If you have kidney stones, you know how important it is to modify your diet to prevent the occurrence of stones. However, you may not be aware of what foods you can eat. Various low oxalate diet charts can be found on-line. These kidney stone diet charts will provide you with more clarity about how you should form your diet and the oxalate diet content of various foods.
What Causes Kidney Stones?
It’s important to mention what actually causes kidney stones in the first place. The two most common forms are calcium oxalate stones and uric acid stones. The calcium oxalate stones form when oxalates combine with calcium to form stones. Uric acid stones are caused by excess buildup of uric acid. Both can be addressed with a change in your diet.
But before we go into the kidney stone diet chart, you want to be aware of some general health tips that can help you prevent stone formation. The first is to make sure you’re drinking enough water every single day. You should aim for a minimum of six 8-ounce cups spread throughout the day if you have issues with stones.
The second is to try adding citric acid to your water. This can be lemon, lime, or even oranges. Citric acid has been known to help deter the formation of stones. Not only will it help with kidney stones, they also make drinking water more refreshing.
The Kidney Stone Diet
The first type of kidney stone to address is the calcium oxalate stones. Usually, the stones form due to elevated levels of oxalates. That’s why you want to decrease or avoid foods with high oxalate content such as nuts, legumes, chocolate, tea, spinach, and beets.
Here is a short list of foods that you most charts say you can consume as part of your low oxalate diet.
For greens, you can consume asparagus, cabbage, broccoli, cucumbers, endive, and bok choy.
Other vegetables you can consume include cauliflower, corn, mushrooms, onions, peas, bell peppers, potatoes, and radishes.
For fruits, you can have apples, avocado, bananas, cherries, cranberries, grapes, lemon, lime, oranges, papayas, blueberries, and strawberries.
For grains, you can have rye bread, dry cereal, and rice.
For meat/protein you can have fish, chicken and eggs.
Of course, there are other foods that you can eat. You can find a bigger list by looking for foods with low oxalate content.
The second type of kidney stones to address is uric acid stones. For uric acid stones, it’s all about eating in moderation and avoiding excess animal proteins.
This means that you’ll have to cut down on red meat, organ meats, pork, and shellfish. The reason why is because too much animal protein leads to higher urine acidity, which is what leads to the formation of the uric acid stones.
You will also have to avoid excess sugar, particularly foods that have high fructose corn syrup. This can be difficult because this ingredient is in a lot of fast and processed foods. That’s why the focus should be on consuming a low sugar diet in general.
It’s also important to note that high levels of vitamin C and vitamin D can lead to a higher chance of forming calcium oxalate stones. You’ll want to talk to your doctor about finding the right dosage so that you can make adjustments in your supplementation.
As you can see, the kidney stone diet isn’t as limiting as you may have thought. The calcium oxalate diet has many alternatives, and the uric acid diet is all about moderation. It always helps to work you’re your doctor and a nutritionist/dietician to help you come up with a list of foods and dishes you’ll enjoy. Hopefully, this has given you a better idea of what to consume as part of your kidney stone diet.
