It's hard to sift through the amazing assortment of foods on the market and figure out which ones serve our health and which ones compromise it.  

We've all heard how important fruits and vegetables are for our health.  But is this true or is the grower's public relations that we're being fed?  Man cannot live on spinach alone.  And we're always told that the most nutrient dense foods are green leafy vegetables. Yum.  If you love salads, yum.  If you're Popeye, yum. But what if you're trying to restore, rebuild, and remineralize?  That was a mouthful.  I ask this question to put a mild damper on the categorical truth that all vegetables are good for you.  Maybe in small portions perhaps.  But what about vegetarians?  I'll get to them later. But are all vegetables good for us?  

Carrots help our eyesight, right?  But what about their sugars? 

Spinach builds strong muscles, right?  But what about its oxalates?

Broccoli fights cancer, no?   

So, yeah, vegetables are good for us.  But they're also bad for us.  Amy Kubal explains how:

Let’s think about this logically. Animals have ways to make sure they don’t become some other animal’s dinner (including a human being’s). They can run away, or they can stay and fight with claws, horns, or teeth. If they win, great. If not, fire up the BBQ! Plants aren’t so lucky. Since they can’t defend themselves physically, they’ve evolved multiple insidious ways of warding off predators biochemically. Plants produce a variety of harmful substances collectively known as antinutrients. (Not harmful to the plants, but harmful to the poor saps who eat them.) They’re exactly what they sound like: they work against you absorbing nutrients from those foods.

Oy, vey!  Wish people would make up their minds.  Are they good or are they bad?  Well, both.  Vegetables do contain enzymes that help us digest other foods we eat like meat. They contain Vitamin C which allows our bodies to make the ever important gelatinous protein collagen to help repair our muscles and joints.  

So why are they bad for us?  Oxalic and Phytic Acids.  Some acids are good for us, while others not so much.  Essential fatty acids are good for us, even essential.  Citric acid helps prevent scurvy and protects our gums.  So not all acids are bad.  But Phytic Acid and Oxalic Acid are not recommended. Why?  Because they can block the absorption of important minerals.  Minerals don't always get the press that vitamins and oils and herbs do but they're every bit as important if not more important since we tend to use them up. Recently I found Bill Sardi's article on how Zinc, which is a vital mineral for men, can actually rebuild the Thymus gland back to its original size.  Talk about your miracles.  In the medical journals Zinc gets better represented as a remedy, but in your popular press and commercial ads, it's not zinc that gets air time.  It's usually calcium.  And Calcium isn't even the most important mineral, yet the manufacturers of it have scared people into believing that if they don't get enough their bones will break.  One mineral by itself is not the answer, though that report on zinc is impressive.  Even Linus Pauling didn't realize the importance of zinc.  Not all of his treatments with Vitamin C succeeded.  It wasn't until Abraham Hoffer in Canada who was mixing Vitamin C with zinc that the nutritionists community took notice.  Sort of.  

So Oxalic and Phytic acids you should avoid.  Actually, the reports on Pytic acid are mixed because so many healthy foods contain some levels of phytic acid. Realfoodsforlife writes

Foods that contain significant amounts of oxalic acid are ( in order from highest to lowest): buckwheat, star fruit, black pepper, parsley, poppy seed, rhubarb stalks, amaranth, spinach, chard, beets, cocoa, chocolate, most nuts, most berries, and beans. If you had to really avoid oxalic acid that would be difficult.

Okay, so it's the chelating function of phytic acid that prevents absorption of zinc, magnesium, and calcium, which is not good.  But this chelation is beneficial, according to Bill Sardi, when it chelates excess iron from your body.  And this is especially beneficial for men, since women have a built-in biology that eliminates blood monthly.  

Phytic acid—also called inositol hexaphosphate, or IP6—is comprised of six phosphorus molecules and one molecule of inositol. It has been mistakenly described for decades as an "anti-nutrient" because it impairs mineral absorption. However, in the 1980s food biochemist Ernst Graf, Ph.D., began to tout phytic acid for its beneficial antioxidant properties achieved through mineral chelation. [32]

Phytic acid in foods or bran should be distinguished from supplemental phytic acid, which is derived from rice bran extract. In foods, phytic acid binds to iron and other minerals in the digestive tract and may interfere with mineral absorption. As a purified extract of rice bran, taken between meals so it will not bind to minerals in the digestive tract, phytic acid is readily absorbed into the bloodstream, where it acts as a potent mineral chelator. [33] Phytic acid binds to any free iron or other minerals (even heavy metals such as mercury, lead and cadmium) in the blood, which are then eliminated through the kidneys. Phytic acid removes only excess or unbound minerals, not mineral ions already attached to proteins.

So maybe nuts and chocolate and berries and beans are still worth eating.  I do recall my dad warning me as a kid not to eat raw rhubarb.  It was because of the phytic and oxalic acids but he couldn't articulate that reason but that's what it was. Not because it's particularly poisonous--I mean people made rhubarb pie (delicious) for Godssakes--but because he knew of the wisdom of cooking certain vegetables.  Here are the facts on rhubarb:  

From an MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) for Oxalic acid, LD50 (LD50 is the Median Lethal Dose, which is the dose of a drug or chemical predicted to produce a lethal effect in 50 percent of the subjects to whom the dose is given) in rats is 375 mg/kg. So for a person about 145 pounds (65.7 kg) that’s about 25 grams of pure oxalic acid required to cause death. Rhubarb leaves are probably around 0.5% oxalic acid, so that you would need to eat quite a large serving of leaves, like 5 kg (11 lbs), to get that 24 grams of oxalic acid. Note that it will only require a fraction of that to cause sickness.  – The Rhubarb Compendium

If those foods listed don't fit neatly into the Mediterranean Diet that we're all supposed to worship, then I don't know what does.  Not that these foods if eaten are going to kill us, right?  Maybe not but there still are problems with oxalic acid.

Oxalic acid poisoning symptoms include weakness, burning in the mouth, death from cardiovascular collapse, on the respiratory system, throat – burning in the throat, abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, convulsions, and coma.

In addition, there is this.  Realfoodforlife again:

Oxalic acid binds with some nutrients, making them inaccessible to the body. To eat large amounts of high oxalic foods over a period of weeks to months  may result in nutritional deficiencies, most notably of calcium.

This is the real concern, because the oxalic acid, along with phytic acid, blocks mineral absorption, like calcium, zinc, magnesium, phosphorus which is essential for teeth.  Is this the reason why so many Americans are mineral deficient, particularly in magnesium and zinc?  Probably not.  The NCBI states that vegetable sources are minimal in the Amerian diet and the main way that Americans anyway get oxalates is through coffee and tea.  That's what I feared.  I love my joe.

The main sources of oxalate in diets were regular tea and coffee (80-85%). Only 15-20% of oxalate was derived from other plant foods. Patients did not adhere to high fluid diet and, what is more, as common beverage they chose rich-oxalate black tea. Patients' daily intake of calcium was low and didn't exceed 520 mg. Vitamin C consumption was higher than Polish Dietary Reference Intake (DRI) and vitamin B6 lower than DRI.

What does it all mean?  It means you're going to have to forego coffee and tea.  It means you're going to have to find something else hot to drink, like hot lemon water.  

Imagine eating a raw vegetable diet.  All that oxalic acid is not doing your teeth any favors.  But there is a way around this and still get the nutrients locked inside vegetables.  Cook your vegetables.

Eating oxalic acid foods together with calcium-containing foods such as yogurt, milk and other dairy products may reduce the risk of kidney stone formation, advises the University of Maryland Medical Center. In addition, a study published in 2005 in the “Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry” reported that several cooking methods help lower the oxalic acid content of vegetables. The researchers tested nine raw and cooked vegetables and found that boiling and steaming significantly reduce oxalic acid in vegetables with a high content of the compound, such as spinach.

Now it's time to turn the tables.  Are all oxalic acids bad, or do they provide any or some kind of health benefit?  Let's read Realfoodforlife:

It has been assumed that black tea due to its high oxalate content increases kidney stone formation but recent research has shown it to have a preventive effect.

Victoria Boutenko of the Raw Food Family cites research on how high oxalic acid foods actually reduce the formation of kidney stones.  The true cause of kidney stones is not oxalic acid but actually animal protein.

Oxalic acid linked to the cure or prevention of cancer:When cancer is diagnosed there is always a low level of oxalic acid in the blood. It is important to have the enough oxalic acid in our blood because this eliminates all abnormal cells without harmful side effects.

Every alternative cancer cure that is successful is filled with foods, herbs, grasses, and teas that are full of high amounts of oxalic acid.

American Cancer Society conducted tests over 50 years ago using oxalic acid in the treatment of cancer and the results in papers and evidence were positive.

“When oxalic acid is in our blood; in foods & beverages we eat and drink, and testimonials confirm oxalic acid kills cancer cells, virus, bacteria, and decalcifies the material in plaque in arteries; and is in the blood of all warm blooded mammals”. From booklet.“ Questions and Answers About E- M- F, Electric and Magnetic Fields Associated with the Use of Electric Power.

Radiation will decompose oxalic acid in the blood. This usually weakens the immune system so the body is unable to fight off viral or bacterial disease.  Is this why many cancer patients die from cancer related to viral pneumonia.

So, where does that leave us?  Cook your vegetables. Cooking them lowers the amount of oxalic acid while still getting enough for prevention of bad things.  Nothing is simple.  Biology is not simple.  Knowledge of biology is certainly not simple.  Here is what I mean.  How many times have I read that Vitamin C is vital for health?  I've posted articles and videos to that fact.  Think of Linus Pauling Abraham Hoffer and their curing of cancer patients using high dose Vitamin C.  Maybe Vitamin C should only be taken in large amounts over short periods where you are fighting something serious.  Anyway, give this a read from Dr. Andrew Saul:

Ascorbate (the active ion in vitamin C) does increase the body's production of oxalate. Yet, in practice, vitamin C does not increase oxalate stone formation.  Drs. Emanuel Cheraskin, Marshall Ringsdorf, Jr. and Emily Sisley explain in The Vitamin C Connection (1983) that acidic urine or slightly acidic urine reduces the UNION of calcium and oxalate, reducing the possibility of stones. "Vitamin C in the urine tends to bind calcium and decrease its free form. This means less chance of calcium's separating out as calcium oxalate (stones)." (page 213) Also, the diuretic effect of vitamin C reduces the static conditions necessary for stone formation in general. Fast moving rivers deposit little silt.  

It appears that the biggest risk from oxalates are kidney stones.  

And I am sure they serve their purpose, whatever that is. But what is that purpose?  I've read claims that green

One of the features of nutritional articles on the web is that they're laid out in the positive.  In other words, they're often promoting Vitamin C for skin and hair and eggs to reduce stroke.  Try this, get plenty of that, make sure you're taking enough of magnesium. Which is all very helpful if we're living in a deficient world. And some of us may be doing just that.  But deficiencies are a real thing and their cause is multiple.  Yes, big-agra with its monoculture crops can depleted the nutrition in food.  I don't know for sure, but that's what I've read and heard.  Also, people just don't know what to eat.  We often eat what is put in front of us regardless of what it is or ignorant to what is inside it.  But there is another factor that causes deficiencies.  And that's the interaction of foods.  

O, Complication!

Maybe it's not as complicated as you think.  See there are chemicals in plants that help plants survive.  Just as there are thorns on a rose bush and needles on cactus, these are all features that help the plant survive even after it gets eaten.  I believe that there are desert animals whose digestion has adjusted to eating cactus and are not harmed by the spiny vegetation.