Diet for Osteoporosis

@laren3 Well for various foods there are various ways! It is normally already removed if you prepare foods the old fashioned way like my ancestors did. Its always ironic that they KNEW what to do even when a modern doctor was no where to be found with science which had not been developed for them. How DID they know?! So beans are soaked overnight, rinsed and then fresh water added to boil. You can see the "fluorescent color" being drained off! I get chickpeas from the store (canned) and I always pour the water they come in, out. Then if I am making a dish, like soup I add new water. I have IBS and that requires me to get rid of the galactans (a type of oligosaccharide), or I have bad stomach aches.
Here are some tips: Pair with Calcium: Eating calcium-rich foods (like cheese or yogurt) alongside high-oxalate foods helps the oxalates bind in your gut rather than your kidneys, allowing them to pass safely.
Cook Your Veggies: Boiling or steaming high-oxalate vegetables can reduce their oxalate content by up to 50% or more.
Stay Hydrated: Drinking plenty of water helps flush oxalates through your system and prevents stone formation.
My calcium is perfect. I eat ample amounts in various foods - but my body gets it where it needs to go. TOO MUCH calcium is bad for people who have Coronary Artery Disease and for a few others.
There is really really problem unless you are prone to kidney stones.
Yes, cooking—specifically boiling—significantly reduces oxalate levels in food by 30% to 87%. Boiling allows soluble oxalates to leach into the water, which should be discarded. Steaming is less effective (5%–53% reduction), while roasting or baking has little effect on lowering oxalate content.
Key Takeaways for Reducing Oxalates:
Boiling is Best: Boiling vegetables like spinach, beets, and swiss chard for 12 minutes is highly effective, as it can remove up to 85–87% of soluble oxalates.
Discard the Water: Since oxalates leach into the cooking water, do not use it for soups or sauces.
Other Methods: Steaming is moderately effective, but roasting, baking, or cooking in a wok generally does not reduce oxalates.
Pair with Calcium: Consuming dairy or calcium-rich foods alongside oxalates can help, as calcium binds to oxalates in the gut, reducing their absorption.
For maximum reduction, boil or blanch vegetables, especially if you are concerned about kidney stones.
National Institutes of Health (.gov)
Eat a varied diet, that is always the best advice and check with your doctor. One thing - doctors can be no different than the rest of us sometimes and are guilty of promoting "trends" which are just "easier" for them than to give nuanced instructions. One example was 30 years of telling people that eggs raise cholesterol. It was always a crazy thing that one! I knew from nutritional chemistry that it was incorrect. It took 25 years for the news to mainstream that they were not!

@laren3 Well for various foods there are various ways! It is normally already removed if you prepare foods the old fashioned way like my ancestors did. Its always ironic that they KNEW what to do even when a modern doctor was no where to be found with science which had not been developed for them. How DID they know?! So beans are soaked overnight, rinsed and then fresh water added to boil. You can see the "fluorescent color" being drained off! I get chickpeas from the store (canned) and I always pour the water they come in, out. Then if I am making a dish, like soup I add new water. I have IBS and that requires me to get rid of the galactans (a type of oligosaccharide), or I have bad stomach aches.
Here are some tips: Pair with Calcium: Eating calcium-rich foods (like cheese or yogurt) alongside high-oxalate foods helps the oxalates bind in your gut rather than your kidneys, allowing them to pass safely.
Cook Your Veggies: Boiling or steaming high-oxalate vegetables can reduce their oxalate content by up to 50% or more.
Stay Hydrated: Drinking plenty of water helps flush oxalates through your system and prevents stone formation.
My calcium is perfect. I eat ample amounts in various foods - but my body gets it where it needs to go. TOO MUCH calcium is bad for people who have Coronary Artery Disease and for a few others.
There is really really problem unless you are prone to kidney stones.
Yes, cooking—specifically boiling—significantly reduces oxalate levels in food by 30% to 87%. Boiling allows soluble oxalates to leach into the water, which should be discarded. Steaming is less effective (5%–53% reduction), while roasting or baking has little effect on lowering oxalate content.
Key Takeaways for Reducing Oxalates:
Boiling is Best: Boiling vegetables like spinach, beets, and swiss chard for 12 minutes is highly effective, as it can remove up to 85–87% of soluble oxalates.
Discard the Water: Since oxalates leach into the cooking water, do not use it for soups or sauces.
Other Methods: Steaming is moderately effective, but roasting, baking, or cooking in a wok generally does not reduce oxalates.
Pair with Calcium: Consuming dairy or calcium-rich foods alongside oxalates can help, as calcium binds to oxalates in the gut, reducing their absorption.
For maximum reduction, boil or blanch vegetables, especially if you are concerned about kidney stones.
National Institutes of Health (.gov)
Eat a varied diet, that is always the best advice and check with your doctor. One thing - doctors can be no different than the rest of us sometimes and are guilty of promoting "trends" which are just "easier" for them than to give nuanced instructions. One example was 30 years of telling people that eggs raise cholesterol. It was always a crazy thing that one! I knew from nutritional chemistry that it was incorrect. It took 25 years for the news to mainstream that they were not!

@loriesco thanks so much for real life food info….trying to eliminate oxalates totally seems like overkill, since they are in foods that are really good for us..how they are cooked/eaten makes a difference….if a person has advanced CKD, that is different, stricter. For me, the conflicts between the better bone diet (mild OP)and the better kidney diet (borderline CKD) can be confusing to say the least, to say nothing of restoring my gut after CRC ! Good info, some trial and error, staying on top of my test #s without obsessing is helping me now. Looking forward to reviewing this soon with my Primary doc, who is very practical.

Just to add there is no “one place“ to go for an osteoporosis diet because at our advanced age, there are other issues which must be considered. However, the good news is that your body is like a machine and overall good habits are most important!
1) drink, plenty of fluids, like a little squeeze of lemon in your water and plenty of water!
2) exercise: as much exercise as you can practically work in and enjoy. The keyword is to enjoy or you won’t keep it up.(for me it has to be a variety of exercises. I find one repetitious with the exception of walking.) exercise helps your machine body process the foods you eat better!
3) eat a well balanced diet. Use food like medicine. Try not to get caught up in trends. There’s a lot of them out there with the Internet. I see it all the time.
4) walk to the longevity of your ancestors. Our cultural/ethnic differences may make a difference in the eating habits that we should or shouldn’t follow up on. My particular family ends up being lactose intolerant and having inflammatory reactions to things. By avoiding foods, which caused those inflammatory reactions like gout, any insulin resistance I am much better off. Take a few of those genetic tests, which can be translated into valuable nutrition information. (That’s how I found out. I was lactose intolerant. It changed my life!)
4) remember that people who make money off of medical/nutritional advice may have an agenda and they don’t offer you the truth. Dr Gundry is one of those people who I think misdirects the truth for his own pocketbook. People who have something to sell you usually manipulate information for their agenda. For example, I don’t think “leaky gut” is a thing. Your gut is normally porous and it needs to leak so your body gets the nutrition it’s after! But you can put damaging holes in your gut, but it’s not usually the way he advances it. There is a great site at Monash University which offers free information diet recipes for the FODMAP diet, which is helpful for most people with IBS and related issues. It’s totally free yet. People will pay to get the same information that is manipulated from snake oil salesman.
5) remember that your body is complicated and the truth for each individual needs research time. If you don’t have the research time, just stick to the basics you were taught as a kid: a good assortment of fruits and vegetables with a lot of citrus and leafy greens, whole grains, and complex starches(favoring, soluble fiber not insoluble fiber) , a good selection of low lactoseor non-lactose dairy and eggs, and lean meat a variety heavy on fish. Keep processed foods, salt and sugar to a bare minimum. Drink plenty of clean water every day.!

@bswpb I wonder if you have any recent studies on carbonated beverages. I also used to think they were bad, but I have heard from many experts lately that data now shows that is false and carbonated beverages are fine as long as they don't contain excess phosphorus, like colas. It's the phosphorus that prevents calcium absorption and not the carbonation. Just putting this out there because there are already so many things we have to avoid, that if you enjoy bubbly water as I do, there seems to be no reason to deny yourself that.

My third OP doc told me to “look up” calcium rich foods and to tally what I eat every day.

So I made a notebook and added my favorite foods with calcium counts and keep a daily log. (No, I am not interested in yet another app. 😂) And, of course, read every label there is.

I get 1,200 mg from food every day, and my “mature” multivitamin has 220 mg of calcium, so I’m doing well overall. The doc seems happy, but I did this all on my own.

Hope this helps! It’s not a perfect system, but it’s working for me.

@pmhpesp5 I agree with you 100%. This support groups shows how women are doing so much research into what can help us besides the drugs, which have terrible side effects. Osteoporosis affects millions of people so I can't understand why there isn't a more comprehensive plan on what else can help besides drugs. I'm taking so many supplements and vitamins, hoping they help.