Oxalic Acid
Oxalic Acid is present in most plants. Highest amount of oxalic acid is found in fresh raw Spinach, Swiss chard, Turnip and Mustard greens, Kale and Collards, French Sorrel, and Rhubarb.
There are two kinds of oxalic acid: raw and cooked; that is, organic and nonorganic:
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Cooked oxalic acid will bind with calcium in your body, resulting in calcium oxalate crystals, and depleting your body of calcium. The crystals will lodge in the kidneys.
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Organic, uncooked oxalic acid is beneficial. The acid remains in the plant along with it's living enzymes.
"Spinach
should never be eaten when cooked unless we are particularly
anxious to accumulate oxalic acid crystals in our kidneys with
the consequent pain and kidney trouble. When spinach is
cooked or canned, the oxalic acid atoms become inorganic as
a result of excessive heat and may form oxalic acid crystals
in the kidneys." Raw Vegetable Juices: What's Missing
in Your Body By N. W. Walker, page 59.
"Organic oxalic acid is one of the important elements need to maintain the tone of, and to stimulate peristalsis." Raw Vegetable Juices: What's Missing in Your Body By N. W. Walker, page 60.
Oxalic Acid Content of Selected Vegetables
This
table was originally published in Agriculture Handbook No. 8-11,
Vegetables and Vegetable Products, 1984.
| Vegetable | Oxalic acid (g/100 g) |
| Amaranth | 1.09 |
| Asparagus | .13 |
| Beans, snap | .36 |
| Beet leaves | .61 |
| Broccoli | .19 |
| Brussels sprouts | .36 |
| Cabbage | .10 |
| Carrot | .50 |
| Cassava | 1.26 |
| Cauliflower | .15 |
| Celery | .19 |
| Chicory | .21 |
| Chives | 1.48 |
| Collards | .45 |
| Coriander | .01 |
| Corn, sweet | .01 |
| Cucumbers | .02 |
| Eggplant | .19 |
| Endive | .11 |
| Garlic | .36 |
| Kale | .02 |
| Lettuce | .33 |
| Okra | .05 |
| Onion | .05 |
| Parsley | 1.70 |
| Parsnip | .04 |
| Pea | .05 |
| Pepper | .04 |
| Potato | .05 |
| Purslane | 1.31 |
| Radish | .48 |
| Rutabaga | .03 |
| Spinach | .97 |
| Squash | .02 |
| Sweet potato | .24 |
| Tomato | .05 |
| Turnip | .21 |
| Turnip greens | .05 |
| Watercress | .31 |
