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Green smoothies are all the rage these days. Many people are drinking them every day or at least several times a week in an attempt to get healthy and “alkalize” the body.
Whenever I visit the cafe of my local healthfood store, there are usually several people in gym clothes lined up to order a green smoothie to sip after their workout.
Green smoothies are made by blending large amounts of raw leafy green vegetables with fruit to soften and sweeten the taste. Typical vegetables included in green smoothies are cruciferous vegetables like kale, broccoli, collard greens, maca (usually as a supplemental powder) as well as others like spinach, swiss chard, celery, and parsley.
Is the green smoothie fad a truly healthy habit over the long term? Or, could regular consumption of these seemingly healthy drinks contribute to serious health problems over time?
Raw Leafy Greens Contain High Oxalate Levels
Frequent consumption of large quantities of raw, leafy green vegetables blended up as green smoothies can be deceiving at first. This is because green drinks facilitate an initial detoxification process that makes a person feel great. This is especially true when coming off a highly processed, nutrient poor diet.
While very nutritious, the vegetables used in green smoothies are almost without exception high oxalate foods. Over time, a high oxalate diet can contribute to some very serious health problems particularly if you are one of the 20% of people (1 in 5) that have a genetic tendency to produce oxalates or if you suffer from candida or other fungal challenge. In those cases, a high oxalate diet can deal a devastating blow to health.
Oxalate Toxicity Not a New Problem
The effects of oxalate toxicity have plagued humankind since ancient times. For example, scientists discovered an oxalate kidney stone about the size of a golf ball in a 2000 year old mummy from Chile using x-ray analysis.
Build-up of shards of oxalate crystals can occur almost anywhere in the body. Whatever tissue contains them, pain or worse is the result.
75-90% of kidney stones are oxalate related with 10-15% of Americans afflicted at some point during their lives. As the star shaped crystalline stones pass from the kidney, they cause pressure and pain in the bladder and urethra and can actually tear up the walls of the urinary tract.
Oxalate Stones from Excessive Green Smoothies
Oxalate stones can show up in any body tissue including the brain and even the heart.
Crystals comprised of oxalates resemble shards of glass. They can become lodged in the heart causing tiny tears and damage to this vital muscle. With every single contraction, more damage is caused as the heart pumps life giving blood to the rest of the body.
Oxalate crystals which end up in the thyroid can cause thyroid disease by damaging thyroid tissue.
A frequent location for oxalates to end up is skeletal muscle which will cause pain with even normal movement and make exercise nearly impossible. Dr. William Shaw, Director of The Great Plains Laboratory for Health, Nutrition and Metabolism who has studied oxalates extensively, is convinced that oxalate toxicity is a factor in fibromyalgia the pain of which can absolutely devastate a person’s life (1).
Vulvodynia – Painful Sex
Cases of women experiencing painful sex are on the rise with oxalates a possible culprit.
Vulvodynia is a condition causing pain in and around the vagina. It is linked to oxalates deposited in this delicate reproductive tissue. Oxalate crystals are very acidic and they cause irritation, burning, and stinging sensations for affected women. An accompanying feeling of rawness is typically experienced during sexual relations.
Oxalates Are Fungal in Origin
A surprising finding is that oxalates are produced in large amounts by fungus. Large stones have been found in the sinuses and lungs of people suffering from systemic fungal infections such as candida or Aspergillus.
Therefore, anyone who suffers from any sort of candida overgrowth or other fungal challenge like fungus nails or dandruff would be wise to be very concerned about oxalate intake via the diet.
Consumption of green smoothies would not in any way contribute to improvement of health in these situations. The majority of people today suffer from gut imbalance and candida (yeast) issues caused by antibiotic and prescription drug use including the Pill. This renders a high oxalate diet which includes frequent green smoothies an unwise practice for virtually everyone.
Does Cooking Destroy Oxalates?
What about cooking the greens first? Would this reduce the risk of oxalate overload and make consuming greens safer?
Not really, because oxalates are extremely stable. While cooking high oxalate foods and discarding the cooking water does reduce the level of anti-nutrients, it remains quite high.
Green smoothies are usually consumed frequently by those who swear by them. As such, a light steaming of the veggies first would not make a significant difference over the long term if they are consumed regularly. If you consume green smoothies only occasionally, however, a light steaming is a good idea. This practice adds a degree of safety to the process. Other tips for preparing safe smoothies are contained in this linked article.
Healthier Alternatives to Green Smoothies
The best course of action for health, then, is to opt out of the green smoothie diet fad. This is especially important if you have any sort of gut imbalance or candida issues.
If you enjoy green leafy vegetables, be smart about it. Don’t overdo like so many in the health community are doing with the best of intentions. Enjoy green drinks in moderation in salads. Or, cook them and carefully drain and discard leafy green cooking water. Never use it in soups and sauces!
Be sure to serve cooked leafy greens with a healthy fats like butter or coconut oil. Avoid margarine or any factory fats synthesized with rancid and/or GMO vegetable oils like Smart Balance. Using natural fats will facilitate maximum absorption of minerals.
Another option is to drink raw cultured vegetable juice or eat raw cultured vegetables. Not only will you get enhanced nutrition from the culturing process which adds enzymes and nutrients, but you will also get a beneficial and therapeutic dose of probiotics to help balance gut function and improve digestion. It also suppresses fungal overgrowth like candida.
Wheatgrass an Excellent Alternative!
Another option is to do shots of fresh, green wheatgrass juice.
Wheatgrass juice is very low in oxalic acid.
Here is a link to my favorite green juice recipe using wheatgrass and ginger. It is safe to drink regularly, daily if you like, instead of green smoothies. It is also an excellent drink for gently detoxing before pregnancy. The ginger assists with morning sickness issues too if you are already pregnant.
What to do if a Green Smoothie Diet Has Already Harmed Your Health
Are you already are suffering from some of the ailments described in this article? Do you suspect a high oxalate diet which includes green smoothies or a daily spinach salad may be the cause? If so, stop this practice immediately and consult with a holistic physician. You will likely need professional assistance to guide you on the road to recovery. Ridding your body of oxalate crystals that are potentially irritating one or more of your body tissues is no simple task! It is not advisable to attempt this protocol on your own.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist, author, Get Your FATS Straight
References and Additional Information
The Role of Oxalates in Autism and Chronic Disorders, William Shaw PhD
Top 4 Cleansing Myths to Watch Out For
Who are you??
Do you have a degree in this stuff?
I mean, come on people. Are you taking her seriously?
WATCH OUT, Annika Rockwell FoodforKidshealth just posted on the unhealthiness of Hummus, another current diet fad…let the assault begin!!
This article is unnecessarily dramatic. I can see oxalates being a concern for someone who has a pre-existing condition such as the ones you mention, and wants to drink nothing but green smoothies for an extended period of time. But the way your article is written suggests that no one should drink green smoothies. And your suggestion to avoid even salads of fresh greens because of oxalates is ridiculous. Kale, chard and the like are well-established to be of the highest nutritive value among all food on the planet AND the levels of oxalates are higher in other foods.* Not to mention that a kidney stone does not “destroy” your health – sure, it’s a problem and I wouldn’t wish it on anybody, but destroy is too strong a word. Hepatitis destroys health. AIDS destroys health. Cancer destroys health. A kidney stone is something a person can recover from and does not belong at the level you have placed it.
I feel sorry for people who let blogs like this one dictate what they feed their families. Children especially need the B vitamins and calcium found in leafy greens, and green smoothies are a great way to get them one of their two servings a day! How else are we to raise them to have healthy digestive systems?? By serving them whole foods with high nutritive value!!
*”Oxalate occurs in many plants, where it is synthesized via the incomplete oxidation of carbohydrates. Oxalate-rich plants include fat hen (“lamb’s quarters”), sorrel, and several Oxalis species. The root and/or leaves of rhubarb and buckwheat are high in oxalic acid.[8] Other edible plants that contain significant concentrations of oxalate include–in decreasing order–star fruit (carambola), black pepper, parsley, poppy seed, amaranth, spinach, chard, beets, cocoa, chocolate, most nuts, most berries, fishtail palms, New Zealand spinach (Tetragonia tetragonioides) and beans.[citation needed] Leaves of the tea plant (Camellia sinensis) contain among the greatest measured concentrations of oxalic acid relative to other plants. However the infusion beverage typically contains only low to moderate amounts of oxalic acid per serving, due to the small mass of leaves used for brewing.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxalate)
While I love this blog, I find this particular post disturbing on many levels. The blanket statement that green smoothies are devastating to health is quite extreme, and most people do just fine adding green vegetables to smoothies for added nutrients. People need more creative ways to get more vegetables into their diets, and steering people away from greens is doing them a huge disservice!
Just because traditional cultures didn’t eat green smoothies doesn’t mean that we cannot. Traditional cultures also did not have environmental pollution like we do now. What worked for them just might not work for us. Nowadays, people need the more alkaline vegetables in their diet to achieve vibrant health.
Yes, oxalates can be a problem for some individuals, but they are not only found in green leafy vegetables. They are also found in buckwheat, cocoa, nuts, and many other foods. To single out only the green leafy vegetables is not giving your readers enough information.
FYI… If you are concerned about stones forming, just add some raw apple cider vinegar to the water that you drink, and this can help prevent kidney stones from forming in the first place.
Ultimately, each one of us needs to listen to our body. What works for someone, will not work for someone else. Your body is the ultimate guide to determine what food works for you and what does not.
What about wheatgrass? I just read candida book and it suggested eating wheatgrass daily to help get rid of yeast. What is your opinion. Thanks..
I’ve been drinking wheatgrass IN MODERATION for 15 years (1-2 shots a week). Love the stuff. I did do a very short stint when I first started wheatgrass where I did a shot a day for about a month to speed up detoxification and then backed off to a moderate level since then. Like anything, just don’t overdo and go wild with it like green smoothie junkies do with their green drink of choice. Even healthy things can become unhealthy when they become addictive, excessive, “gotta do it everyday” type behaviors.
This is an alarmist article. I find it more harmful than good that anyone would elicit alarm for consuming food sources rich in nutrition, antioxidants and vitamins by default. For most people, eating the spectrum of leafy greens is incredibly healthy. The trade-off to not eating greens over paranoia of issues associated with an oxalate diet is far more of an issue to me than avoiding them. If you’ve been eating greens and you feel great, don’t stop over this article, pay attention to your body. I imagine coffee, alcohol and fast food also contribute to oxalate build ups. And what about balance? Is it not possible to consume high oxalate greens for the benefit of all the wonderful nutrition value and then add other things in your diet that combat oxalate build ups? Aloe Vera inner leaf gel/juice for example, i’ve heard is great at combatting oxalate build ups. I personally want all those antioxidants, vitamins and life healing properties from the greens and I have not experienced any issue other than health and happiness from it.
Some important studies to read to find out what just adding spinach to the diet can do can be found here:
http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/reprint/18/3/233.pdf
and here:
http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/reprint/17/6/557.pdf
and there are more of them, but this is what you can find already on the web.
In these studies adding spinach to the diet was compared to adding the lower oxalate green, turnip greens.
One of these studies said:
If to a diet of meat, peas, carrots and sweet potatoes, rela
tively low in calcium but permitting good though not maximum
growth and bone formation, spinach is added to the extent of
about 8% to supply 60% of the calcium, a high percentage
of deaths occurs among rats fed between the age of 21 and
90 days. Reproduction is impossible. The bones are ex
tremely low in calcium, tooth structure is disorganized and
dentine poorly calcified. Spinach not only supplies no avail
able calcium but renders unavailable considerable of that of
the other foods. Considerable of the oxalate appears in the
urine, much more in the feces.
The same study said:
By the
time the age of 90 days was reached, five animals on the
spinach diet had died while all those on the diet containing
turnip greens were in excellent condition. The average
weight at 90 days of age of animals receiving spinach was
134 gm. while of those receiving turnip greens it was 205.”
Take a look and read the studies yourself and see what you think.
Whoever reads these studies really might prefer adding turnip greens rather than spinach for your smoothies!
Susan Owen, thank you so much for taking the time to make several informative responses in this matter. I’m encouraged to have this new information that may provide insight and answers for someone in my life who for many years has suffered from fibromyalgia as well as vulvodynia, arthritis, fatigue, and something that led to a laminectomy in the lower spine. Could all of these be related? If so, could they potentially be addressed and improved by following the LOD protocol? I just joined the yahoo group and see many documents in the files — are there ones in particular that I should look at first?
Your generosity in sharing your expertise is very much appreciated.
Beth
Beth
I used to have fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, bladder pain, and severe arthritis in my knees, All of these are completely cured after a number of years on the low oxalate diet. I also have vulvar vestibulitis and it is about 80% better on the LOD. Oxalate problems are real, yet often overlooked by the medical community. I imagine your loved one could really benefit from a low oxalate diet.
I don’t agree that everyone needs to be on a low oxalate diet, but there is a lot of evidence that lower oxalate greens such as dino kale, turnip greens and mustard greens are a lot healthier than spinach! I would definitely suggest people err on the side of caution or at least read about oxalate-related symptoms, so they know what to watch out for if it becomes a problem for them.
Thank you, Heidi, for this and your other responses. And for pointing out your excellent and informative blog to us.
Conor, and others,
Our paper in the European Journal of Paediatric Neurology was conducted in such a way to address a myth that is “out there” that the first sign of oxalate being high in the body is kidney stones. I found out years ago that doctors and scientists assumed that was so, but I also could see that no one had tested it. I attended a long professional development conference on kidney stones and learned that issues local to the kidney is what causes certain people to be at risk for kidney stones. People with kidney stones have about the same amount of oxalate in their urine as everyone else, Something ELSE makes them vulnerable there.
Because that belief has been so pervasive that kidney stones will be the first sign of an oxalate problem, as of today, almost 100% of oxalate scientists are kidney doctors and by talking to them, I’ve learned that they have been brushing off problems oxalate might have caused in their patients in other organ systems. They would just tell the patient those other issues were unrelated.
This is why our study addressed indiectly whether oxalate can be present in the body in dangerous levels when there is no evidence or even risk of developing kidney stones. The data clearly leads to that conclusion, and the same conclusion likely applies to other patient groups as well….groups that have never had their oxalate tested because of low suspicion.
Kidney doctors use a test called the BRI (Bonn risk index) to assess how likely someone is to develop kidney stones. If you are interested, you can read about it here http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925400508008332, here, http://www.indianjurol.com/article.asp?issn=0970-1591;year=2011;volume=27;issue=2;spage=301;epage=302;aulast=Dwivedi, and here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1805047/
The BRI test works like this: You take a urine sample, and in measured amounts add more oxalate to the sample until oxalate starts to crystalize out. The more oxalate it takes to get to the point of crystallization, the lower the risks of developing kidney stones.
The Bonn risk index when it was applied to the children with autism in our study showed that they had virtually NO risk of developing kidney stones. That was not because they were low in oxalate. They were high. The study found their blood and urine oxalate was as high in some of these children as other scientists had found in children with primary hyperoxaluria. That’s a genetic disease that affects one in a million people. It can be fatal because of problems that develop in the body from excess oxalate being stored in tissues..
The children with autism were two and half times higher than control children in urine and three times higher in blood, but they had virtually no kidney stone risk and none of them had kidney stones as was determined in the hospital where the tests took place.
Our study also found that the two compartments in these children didn’t “agree”. There was a sixteen fold difference in the ratio of blood to urine oxalate in the children with autism. which means you cannot measure oxalate in one place and assume that tells you what its levels are in the other place.
Only one child with autism overlapped with any of the control children in both blood and urine. That is out of 36 children with autism.
So, Conor, the concern about oxalate is not just about kidney stones. I have now seen testing for people with all sorts of disorders where oxalate has ended up a major issue, and reducing oxalate from its previous levels has helped people regain their health.
Readers here just need to be aware that some people may develop problems who try the high oxalate smoothies. We don’t all share the same risks, but oxalate seems to be related to a lot of chronic conditions, especially ones that involve pain. It can negatively effect sleep, growth, energy, anemia, skin issues, bone composition and more. For people who find that their health does not get better with the green smoothies when they include high oxalate veggies, there is a very logical reason why that may be so.. This is certainly something that can be confirmed with very objective diagnostic testing, but not if people avoid the testing to find out…
Susan
I’m sorry but this article does not seem to be well written at all.
“Cook your veggies” “Throw out the cooking water” “Serve your veggies with butter” “Minimize greens”
I don’t agree with practically anything this article states.
However, freedom of speech is a beautiful thing.