In the media section I announced a new book on the health scene, "Toxic Superfoods" is a Nina Teicholz book recc.

When I read it, I thought, "This will upset many many applecarts."

Personally, it has led to me changing my diet (YET AGAIN!) to accommodate this new knowledge. It seemed to be particularly pertinent to me, because of my autoimmune condition, and also because I'm on the autism spectrum.

Those were two categories where oxalate toxin symptoms have a great impact. I've only been doing this for TEN days, and already everything the lady said in her book has proved out, and I understand it well enough to work it.

Ms. Norton has a Master's in Public Health from Cornell. She's put years of research into fixing her own health after modern medicine abandoned her to crutches, osteopenia, and terrible, mysterious, pain issues.

She now advertises her nutritional services (she has that degree as well) with a picture of her running on the beach. What a contrast. This is no pitchbot grabbing a headline and creating a smoothie to sell. She's really on to something that medicine has known since the 1840s. And have since forgotten.

This article makes it clear from the beginning:

The Demonization of Dietary Oxalate Has Begun
From kidney stones to vulvar pain, oxalate has had a storied journey on the path to being framed for all diseases by one would-be expert

As I read the article, I was gripped by déjà vu. It was like I'd gone back to 1972 and I'm reading the frantic attacks on everything Dr. Atkins was saying.

Ms. Norton is demonizing oxalate. So it's a good thing? She is unfairly criticizing something as a toxin when it's really beneficial?

This is where the weaseling comes in.

Like this paragraph:



I have helpfully bolded all the toxins in that paragraph. Even if it has to reach a certain level for us to notice, these are toxins in our body. The Winston Price foundation has studied how traditional cultures got rid of vegetable and grain toxins with soaking, sprouting, or any number of techniques.

But this confirmed what I had long suspected: modern food processing cannot be relied upon to do any of them. Kidney beans aren't soaked for three days, they are simply canned under pressure and heat. This works on the lectins, or people would be dying: that's how toxic these beans are when raw.

But nothing removes oxalate. So they ignore this inconvenient truth and go on with their plant-based obsession.

Their shield is, "but then people won't eat their rainbow of vegetables for REAL nutrition which can't come from animals!" They do not address bio-availability at all, of course. Such as the fact that all those vitamins and minerals IN the plant don't get to the body because of -- wait for it -- oxalate.

As she says in the book, Popeye was getting zero iron from that can of spinach. Which was the results of a lab putting the decimal in the wrong place! It's not a good source even for that!



Gee, I think that way about this issue. It's not because of the genes, it's because of the Round-up that's on them. Every year or so Canadian sources report there is too much of it found in kid's cereal and then the link vanishes when I try it a few months later.

Ah... remember when we were warned we'd all have heart attacks, going on Atkins?

Even with headlines like The Health Scare That Forced Liam Hemsworth To Quit A Vegan Diet. He almost died because he married a vegan! Wife making him spinach smoothies until she put him in the hospital for emergency surgery for kidney stones.

But if you look at the article bashing Ms. Norton, "the evidence isn't clear" about whether or not oxalates "cause" kidney stones. This is a pretty powerful n =1. "Oh, that's just him." Hey, he seemed to be doing very well before the vegan thing, considering this interrupted the premiere of a movie he was starring in. His own doctors told him he HAD to change his diet.

But, radio silence. This article is from the Australian issue of Men's Health. Why not in the US? We all know why.

This fact is not lost on Sally K. Norton, whose book has insights into our nourishment that apply to everyone. It especially applies to vegans, and the damage they do to themselves and others with their fanatical insistence that not eating animal products will solve all problems.

They're the ones demonizing actual good foods like meat and dairy. (Other food sensitivities can subside with oxalate reduction.) Which is why I love that Nina Teicholz, a far better science researcher than I am, gave it a shoutout. Because, yes, we do sound like the people using pyramid schemes with buzzwords like "keto."

Con artists always mix enough truth in. Why did they grab the word "keto"? Because it works. Like Atkins always did. Heck, I discovered I do best with Induction, which is keto.

Slaughtering cows to extinction will be next. Their farts are endangering us all!

(Bonus sexism: I get a definite understone of a silly woman with silly woman pain issues that are "all in her head." The ag/pharma/medical complex, let's call it. They are the serious ones who say, like they did to me and my autoimmune issues, "Here's the drug regimen you will have to be on, pick one. Yes, we admit we don't understand it, and as a middle-aged woman we don't even have to listen to you. Shut up and go away.")

I have not yet read the book but I put in a request at my library for them to purchase it which they probably will do since they've purchased every book I have ever requested. One thing I know for sure is the knee jerk assumption by so many people that plant based is best is based on no evidence with vegan, considered by so many to be the holy grail of diets, based on absolutely no evidence. Richard Feinman, in his book "The World Turned Upside Down" called nutritional science an oxymoron. I am grateful to people like Sally Norton who dare to question dietary orthodoxy and then get demonized for their efforts.

Interesting.

Thanks for posting that~!

Thank you for this information. Norton's observations and recommendations are consistent with the observations of Dr. Georgia Ede as well. As mentioned in another post, I've completely eliminated foods with the highest oxalate content. I, too, am grateful for the people who go against the orthodoxy of our common belief systems from "plant-based" to the dangers of Cholesterol and LDL. Insidious how these beliefs can get a foothold and become current gospel. Those actively purveying these misconceptions are today's version of flat earthers.

Jean - love the Feinman quote, a dense book that should be required reading for those who want to understand the inaccuracies with how data from studies are communicated.

I am indebted to Dr. Georgia Ede for easing my mind about "not eating my vegetables." What I've learned about bio-availability explains a lot about this situation.

Right down to the oxalates, which might just be the biggest anti-nutrient sources of all. Then, putting all this spice and high oxalate vegetables and dark chocolate and kiwi fruit into a smoothie breaks up ALL the oxalate. Makes MORE of it bioavailable. It's a body bomb.

I'm currently watching Former Vegan Gives Dire Warning with Dr. Shawn Baker. This man started the pandemic with iffy health after 5-6 years (when the B vitamins really start to scrape the bottom of our storage units) of strict veganism.

He couldn't get to a doctor or get tested so he found a vegan doctor online who "prescribed" (former vegan's word) the body bombs described above. Curcumin, that big health herb? Trying to kill you. Which put him on the brink of death. Carnivore is helping him recover his health.

In retrospect, I shoulda stayed in the car. I backtracked during the pandemic with stuff I thought was "safe," and wound up retreating from vegetables yet again. I didn't know if it was the fiber but I'm sure it was the seeds. When stuff just sits on the shelf, I shouldn't buy it again from some warped sense of "good for me."

There were only a few sources of my oxalates. I dropped the 2 tablespoons of cocoa (80 mg) per big mug, down to 1 teaspoon (14 mg). I love berries but the seeds are full of oxalate. Dropped down to blueberries and added mango.

I'm supposed to up my carbs a bit (as opposed to zero carb) to help my system get rid of the oxalate. This will be a concern as long as I still feel sick. (Whey protein smoothies are still a staple breakfast. Easy to digest a big pow of protein, which works for me to balance my hormones.) Ms. Norton's book said it's another way of pacing my oxalate dumping, which will compensate for a healing digestive and immune system.

When in doubt, I go by the book, which has been telling me what will happen. And then it happens.

Also, hearing her tale of terrible suffering, and how she healed herself and started helping others (I think that's why she got the nutrition degree.) She looks wonderful now, and she feels much better, but is still healing.

So there are compensations but otherwise I am focused on adapting my previous routine to low oxalate. I can still have my smoothies, only with extracts and herbal teas instead of spices and additions that are high in oxalate. I was eating 240mg daily just in cocoa!

So I didn't have that much to drop to get into the under-200 comfort zone, which she recommends staying at for a couple of months, or until clearing symptoms stop happening. We'd like to dump it all at once, but that's bad for us.

Every source we turn to online has been layered with vegan propaganda. Which hit that childhood rule. They're good for you!

And yes, I feel like a big silly bunny somehow not realizing cocoa is a PLANT.

But chocolate is still better than spinach. In all ways