

Photo Credit: Copyright: <a href=’https://www.123rf.com/profile_maxsheb’>maxsheb / 123RF Stock Photo</a>

Links:

http://www.freeuniongrassfarm.com/

 

November 7, 2017 by Sally K Norton

Will today’s natural foods fix our health problems?

Paleo bread made from high-oxalate ingredients

Today’s health crisis. Have you noticed it? Obesity, insulin resistance, diabetes, kidney disease, cancer, infertility, behavioral and mood problems, poor sleep, and PAIN. Do you know anyone with any of these problems? Yes, you do, even if you are not aware of it. And, the suffering is happening at younger and younger ages. Our kids are in trouble, we’re all in trouble.

It is expensive to be sick. Both time and money are sucked out of our lives, not to mention the fun. And what about the bigger picture all around us? Perhaps you’ve noticed that poor health is threatening social and economic stability, world-wide.

Eating Better?

So, what are we doing about it? Eating better? Going “natural”? Yes, we are indeed eating more veggies and less meat, less fat too. We’re swearing off gluten and A bag of cheese-like "healthy food" substance made from almonds.milk, going for alternative low-carb or gluten-free breads, alternative “milk”, and fake cheese. Is this going to save us? I say no. Hear about one reason why this approach is not a great solution: in this video about oxalate toxicity from natural foods.

My Ancestral Health Symposium Presentation

In September, I had an opportunity to offer an address to the Ancestral Health Society. This presentation argues that many of today’s health foods are having the opposite of the intended effect. Rather than making us healthier, the superfood food craze could, like the holy war against saturated fat, be launching another public health calamity, as expensive and unpleasant as the current diabetes and obesity explosion.

Here are some highlights from this talk:

Bags of chocolate covered almonds on a supermarket produce shelf.

Chocolate is now “produce” at Walmart

  • Low-level toxicity and nutrient deficiencies make us sick.
  • One of the most potent toxins that people regularly ingest in the contemporary diet is oxalate.
  • Oxalate causes nutrient depletion AND toxicity in the body.
  • Oxalate, when purified, can rapidly kill a person.
  • It was even the poison of interest in the very first experimental toxicology study published in 1823 in England, because it caused several accidental deaths in the early1800s.
  • Many of the plant foods we like to think are good for us have enough oxalate to harm our health in much more subtle ways.
  • These natural foods might even cause mechanical abrasion to your digestive tract do to the “needle effect”.
  • Oxalate can collect in your tissues.
  • The availability of high oxalate foods we see today is unprecedented.
  • Today we are eating oxalate in amounts that cause us to begin accumulating oxalate in our arteries, bones, thyroid, breasts, and kidneys.
  • When you eat “normal” levels of oxalate, you “maintain” and grow the oxalate deposits that have already started in your body.
  • Medical and nutrition authorities have virtually no awareness of the threat of biological toxicity posed by over-exposure to oxalate and its precursors. They are not paying attention to the increase in our use of high oxalate foods.
  • Going low destabilizes oxalate in the body, and helps it move out.
  • Going low can prevent and even reverse a lot of common complaints, as proven by thousands of reports from real people in the real world (members of the VP Foundation, Participants in the Trying Low Oxalates online groups, my own clients and followers, and many others).

Action Items for You

  • Please watch the video, it is only 39 minutes and is packed with helpful images and information that will make you want to share it and watch it a second time.
  • Please give it a thumbs up.
  • Share with those you love.
  • Let me know what you think.

… and

  • Skip the swiss chard and almonds.

The fewer toxins in your body the better, even the natural ones!

“From a practical point of view, it would be better to avoid oxalate-rich foods than to take measures to neutralize the effect of oxalic acid, especially when other sources of green vegetables are available.”

—Hoover and Karunairatnam (1945).
Oxalate content of some leafy green vegetables and its relation to oxaluria and calcium utilization.
The Biochemical Journal 39, 237.

September 14, 2017 by Sally K Norton

Teaching at a Cutting Edge Health Symposium: AHS17

My presentation in Seattle last week (at the University of Washington) was an unqualified success. The participants of AHS17 (The 6th Ancestral Health Symposium) were very receptive and many were thrilled with having had a decent introduction to the dietary oxalate problem. Although several people found it startling, there was NO “blow-back” (not yet, anyway).

That’s because the audience is well-informed but not in a know-it-all state of mind. This is an event for the intellectually curious. Here academics, health practitioners, bloggers, authors, fitness trainers, and health enthusiasts gather to explore the ways our ancestral traditions and evolutionary history might clarify modern day health problems and confusion. The formal talks were rich, spinning off enthusiastic conversations and informal mini talks in the halls.

You too can watch/listen to all the talks, including mine. https://ancestralhealth.org.

Making New Friends

Welcome Dinner AHS17 Sept. 7, 2017 Learning and connecting.

My favorite part of this unique and valuable conference was meeting many wonderful people. Several audience members were personally touched by my presentation.  At least five of them were women who told me that this was a life-changing experience that explained why they still feel bad despite careful eating etc., etc.

I connected with several of the exhibitors and their products, especially the couple from Montana that raises and sells Roam Free Bison Jerky, the Amethyst Biomat that gives off Far Infra-Red Heat, and Teri of Vital Proteins—she already avoids oxalates thanks to grandmother who has had great success on with the low oxalate diet. Thank you, Sue, for the relaxing naps on the Biomat! That is a great way to restore a speaker.

Another wonderful find in the audience was a Post Doctoral Fellow at University of California, Santa Barbara. Jacob studies the role of oxalate in kidney disease using rats. We talked and talked and talked. I missed several presentations, preferring instead, talking with him and several others about oxalates and other healing topics.  (I’m also looking forward to the AHS session recordings so I can catch up on the ones I missed.)

New Therapy for Auto-Immune Disease

Airline ate my Suitcase

Our new friend, the oxalate researcher, Jacob turned me on to Valter Longo’s Five Day Fasting Program. It is called a Fasting Mimicking Diet because it appears to have the same benefits of water-only fasting but involves some foods (about 700 calories of mostly fat in 2 meals per day, and glycerol added to water). This makes the idea of fasting more appealing and reasonable. When repeated once a month for three months it can reset the immune system by regenerating stem cells in the bone marrow. This clears out the errant immune memories and thus may erase auto-immune disease. Boy that would be amazing! Cheap and sensible too. Here is another link to another one of Dr. Longo’s papers: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24440038.

I am so interested in trying this approach, I could not help myself from starting the fast on my first day back in Richmond. (Not eating has really lowered my productivity this week. This seems an easy investment in my future vitality, though.)

You may not be aware that my years of overloading the oxalates on my plate has left me with autoimmune vasculitis and rampant allergies causing inflammation. But eating too much of the wrong foods can be cured by not eating! Poetic justice, for sure! Nature has her logic. I’m going with her.

Stay tuned to hear the results of this fasting experiment. Today is day four of round one. So far: my skin likes it; I have no dental plaque; and no body odor. My energy is so low that I have flashes of what it might feel like to be a refugee. Poor dears!

More to Come

Seattle’s Link – a cheap easy ride from the airport

The co-founder of the Ancestral Health Society and Editor of the Journal of Evolution and Health invited me to write a review paper that covers the material I presented at AHS17. I think that is a great idea too.   I’ll keep you all posted on my progress.

Road Notes

The trip itself was a gentle adventure, complete with damaged luggage, fun with the local light rail system, and a fantastic hotel room with a huge kitchen where I made real, tasty food.

 

Big kitchen in hotel Room

I made “home” cooked bison burger with mushrooms and arugula cooked in ghee- in my room at the Residence Inn Marriott

August 14, 2017 by Sally K Norton

When Anger Melts into Gratitude

on air radio microphone retro vintage broadcasting interview transmitter

Radio Interview On Richmond’s WRIR show Lightly on the Ground Radio

Aired: Aug 9th, 2017, 12 PM EST

https://sallyknorton.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/LOTG-2017-08-09-Oxalates-Norton-and-Cummings.mp3

During this radio interview with Sunny Gardner, Jane Cummings shares the story of her recovery from severe joint and nerve pain (in her wrists and feet) that was accompanied by brain fog. All these problems improved tremendously after following my advice to limit her oxalate intake.

Jane was initially angry at the information, having worked so hard to get to a healthful diet. She, like me, grew her own sweet potatoes and tomatoes. She also carried “pocket food”—nuts and seeds on most days.

Despite her feelings about the idea that her “healthy foods” could harm her, she moderated her food choices. She added more low oxalate foods, including romaine lettuce, and cut way back on the nuts and seeds. Things backed off, the foot stiffness and wrist pain essentially went away. Having been on the diet for almost 2 years, she now understands when she strays. Her body will tell her and symptoms will return. It works for her, every time. Just check the list and remember what foods she needs to move away from eating.

During this interview, I explain how the body can be overwhelmed by too much oxalate coming in and how the body makes a shift when you cut way back on consuming oxalate.

Jane now feels very grateful – she has a way to manage her own health. She could not get this information from doctors or the internet. So, she tells her friends about oxalates in our foods and how avoiding them has helped her.

Jane tuned her anger into a feeling of empowerment.

We both are grateful to have this option for better health. Thank you, Sunny for helping us tell our stories.

Please enjoy this 30 minute interview, and share your thoughts.

April 9, 2017 by Sally K Norton

Sloppiness of Standard Practices in Science

Copyright: teamarbeit / 123RF Stock Photo

The public is unaware of many problems in how science is conducted and the ramifications for patient health.

For example, poor handling and significant time lapse before pathologists see the fragile and perishable tissues they examine can yield unreliable, meaningless data. Richard Harris discusses such problems in modern biomedical science in a new book, Rigor Mortis: How Sloppy Science Creates Worthless Cures, Crushes Hope, and Wastes Billions. The book is long overdue! It is certainly an important topic in need of some light, and I’m looking forward to reading it. Thanks to Richard Harris for tackling this massive problem!

In a book excerpt on the NPR site, Harris describes how researchers finally revealed one of the hidden problems in pathology.  While evaluating a breast cancer test, researchers in a lab at the University of Rochester let breast tissue biopsy samples sit out for an hour or two before testing them. They didn’t realize that at room temperature, the sample decays! Folks: dead tissues decay, and decay changes what a pathologist can detect.  Harris writes:Rigor Mortis Book Cover

“And that was enough to degrade the sample and turn a positive result into a negative one. The molecule detected by the HER2 test breaks down at room temperature. “You can have the best test in the world and still get the wrong answer if you bugger up what you are testing,” Compton said.”

Oxalate Detection is a Problem for These Same Reasons Too

This problem of tissue degeneration is certainly true for oxalate crystals. These crystals are known to disappear from tissue samples within 2 hours of death, especially from the thyroid gland. Surgeons and their assistants lack training in the best methods for preserving biopsy samples and do not prioritize a speedy passage to the microscope. These processes are not priorities for biomedical institutions. Science and the public both suffer as a result.

I will write more soon about problems in tissue sampling and examination, focusing on overlooked oxalate deposits.  Unseen due to normal but faulty biomedical procedures, oxalate deposits in human tissues are more common than believed by researchers.

Link to NPR book excerpt:

http://www.npr.org/books/titles/522223284/rigor-mortis-how-sloppy-science-creates-worthless-cures-crushes-hope-and-wastes#excerpt

March 29, 2017 by Sally K Norton

Swiss Chard: Popular But Potentially Hazardous

Three Grocery Produce shelves filled with bundles of fresh swiss chard standing upright

I used to eat this stuff as a normal and healthy thing to do. Swiss chard and I go way back, ever since my mother told me to plant it in my first garden when I was 10 years old. It germinates easily and it isn’t bothered much by pests. The large leaves are easy to harvest and the plant looks great in the garden. And, most important to my mother, it is a cut-and-come-again plant that yields a continual and bountiful crop. It was good that it was so easy to grow, because grocery stores rarely carried it. All that has changed.

Mountains of Swiss Chard at the Store

Swiss chard has grown popular—very popular, if the amount of refrigerated space allotted to it in our local organic supermarket is an indicator. I was there last week on a hopeless quest for mustard greens. I asked the young man restocking the produce case if they had mustard greens, but like the other stores in town, he said they don’t carry them anymore.

Then I noticed that he was unloading swiss chard—at least 40 colorful bunches, fresh out of their shipping boxes into a 4’ 4’ section devoted solely to swiss chard. The greens looked marvelous, but I could only sigh and worry. In my astonishment at the amount of store space devoted just to swiss chard, I commented on it as he piled it up. He said that they sell a “crazy amount of it”, but he’s never tried it.

Hidden Danger: Oxalate

Swiss chard is a hot trend! It has joined the ranks of kale and spinach as top sellers in the fresh greens department. Too bad. Swiss chard is loaded with a natural toxin called oxalate. Just one half-cup of steamed white-stalked swiss chard has about 500 mg of oxalate and ½ cup of steamed red swiss chard has over 900 mg of oxalate. [1] Steamed spinach has about 700 mg per ½ cup. That is a lot of oxalate.

Doctors and researchers assume you only consume about 120 mg of oxalate per day! 120 mg is about the amount of oxalate in just one ounce of almonds. But, a ½ cup of swiss chard has 4 to 7 times that amount – far in excess of what is considered “typical” and “tolerable” on a routine basis. That half cup of spinach has about 6 times the daily expectation. Oxalates have enormous health consequences: If you happen to like nuts and swiss chard, spinach, or beet greens you could be heading for physical pain, poor sleep, or kidney stones.

Ignoring a Brain Toxin

Until 2009, I paid no attention oxalates in my foods. I did not know or care that I routinely ate foods loaded with oxalate. I never connected my weird symptoms of nightly hiccups, belching, restless legs, and poor sleep to my diet. Why would I suspect my diet? I was eating fresh, whole, healthy foods—all the time, every day. I served swiss chard about twice a week and sweet potatoes at least five days a week, believing they were good for me. My diet could not be blamed for my health problems.

So later, I was shocked when I accidentally cured my sleep problem by eliminating high oxalate foods like swiss chard (including my beloved sweet potatoes). I learned that oxalates are neurotoxic. That is, they bother the nerves and brain. I also learned from reading medical articles that hiccups are a sign of this neurotoxicity (which covers a spectrum of symptoms including hiccups, convulsions, and death).  (Here are a few of those articles: Neto 1998; Chen, Chou et al 2002; Chang, Hwang, et al 2000). There must be a reason the bugs don’t mess with the swiss chard in the garden—it may be too toxic for them, too!

The Danger of Innocence

My ignorance about the oxalate content of foods and about the toxic potential of oxalate in foods left me at risk for self-inflicted poisoning. That turned out badly for me, and for my husband. As a last resort, I corrected this dietary mistake and was surprised at the results as we each recovered effortlessly from chronic health conditions.

Anyone can get into trouble from overdoing the high oxalate foods. This is especially relevant now when high-oxalate foods are growing in popularity and are available year round.  The produce aisle has become a loaded gun, and we are the innocent kids who have no idea about the dangers lurking there.

Healthy, Safer Greens

If you want to avoid accidental harm from oxalate, drop the swiss chard, beet greens, and spinach. And tell the produce manager you would buy mustard greens (6 mg oxalate per ½ cup steamed) and other low-oxalate produce, if only they would stock them.

Indeed, there are other good options for cooked greens. For example:

  • Lacinato (aka Dino) kale (4 mg ox per ½ cup cooked),
  • green cabbage, cooked (4 mg ox per ½ cup),
  • arugula, cooked (7 mg ox per ½ cup),
  • turnip greens (10 mg ox per ½ cup steamed), or
  • dandelion greens (10 mg ox per ½ cup steamed).

Many raw salad greens are also safe:

  • romaine lettuce (0.5 – 2 mg per ½ C),
  • mache (corn salad) (0.4 mg per ½ C),
  • watercress (2 mg per ½ C), and
  • arugula (0.7 per ½ C).

Rest Well

What mustard greens and romaine lettuce lack in hipness and glamor, they make up for by letting you sleep at night!

 

  1. The values of oxalate content presented here are based on testing performed at the University of Wyoming in Laramie on behalf of the VP Foundation.  http://thevpfoundation.org/vpfcookbook.htm

February 23, 2017 by Sally K Norton

Arterial Plaque Contains Oxalate

Did you know that oxalates can damage your heart and circulatory system, contributing to heart disease?

Our kidneys clean the blood. All of the oxalate that kidneys excrete every day gets there by traveling in our blood stream. The job of delivering toxic oxalate to the kidneys puts the arteries in harm’s way.

Researchers Don’t Expect Oxalate in Tissues

When oxalate deposits are found in tissues (other than the kidneys) doctors and researchers are surprised that the kidneys are working just fine. They believe that before oxalate collects in our bodies, the oxalate must first ruin the kidneys. This passage, below, from UCLA Pathologists Fishbein and Fishbein illustrates this conventional belief.

In a review of coronary arteries from 80 patients, we found 4 cases in which there were prominent oxalate deposits within the atherosclerotic plaques in coronary arteries. Oxalate deposits were also present in the media of arteries, the thyroid gland, and other organs, but not the kidneys, and the patients surprisingly did not have renal failure. (Fishbein and Fishbein 2009, p. 1315)

This expectation is based on the long-standing but unproven assertion that detectable (non-renal) oxalate deposits are a product of poor kidney function. In a previous report published by the journal Cardiovascular Pathology in 2008 they propose the new term “atherosclerotic oxalosis” to describe arterial plaque containing oxalate crystals.

This report was part of a study of coronary atherosclerosis in HIV infected patients, using atherosclerotic plaque samples from the National Neurologic AIDS Bank.

Whenever oxalate flows into the kidneys and other tissues in amounts beyond what they can handle (exceeding a capacity threshold), oxalate overload can occur. This can trigger accumulation of oxalate in the body. For some people this shows up as kidney deposits and kidney stones.  But oxalate can encounter, be stashed, and be left behind in any susceptible tissue in the body, not just the kidneys.

Other Forms of Oxalate are Usually Overlooked

Note the use of the term prominent in the comment quoted above. The researchers do not mention trace deposits, nano-crystals, ionic oxalate, and other chemical forms of oxalate in the examined tissues as a possibility. Unexplored, no doubt.

There is also no mention of the age of the specimens at the time of examination. We know that oxalate deposits rapidly fade in biopsied tissue and cadavers. (It would be interesting to see a study specific to arteries and arterial plaque to investigate the durability of less prominent oxalate deposits in plaque.) To reliably find oxalate, living tissues need to be examined within two hours of death or excision, but often are not. This may help to explain why oxalate in the arterial plaque is assumed to be rare, it can be hard to detect.

Calcium oxalate may be a factor in “hardening arteries”. And it may be more common than this research suggests, given the crude detection methods we use. Artery plaque oxalosis is most likely in people with metabolic stress such as HIV, metabolic syndrome, chronic inflammation, diabetes, insulin resistance, chemical injury, poly-pharmacy, auto-immune conditions, and so on. We don’t know how oxalate may harm “healthy” people with “perfect” arteries.

Over and over, science has demonstrated that oxalate can collect in any tissue in the body—and not necessarily due to kidney problems.

Reason enough to become oxalate aware!

 

Here is an update: an 2017 report of an Italian study looking at heart artery plaque in 229 people, obtained through a tissue bank. They did a special microanalysis in 41 plaque samples to differentiate between two types of calcifications: calcium oxalate vs hydroxapatite. 37% of the plaques were primarily calcium oxalate and 63% were hydroxyapatite. Oxalate calcifications were detected mainly in unstable plaques in 27% of cases, whereas HA tended to dominate unstable plaques 60% of the time.
Of course, unstable plaques are the ones that tend to break loose and block fine capillaries, restricting blood flow to brain or heart tissues thus causing non-hemorrhagic stroke or heart attacks . https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28739184

January 14, 2017 by Sally K Norton

Celebrating Life!

“I Like Feeling Good!”

In this short video, Cathy explains how the low-oxalate diet has improved her life: eliminating back pain, mouth tartar and cavities, brain fog, energy issues, and chemical sensitivity.  Her enthusiasm for what she learned in my previous talks and support group is contagious.  Cathy wants you to feel good too!

Celebrate Low-Oxalate Living: “Happy Birthday, Cathy!”

For her birthday celebration, Cathy organized a low-oxalate talk that I presented at Ellwood Thompson’s Local Grocery in Richmond, Virginia, on January 18, 2017.

November 6, 2016 by Sally K Norton

Thai Chili / Sloppy Joe

Chili without the oxalates!! This easy and flexible “hamburger extender” can be eaten as a main dish, used in wraps, or as a chili garnish for hot dogs. Use lamb or pork, if desired. This approach also works with left-over meats – like a “hash”.

Thai Chili / Sloppy Joe

  • Servings: 4-6
  • Oxalates: Low
  • Time: Prep: 20 minutes; Total: 1 hour
  • Difficulty: Easy
  • Print

Ingredients
Thai Chili ingredients ready for cooking.

Thai Chili ingredients ready for cooking.

2 T beef tallow, lard, or coconut oil

6 ounces turnips, peeled and diced (est. 8 mg oxalate)

1 onion (6 – 8 ounces, red or yellow), peeled and diced (est. 10 mg oxalate)

¼ tsp. coriander (5 mg oxalate)

½ tsp salt

1 pound ground beef or other meat

2 T Thai red curry paste

12 ounces (1 can) coconut milk

2 tsp. potato starch

2 T Frank’s hot sauce

Cilantro leaves for garnish

Lime wedges for serving

Instructions

Dish of Chili served with acron squash and garnished with chopped cliantro and lime wedge

Chili served with acorn squash

  1. Sauté turnips and onions in the fat for 15 minutes on medium-low.
  2. Turn heat up to medium. Add ground coriander, salt and ground beef. Cook just long enough to brown the meat.
  3. Add the curry paste and stir to incorporate.
  4. Combine the coconut milk and potato starch, then add to meat mixture.
  5. Simmer on low heat until the sauce thickens, about 10 minutes.
  6. Add hot sauce.
  7. Serve as a sloppy joe mix, or use as you would any chili. Garnish with cilantro leaves or lime wedges. Squeeze lime over portion before eating.

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