Should You Be Aware of Oxalates and Lectin Foods When Dealing With Infertility

fertility food May 10, 2021

Is blog post is taken from Week 1 of The Fertility Formula - an easy, six-step online program that can help boost your fertility naturally & make your DREAMS of growing your family, come true.

In the first week of The Fertility Formula, you'll discover how to get down to the root cause of your fertility issues and why your infertility might not have anything to do with your lady bits!!

Mother nature is clever AF!

And many plates have natural protective elements to ward of insects and animals, so they don't get eaten in large quantities - keeping them alive to grow and thrive! But for us humans, we're not as intuned with our food as we might have been 200+ years ago. Then you add to our twenty-first-century health issues, and these everyday healthy foods can contribute to the problem even more.

Foods high in Oxalates and Lectins are all deemed healthy in our society, AND THEY ARE! But traditionally, our ancestors would eat seasonally, grow food that thrived in their area and knew how to soak, ferment, sprout and cook foods for them to be easily digestible and limit any natural occurring pesticides. Basically, they weren't going to the shop year-round buying organic spinach and were unable to pick up a bag of dried beans that would last YEARS sat in the cupboard!

Oxalates and Lectins can cause inflammation and oxidatively stress, as you'll discover early on in The Formula, these are some of the top issues CAUSING your infertility, or at the least contributing to your issues! This is why it's so important to discover what foods work for you and what foods don't!!

So let's discover why they may cause you issues [especially if you're dealing with gut issues and/or an autoimmune issue]:

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Oxalates [oxalic acid]

It's a naturally-occurring compound in plants, which are consumed through your diet as well as produced as waste by your bodies. Foods high in Oxalates are:

Spinach
Soy Products
Almonds
Swiss chard
Potatoes
Beets
Bran flakes
Dark Chocolate
Navy Beans
Rhubard
Raspberries
Quinoa
Dates
Sesame seeds

Some of the oxalates you consume are broken down in your gut; however, when you have poor gut health, you have less of the good bacteria you need to absorb oxalates, enhancing their activity. Also, because oxalates bind to minerals like calcium, they can prevent your body from absorbing beneficial nutrients in your digestive tract. If your gut is damaged, it could be allowing molecules that are supposed to stay in the digestive tract to wander into your bloodstream and get absorbed [leaky gut]. This can increase your risk of oxalate damage even more. Oxalates are normally excreted through the stool, however, when they leak out from the gut, they get into areas you don't want them to be and can cause more damage.

Oxalate-Caused Symptoms

Mood Conditions
Anxiety
Sleep Issues
Weakness
Burning Feet
Calcium and/or Magnesium Deficiency

You may want to consider reducing your amount of oxalate consumption if you have leaky gut, SIBO, chronic fatigue syndrome, autoimmune disease, IBS, IDS, chronic inflammation, endo, thyroid issues or unexplained infertility. I would highly suggest thinking about dramatically limiting foods that are high in oxalates during your healing stage [the 30-day rest].

Top Tips to reduce the impact of oxalates:

Lightly steaming your greens before eating them can help lower their oxalate content [should be done if using in a smoothie too]
Drinking plenty of water to help your body flush oxalates out
Consuming enough calcium, which binds to oxalates during digestion
Limiting sodium and sugar intake
Getting the recommended amounts of vitamin C — too much can increase oxalic acid production in your body [you'll learn more about this in week 8]
Be aware of how many foods high in oxalates you're eating in a day and in a week! You might want to limit them during your healing journey and play around with reintroduction after your 30-day challenge.

Lectins

Are a class of proteins that bind to carbohydrates. They aren’t to be confused with leptins, which are “peptide” hormones produced almost exclusively in fat tissue. Lectins play a wide and varied role in all sorts of biological systems, from within the human body itself to plants, animals, bacteria and even viruses.

They may appear in non-food items too, such as latex - that's the reason why some people are allergic to latex! Lectins show up in many of the same foods as oxalates including legumes [kidney, cannellini, black, fava, navy, chickpeas, lentils, peanuts and peas.] However, a wide variety of foods contain lectins, not just legumes. Some cereal grains, seeds, nuts, soybeans, wheat [this is why you may not have a wheat/gluten intolerance but still feel sh*t on it] and the whole nearly 4,000 different plant species of Nightshades, which including tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, and bell peppers. Nightshades are amazing AF as they are rich in vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants, making them desirable health foods, but at the same time, they contain high levels of lectins and alkaloid molecules that may substantially harm the intestine 😩 (1).

If you are dealing with leaky gut, SIBO, chronic fatigue syndrome, autoimmune disease, IBS, IDS, chronic inflammation, endo, thyroid issues or even unexplained infertility. I would highly suggest thinking about dramatically limiting foods that are high in Lectins during your healing stage [the 30-day rest].

Don't get too overwhelmed! You don't have to cut EVERYTHING out at the same time! Take it slow and just keep building on your perfect fertility diet!

Let's Do This Together 💚

Monica

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Anything written or said about health and diet are my opinions, that I have formed over the years, through trial and error, study, reading, listening and observing. What worked for me may not work for you. I am not a doctor, nutritionist or dietician and all medical advice should be gotten from a qualified professional. Product recommendations are based on what I used during my infertility journey or wish I had.

1. Lam SK, et al. Lectins: production and practical applications, 2011