I tried all kind of diets in search of the one that would be my medicine, to deal with my Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), and to optimize my health. I fell in love with the ketogenic diet.
So, what is a ketogenic diet? In a nutshell, you remove carbs and replace them with fat. You continue moderate intake of proteins. On average you aim at getting 70% of your calories from fat.
I thought this was enough and enthusiastically jumped in. Gone were the bread, pasta and crackers. I replaced them with almond flour keto versions. I drank whey protein shakes with almond milk and chia seeds, cacao, and to keep my fat ratios, ate stevia coconut oil fat bombs. As you can imagine, I got into ketosis fast, my RA got somewhat better, but was always there.
So why wasn’t my RA getting better? We know gluten is problematic when it comes to autoimmunity, and it was gone from my diet. I completely overlooked oxalates. They are little two carbon molecules that can give us a lot of problems, but given my condition, I was horrified by these two: when ingested, oxalates destroy your gut lining (gut permeability) and form crystals in your joints causing pain and loss of flexibility.
Oxalates are mostly found in plants although animals also produce some small amounts. It’s well established that oxalates contribute to kidney stones, but they can also travel elsewhere in the body forming crystals in the connective tissue, thyroid, joints, breast, they can destroy mitochondria, and impair intercellular energy exchange etc. If you want to learn more about oxalates, I recommend the work of Sally Norton. Her site, sallyknorton.com, has a lot of great resources.
I ran into oxalates some time ago, and knew that spinach, rhubarb and sorrel are not recommended for people with RA. But it never occurred to me that there are a lot more plants that are just as abundant in oxalates, some of them, like almond flour, I ate daily!
So, while I was indeed in ketosis, I was also loading up on oxalates: almonds, almond milk, chia seeds, sesame seeds, trail mixes, kale and celery juices, cacao in shakes, cacao in coffee, and tons of black and green tea. I love tea and I use it to deal with sugar cravings. Sadly, all these foods, commonly eaten on the ketogenic diet, are also very high in oxalates.
So, one day, I just cut them all out of my diet. I feel better for it!
Oxalates have been overlooked for many years, and perhaps there are a lot of people that have good tolerance for them, I’m not one of them.
If you are a working mom that deals with autoimmunity, removing oxalates might be a great strategy for you.
