High Oxalate Foods: The Complete List (Ranked by Danger)

How To Read This List

All values are approximate milligrams of total oxalate per typical serving, drawn from the Harvard School of Public Health database, the Trying Low Oxalates (TLO) community values, and published USDA data. Variability is real — soil, variety, and preparation method all affect numbers — so treat these as orders of magnitude rather than precise readings.

The four tiers we'll use:

• Tier 1 — Catastrophic: 200+ mg per serving. One serving exceeds a low-oxalate day's budget.
• Tier 2 — Severe: 50-200 mg per serving. Multiple servings will wreck the diet.
• Tier 3 — Moderate: 15-50 mg per serving. Use sparingly.
• Tier 4 — Mild: 5-15 mg per serving. Generally workable.

For the full low-oxalate food list and protocol, see the companion post.

Tier 1: Catastrophic Foods (200+ mg per serving)

Single servings of these foods can blow an entire day's budget. Many are marketed as "superfoods."

• Beet greens (1 cup cooked): ~916 mg
• Spinach (1 cup cooked): ~755 mg
• Swiss chard (1 cup cooked): ~700 mg
• Rhubarb (1 cup stewed): ~860 mg
• Cassava / yuca / tapioca (1 cup raw cassava): ~1,260 mg
• Spinach (1 cup raw): ~656 mg
• Almond flour (1/4 cup): ~488 mg
• Buckwheat groats (1 cup cooked): ~270 mg
• Star fruit (1 medium): ~80-280 mg (and outright nephrotoxic in renal patients)
• Beets (1 cup boiled): ~150 mg (raw can hit 300+)

The traditional "daily spinach smoothie" alone — just one drink — can deliver more oxalate than a person on the low-oxalate protocol is supposed to eat in a week.

Tier 2: Severe Foods (50-200 mg per serving)

The middle-weight offenders. These won't single-handedly wreck a day, but two or three servings will.

• Almonds (1 oz, ~23 nuts): ~122 mg
• Almond butter (2 tbsp): ~160 mg
• Sesame seeds / tahini (1 oz): ~150 mg
• Sweet potato (1 medium baked): ~140 mg
• Dark chocolate 70%+ (1 oz): ~85-200 mg
• Cocoa powder (1 tbsp): ~67 mg (a typical hot chocolate uses 2-3 tbsp)
• Cashews (1 oz): ~50 mg
• Pine nuts (1 oz): ~57 mg
• Pistachios (1 oz): ~50 mg
• Hazelnuts (1 oz): ~62 mg
• Soybeans, edamame (1 cup): ~96 mg
• Tofu (1/2 cup): ~80 mg
• Tempeh (1/2 cup): ~50-80 mg
• Soy milk (1 cup): ~30-50 mg
• Black beans (1 cup): ~50-80 mg
• White beans, navy beans (1 cup): ~75-100 mg
• Wheat bran cereal (1 oz): ~57 mg
• Bulgur (1 cup cooked): ~80 mg
• Millet (1 cup cooked): ~62 mg
• Amaranth (1 cup cooked): ~50-80 mg
• Potato chips (1 oz): ~50 mg (potato skin is high)
• French fries (medium order): ~50-100 mg

Tier 3: Moderate Foods (15-50 mg per serving)

Manageable in single servings on a moderate-oxalate diet but problematic in larger quantities or daily use.

• Almond milk (1 cup): ~25-50 mg
• Strawberries (1 cup): ~30 mg
• Raspberries (1 cup): ~25 mg
• Blackberries (1 cup): ~20 mg
• Oranges (1 medium): ~24 mg
• Kiwi (1 medium): ~17 mg
• Avocado (1/2 fruit): ~19 mg
• Carrots (1/2 cup cooked): ~15 mg
• Green beans (1/2 cup cooked): ~15 mg
• Brussels sprouts (1/2 cup): ~10-15 mg
• Pumpkin (1/2 cup cooked): ~16 mg
• Butternut squash (1/2 cup cooked): ~28 mg
• Quinoa (1 cup cooked): ~20 mg (some sources up to 60 mg)
• Walnuts (1 oz): ~31 mg
• Pecans (1 oz): ~30 mg
• Peanuts (1 oz): ~38 mg
• Tea, black (1 cup): ~14 mg
• Tea, green (1 cup): ~12 mg
• Tomato paste (2 tbsp): ~17 mg
• Whole wheat bread (2 slices): ~26 mg
• Oatmeal (1 cup cooked): ~15-20 mg
• Brown rice (1 cup cooked): ~10-15 mg

Tier 4: Mild Foods (5-15 mg per serving)

Generally workable. Mention here is for awareness; on a strict low-oxalate diet these still count toward your daily total.

• Tomato (1 medium): ~7-10 mg
• Bell pepper (1 medium): ~5-7 mg
• Zucchini (1 cup raw): ~6 mg
• Asparagus (1/2 cup): ~6 mg
• Broccoli (1/2 cup cooked): ~6 mg
• Onion (1/2 cup raw): ~4-5 mg
• Apple with skin (1 medium): ~7 mg
• Pear (1 medium): ~7 mg
• Grapes (1 cup): ~7 mg
• Plums (1 medium): ~7 mg
• Cherries (1 cup): ~7 mg
• Honeydew melon (1 cup): ~5 mg
• Coffee (8 oz): ~2 mg (one of the lowest beverages by surprise)
• Lemon and lime juice (1 cup): ~5-7 mg (citrate counters the oxalate)

The Hidden Sources Nobody Counts

The foods that quietly wreck people's totals without showing up on charts:

• Greens powders: often contain dehydrated spinach, chard, beet root, alfalfa. A single scoop can deliver 200-500 mg.
• Plant protein powders: pea protein is moderate; soy protein is high; "blended greens" protein powders are catastrophic.
• Energy bars: almond, soy, cocoa, chia, oats stacked together. Many bars are 100-300 mg each.
• Hummus and tahini-based sauces: sesame is the hidden killer.
• Pesto: pine nuts plus parmesan plus basil in concentration.
• Vegetable juice blends: spinach, beet, and carrot pulverized and consumed in volumes you'd never eat whole.
• Curry pastes and powders: high per gram, but the per-serving impact depends entirely on how much you use.
• Black pepper: shockingly high per weight (~419 mg per 100g), but normal use is in 0.5-1g portions so the impact is small.
• Cinnamon: moderate per gram; daily heavy users (cinnamon supplements, oatmeal toppers) add up.
• Iced tea drinkers: 4-6 glasses a day of black tea is 60-100 mg of oxalate from beverage alone.

Here's what the research actually shows: the higher you climb in "wellness culture," the higher your daily oxalate intake tends to go. The pristine green juice + protein bar + almond milk + dark chocolate + sweet potato bowl lifestyle is the worst-case oxalate exposure pattern ever created. None of it shows up on a food allergy panel. None of it shows up on a CBC. The damage accumulates silently.

Smart Swaps

Practical substitutions that drop oxalate intake without making meals miserable:

• Spinach → bok choy, cabbage, or romaine
• Sweet potato → white potato (peeled) or white rice
• Almond flour → coconut flour or cassava flour (wait, no — cassava is high; use coconut)
• Almond milk → coconut milk or whole dairy milk
• Almond butter → coconut butter, macadamia butter, or grass-fed butter
• Quinoa → white rice (the lowest grain)
• Dark chocolate → white chocolate (yes, really — it has no cocoa solids)
• Sesame oil → olive, avocado, or coconut oil
• Beet greens → cabbage or cauliflower greens
• Buckwheat → white rice or polenta
• Soy milk / tofu → dairy or meat protein
• Strawberries → blueberries
• Black tea → rooibos, ginger tea, or coffee

For dumping-wave support during the transition see the oxalate detox protocol.

A Note on Cooking and Preparation

You can knock down oxalate values in some foods through preparation, but the effect is overstated. The numbers:

• Boiling and discarding water: reduces soluble oxalate by 30-87% in leafy greens, 30-50% in legumes, 50-70% in some roots. You must discard the water.
• Steaming: reduces 5-50% depending on the food. Better than nothing, far less effective than boiling.
• Soaking (grains, legumes, nuts) for 8-24 hours: reduces 10-30%, with the bigger drops in legumes.
• Sprouting: reduces oxalate modestly in grains and legumes.
• Fermenting (sauerkraut, kimchi, sourdough): reduces 10-30%.
• Roasting, baking, microwaving, frying: negligible reduction.

The takeaway: cooking helps but cannot rescue a Tier 1 food. Boiling spinach reduces it from catastrophic to merely awful. The food you should actually be eating in quantity is in Tier 4 or lower.

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