By Maria Manazza
This article shares Maria Manazza’s personal experience and perspective through Natural Hygiene. It is not medical advice.
The topic of “Oxalates” and “nightshades” resurfaces every so often. Many people are filled with questions and fear surrounding oxalates and nightshades because there is so much conflicting information circulating. Our health status depends on us getting the correct information to apply in our daily lives, but when the information circulating is creating fear around eating our greens it becomes a difficult task to know exactly what is right and what isn’t.
My first suggestion is to listen to your body. Plants that contain high levels of oxalates often taste bitter which is indicative that those plants are not our food anyways. Leafy greens are part of our Natural Human diet. Without leafy greens in our diet, we are not supplying the body with its true dietary needs. One sided fruit eaters do not experience the same level of health in comparison with those that regularly include leafy green salads in their diets because greens are an integral part of our species’ appropriate diet. The greens help to build strong teeth and jaw muscles. Leafy greens are an essential part of our diet, they provide part of the nutrient profile that we require for long term health and help balance out the healthy fruit sugars. Leafy greens should be included in our diets for a variety of reasons, not to mention that they help to scrub and clean the intestinal tract on the way out. One of the most common issues that can occur from neglecting the greens in our diet and focussing on just fruit for example is the issue with gaining weight or building muscle. Teeth issues often develop as well and many symptoms can persist long term, taking much longer to heal because the body is not receiving optimal nutrition which often gets lumped into the category of detox. So when people stop consuming leafy greens in their diet due to the fear of oxalates, it’s a big deal.
One thing we can all agree on is that we continually hear misinformation from multiple sources that can keep us questioning and feeling doubtful about consuming health promoting foods such as fruits and greens. The information surrounding oxalates is a prime example of this. Now I am not denying that certain greens contain high levels of oxalates that should be avoided, however, this does not mean that we should be avoiding all greens just because some greens are not what we would ordinarily consume. This seems to be a tactic used to deter people from certain foods, they highlight one type of food within that genre or species as not suitable for consumption thus drawing the conclusion that they are all unsuitable.
A prime example of this is the Nightshade family. Not all the nightshades are suitable for our consumption, one way of knowing for certain is that many of them such as potatoes must be cooked to be edible. The foods that we are designed to eat are eaten in their natural form without alteration. Tomatoes are classified as a nightshade as well, however, just because a potato is not part of our natural diet, this does not automatically mean that a tomato is to be avoided as well. And just because some people experience negative effects while eating tomatoes due to a backed up lymphatic system does not mean that tomatoes are not health promoting and should be avoided by everyone, it just means that- that person should avoid them until they’ve healed their issues. I’ll share my article on Nightshades later on this month for more information.
As mentioned, high oxalate containing greens often taste bitter which we wouldn’t eat in any quantities which should be indication to avoid that specific type of green anyways – but since we are bombarded with more misinformation about bitters being health promoting within the herbal industry, we often lose the ability to discern and decide for ourselves. The human body has Oxalobacter bacteria in our digestive tract to break down oxalates. The natural human diet does not include every type of leafy green known to man.
Most of the plants that humans tend to consume that contain high levels of oxalates are the foods that people tend to cook anyways which is indicative that they are not truly our species-specific foods because the foods that we are biologically suited to eat are eaten and enjoyed in their whole, raw, natural form. Just learning the fact that any food which must be cooked for palatability or consumption is not truly our food anyways is a game changer, this fact cuts through a lot of the confusion on what we should or shouldn’t be eaten for optimal health. If it must be cooked to be eaten, it’s not health promoting – or our optimal food.
The human body has the ability to digest minute amounts of oxalates because they are indeed part of the natural human diet. The fear that has been created surrounding the effects of oxalates is based around half truths because those individuals that cannot handle oxalates at all in their diet must dig deeper. People that take antibiotics for example or other harmful substances can kill off our natural Oxalobacter which can lead to great difficulty for their body with breaking down the oxalates effectively. It is because of these types of severe cases and reactions that the whole fear around oxalates exists, and the fact that those promoting meat-based diets needs reasons to prop up the idea that plants are bad, and meat is good. This type of misinformation leads people down very dark roads with their health and doesn’t serve anyone. Most of the plants that we eat are low in oxalates and are not an issue whatsoever, if they were, I would be dealing with extreme issues by now having included large salads daily as part of my healthy diet for close to 10 years (aside from that year off around year 3 where I mistakenly believed that maybe salads were slowing down my body’s ability to “detoxify” so I ate fruit only for a year – oops). Younger plants are generally lower in oxalates such as baby kale and Swiss chard. In their young form they are sweet and lower in oxalates and very palatable but as the plant matures, its oxalate content becomes greater. We must listen to our body. The other day I tried a piece of baby chard from my garden and then a piece of my large chard plant (for taste comparison and because I hadn’t tried chard in a very long time even though I grow it) and the large chard plant tasted awful – and it’s true, I always cooked it in the past when I consumed chard without thinking about why. If you are truly worried about oxalate containing greens, avoid the bitter plants first and foremost and focus on sweet tender lettuces and greens.
Our body is intelligent and will let us know what is suitable to eat, and what isn’t, through our tastes and senses. It can take some time for our true senses to come back online due to the perversion of our senses through our past unnatural dietary indiscretions and high levels of toxicity in the body but the more days we have behind us of eating the Natural Human Diet, the more we can finally learn to trust our instincts and simplify our diet. The truth is simple and in the health industry they’ve separated, fractionated and isolated everything to create this endless confusion, we have people fearing plant compounds and chasing specific foods for specific vitamins that they think will target specific areas of their body not realizing that the body functions as a whole and what is good for one area of the body is good for the whole. Part of our mission in this group is to help cut through the confusion so that people can relax and learn to trust the Natural Diet and our own body’s ability to heal itself.
Mariah 🌱 Heal Thyself
Healthy Self.
