Introduction

You've decided to eat less meat and eat more plant-based food or even go vegan. Yay! You're just getting started and then all of a sudden someone tells you ‘but you can't because what about all the phytic acid and the oxalates? You're going to get sick.‘

You think, oh no, what the heck am I going to do? What you're going to do is listen to this podcast episode and find out how easy it is to remove phytic acid and oxalates from the food, and find out that maybe phytic acid isn't all that bad. In this episode there are lots of tips and tricks on getting rid of phytic acid and oxalates.

When I became vegan, everyone was challenged by my decision.  Everyone I spoke to would ask me where I was going to get protein from. Once I told them where I got protein from, they would move onto calcium, then omega three and butyrate and the whole kit and kaboodle.  These days it’s creatine and collagen.

I was able to inform them about everything.

In recent years, it’s been ‘You can’t be vegan because of oxalates and phytic acid. 

I already knew about phytic acid, so I had my answer, but I needed to do more research on oxalates, which I did easily, and am now sharing this information with you in this podcast.

Oxalates

Let's look at oxalates. Years ago, when the raw food movement was quite big in the area I lived,  people were making smoothies left, right and centre and putting lettuce and parsley into smoothies, and that felt really good. Then I started noticing people putting loads of kale into their smoothies and something didn't seem quite right. 

There are oxalates in 

leafy greens (kale, spinach, silverbeet, Swiss chard)

grains 

legumes

Oxalates are a naturally occurring substance in some plants to stop insects eating them. Although I reckon in my garden there are no oxalates because the insects eat all of my kale.

Oxalates are on certain crops to  stop insects eating the greens, grains or legumes. Oxalates are very small.  Some people eat them, and it's totally fine; it causes no issues at all.

However, there is a lot of misinformation on the net about people getting autoimmune disease and all sorts of things because of eating oxalates. 

It's not true.  If you search for the science behind that theory, it is not there.

What is true is that oxalates can inhibit the absorption of minerals for some people. they do this by binding to minerals like calcium, iron, zinc etc and then the body is not able to absorb the minerals.

Removing Oxalates 

There is a simple solution: Always cook leafy greens; even wilting them will do the trick. Yep, put wilted kale in your smoothies, not fresh.

Avoid salads when you eat out. With baby spinach, grab the ones with rocket or, better yet, lettuce.

There is not enough evidence to suggest that oxalate consumption affects those who it doesn’t. I err on the side of caution and always cook leafy greens and avoid eating baby spinach salads. 

Phytic Acid

Phytic acid is another chemical found on grains and legumes to prevent insects from eating them. Still, there's been lots of research to suggest that Phytic acid has health benefits. Phytic acid can 

reduce inflammation

assist with alcohol related liver injury

reduce blood glucose levels

can protect against Alzheimer's

prevent kidney stones 

can prevent cancer

However, for a lot of people it can inhibit the absorption of minerals like iron, zinc, magnesium, calcium. 

When people come for nutrition consults and have got low iron readings, I suggest soaking and cooking their grains and wilting their leafy greens. I teach them how to soak and cook their grains, legumes, and beans the right way to get rid of the phytic acid.

How to remove Phytic Acid

For decades I was following a combination of Ayurvedic and Paul Pitchford's, who Healing with Whole Foods, where he brought West and East medicine and food together. 

It has recently been proven in science that it's the right way to cook legumes and beans to get rid of the phytic acid. 

For grains you soak them. In episode #8  I talk about how to soak grains in detail. 

Soak all wholegrains, for example, rice and couscous, farro, freekeh, bulgur, sorghum, teff and also millet, amaranth and quinoa. Soak them overnight and when you cook them, once the water boils, the phytic acid will disappear.

With legumes, it's a little different, the phytic acid breaks down when the water is above 65°C. Once you have rinsed the beans or legumes from the soaking water (you soak them overnight), cook them with already boiled water. You bring that water to a rolling boil on the stove, discard it and then cook the beans in a second lot of boiling water. Then, once the beans are cooked, discard this water and presto your beans and legumes are cooked.

This method and all the cooking times for beans and legumes plus a few helpful tips  are outlined in a free resource called How to cook beans and legumes

You can sign up for it here.

To reduce cooking time of the larger beans like chickpeas, kidney beans, cannellini beans, adzuki and black beans, consider purchasing a pressure cooker. Pressure cookers reduce cooking time by two thirds.

Its important that you don’t buy canned legumes and beans as the manufacturers have not soaked the beans and who knows how they cook them. I did read some years back that they cook them in the can. We can’t be sure if they have removed the phytic acid or not.

Canned beans do make it easy though, don’t they, for convenience. But for those days you have forgotten to soak your beans or spontaneously have beans for dinner, do what my friend from Mexico told me to do.  Every time you cook beans, save a portion and put it in the freezer. Frozen beans defrost super quickly.

Why remove phytic acid if some evidence shows it is good for our health

If some evidence is suggesting that phytic acid is good for us, then why are we removing it?

At this point, they don’t know how phytic acid affects the malabsorption of minerals, so I say just soak and remove to be safe, and if you have low mineral readings when you have blood tests, then you definitely should be soaking and cooking grains, leafy greens and beans as I suggest. 

Recipe time folks 

Spiced Chickpeas

These are beautiful for salads, as snacks and on top of every meal for a bit of crunch.

They last a week or so in the fridge and definitely freeze well too.

 480g cooked chickpeas (that’s roughly 200g dried chickpeas)

 2 tsp fennel seeds

 2.5 tsp cumin seeds

 2.5 tsp coriander seeds

 10 black peppercorns

 3 cloves garlic minced

 3 tsp finely chopped rosemary

 2 – 3 tsp smoked paprika

 ¼ tsp cayenne

 ¾ tsp salt

 Big splash of olive oil 

 Once you have cooked the chickpeas put them in a clean tea towel and rub off the skins.

 Temper the fennel, cumin, coriander seeds and peppercorns by dry frying them for 1 to 2 minutes or until they smell fragrant. 

 Let the seeds cool a little then grind them either in a mortar or spice grinder. 

 Add a splash of olive oil to a frying pan, heat it up a little then add the garlic, salt and rosemary. Cook and stir for a few minutes or until the garlic seems soft.

 Add the rest of the ingredients including the ground spices and cook for a further minute.

 Mix in the chickpeas and cook until they are fully warmed through and coated with the spices. 

FCT

So that's the recipe for the week and now we're up to the FCT. 

For anyone who's just tuning in today as your first episode, FCT means fun cooking tip.

When you cook the beans, in the second lot of water, you can add fennel or cumin seeds, that helps break down the phytic acid even more. 

Thank you Paul Pitchford for this information. 

Depending on what you're cooking, if you were making hummus you definitely could put cumin in but you can't put fennel.  If you're doing mung beans for a curry you could definitely put either cumin or fennel because Indian food will take either. If you're doing cannellini beans for something Italian, you could use fennel because Italian takes fennel but Italian does not take cumin. 

I hope that's a great fun cooking tip and I hope you got lots of information out of this podcast.

Please share and subscribe, so that more and more people can hear this wonderful information and until next week, I hope you have a sensationally delicious week

Bye for now.