Stay Off My Operating Table

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Kurt Annaheim

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Mar 15, 2026, 10:30:50 AMMar 15
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3,833 views Mar 10, 2026   The Stay Off My Operating Table Podcast
There's a decent chance the food you were told to eat more of is the reason you feel the way you do. Sally K. Norton spent decades inside the belly of academia — Cornell nutrition degree, a master's in public health from UNC Chapel Hill, project manager on NIH grants, curriculum committees inside medical schools — eating all the right foods and getting steadily, inexplicably sicker. Arthritis at 12. Chronic fatigue. Fibroids. The nervous system wakes up 29 times an hour. Feet so wrecked she dropped out of Cornell for surgery that didn't work. The kind of slow-motion collapse that medical professionals look at and say, "Your numbers look fine." The culprit wasn't a mystery illness. It was spinach. More precisely: oxalates. The crystalline compounds produced by plants as a defense mechanism — the same substance responsible for nearly all kidney stones — are present in enormous concentrations in the foods we're actively told to eat every day. Swiss chard. Almonds. Almond milk. Sweet potatoes. Dark chocolate. Beets. Kiwi. Spinach smoothies. In this conversation with Dr. Philip Ovadia, Sally dismantles the nutritional orthodoxy that has quietly shaped a generation of chronic illness, anxiety, fatigue, joint pain, dental deterioration, cardiovascular inflammation, and neurological disruption. One spinach smoothie, in a controlled study, rendered over 70% of immune cells temporarily incapable of fighting infection — within an hour. The human kidney is designed to excrete roughly 150 milligrams of oxalate per day. A standard green smoothie delivers between 700 and 1,000. This isn't a fringe theory. Sally has catalogued tens of thousands of peer-reviewed articles. The problem isn't a lack of science. It's that nobody in the mainstream has connected the dots, because the dots are spread across disciplines that don't talk to each other — and because nobody wants to be the one to tell you that your morning ritual is quietly calcifying your tissue. What makes this conversation essential isn't just the biology. It's the human story underneath it: what happens when the people who are supposed to protect public health get captured by commercial interests, when the research is buried not by conspiracy but by institutional inertia, and when a single dietary change — not a drug, not a surgery — ends decades of unexplained suffering for people who had given up hoping for an answer. If you have chronic joint pain, unexplained fatigue, brain fog, sleep disruption, anxiety, dental problems, or any number of conditions your doctors have shrugged at, this episode is worth your full attention. Sally's book is Toxic Superfoods. Her website, including free resources and a detailed food data companion, is sallyknorton.com. BIG IDEA "I think oxalate is basically messing with humanity, period." — Sally K. Norton Sally K. Norton contact info Website: SallyKNorton.com Book: Toxic Superfoods Follow Dr. Ovadia: Twitter: @iFixHearts Website: OvadiaHeartHealth.com Metabolic Health Quiz: iFixHearts.com


Transcript

Host:
Folks, we’re going to take a pause from talking about conspiracy theories related to mobile phones, the internet, and tech titans, and talk about what you probably tuned in for: metabolic health.

This is Stay Off My Operating Table with Dr. Philip Ovadia, and today we’re joined by Sally K. Norton, who apparently has MPH after her name.

When I joked that it meant “miles per hour,” she corrected me.

Sally Norton:
Most Perfect Human.

Host:
I like that one. Since nobody really knows what a Master’s in Public Health is anyway.

Phil, I did a little research on Sally and her book before this episode, and I came in with a mixture of anxiety and excitement—mostly because this topic is going to make some people angry, make other people excited, and hopefully settle some of my anxiety.

Dr. Philip Ovadia:
Awesome. That’s a lot of what we do here.

Honestly, what I expected Jack to say was: “Phil, what took you so long to get Sally on?” We've been doing this show for over 250 episodes. How have we not had Sally on before?

I’ve been aware of Sally’s work for a long time. It has shaped how I think about nutrition and metabolic health. So I’m really excited to finally have her here.

Sally, for anyone who might not know your work, can you tell us about your background and how you came to write Toxic Superfoods?

Sally’s Background

Sally Norton:
It’s been a long and somewhat ugly journey to get here.

My interest in nutrition started very early. As a child I had constant strep infections and was frequently given liquid penicillin. It tasted awful, and I was often barred from swimming because I was sick. By age five my tonsils were removed.

I realized early that when you don’t feel well, you don’t get to enjoy life. I wanted to find a way to feel better and help others avoid chronic disease.

By seventh grade I had decided that nutrition was the key to preventing major diseases like cancer and heart disease.

Ironically, despite studying nutrition, I was sick much of my life. I had severe foot pain that forced me to drop out of Cornell temporarily for surgery. I eventually finished my nutrition degree and later earned my MPH at UNC Chapel Hill.

Originally I planned to focus on nutrition science, but instead I went into public health leadership, believing that the real issue was behavior. I thought people simply didn’t know what to eat.

But what I later realized was that public health and nutrition science were missing the biochemical reality entirely.

Problems in Public Health Nutrition

Public health has helped create the current health crisis.

We now have:

  • A global obesity epidemic

  • Exploding diabetes rates

  • Food environments dominated by processed foods

At conferences about health, they serve candy as snacks.

Much of this started when public health became obsessed with reducing fat, especially animal fat. Suddenly everything became:

  • corn oil

  • margarine

  • low-fat processed foods

People were told these were healthy.

As a result, we've lost basic literacy about food, nutrition, biology, and science.

Doctors themselves are often uninformed because medical protocols are shaped by large financial interests, not by nutritional science.

Sally’s Work in Academia

I spent years in academia working on an NIH grant that tried to introduce holistic lifestyle education into medical training.

The goal was to teach doctors how to discuss:

  • diet

  • supplements

  • lifestyle

But the system was already captured.

Medical schools were not going to change their curriculum.

Doctors simply aren’t trained to talk about lifestyle medicine.

The Problem With Nutritional Messaging

Public health nutrition messaging is deeply flawed.

For example, we constantly promote foods like:

  • spinach

  • chard

  • dark leafy greens

These are promoted as essential superfoods.

But these foods are actually very high in oxalates, which can be harmful.

When I tried to discuss this with public health colleagues, no one even wanted to have the conversation.

So I started digging into the research myself.

What Are Oxalates?

Dr. Ovadia:
Let’s start with basics. Many doctors—including me—never heard about oxalates during medical training.

So what exactly are they?

Sally Norton:

Oxalates come from oxalic acid, a compound produced by plants and fungi.

Plants convert oxalic acid into calcium oxalate crystals, which are the main component of most kidney stones.

Plants make these crystals for several reasons:

  • storing calcium

  • structural functions

  • defense mechanisms

When humans eat plants high in oxalate, we consume those crystals and the oxalic acid.

Foods especially high in oxalates include:

  • spinach

  • Swiss chard

  • beet greens

  • almonds

  • peanuts

  • chocolate

  • sweet potatoes

  • black beans

  • kiwi

  • raspberries and blackberries

Many of these foods are currently considered health foods.

Oxalates and the Body

Oxalic acid dissolves easily and is absorbed quickly into the bloodstream.

The kidneys must remove it through urine.

However, the kidneys are only designed to handle about 150 mg per day.

A typical spinach smoothie can contain 700–1000 mg of oxalate.

That’s far more than the body is designed to process.

In studies, one spinach smoothie:

  • impaired immune cell function

  • disrupted infection-fighting ability

  • affected over 70% of participants within an hour

How Oxalates Affect the Body

Excess oxalate can:

  • damage blood vessels

  • promote inflammation

  • impair vascular repair

  • cause abnormal calcification

  • disrupt heart rhythm

  • contribute to kidney stones

  • cause neurological problems

Oxalate can accumulate in tissues such as:

  • bones

  • thyroid

  • joints

  • brain

  • eyes

  • teeth

Sally’s Personal Discovery

My understanding of oxalates came from personal suffering.

I had:

  • arthritis starting at age 12

  • chronic fatigue

  • severe foot pain

  • digestive problems

  • fibroids and major bleeding

  • severe sleep disturbances

Eventually I discovered a foundation studying vulvar pain, where they had already found that removing oxalates from the diet helped patients.

At first I was skeptical.

But when I removed oxalates from my diet, my symptoms improved dramatically.

Later, when I accidentally added high-oxalate foods back—like kiwi—my arthritis returned almost immediately.

That was my “aha moment.”

Why Removing Oxalates Can Initially Make People Feel Worse

When people remove oxalates from their diet too quickly, they may feel worse temporarily.

This happens because stored oxalate begins leaving tissues, which can cause:

  • inflammation

  • electrolyte disturbances

  • heart rhythm issues

  • anxiety

  • fatigue

  • joint pain

The body begins clearing oxalate deposits accumulated over years.

Because of this, reducing oxalates gradually is often better than stopping suddenly.

The Modern Diet and Oxalate Exposure

Modern diets contain far more oxalates than traditional diets.

Popular foods today include:

  • almond milk

  • spinach smoothies

  • chocolate

  • nut flours

  • sweet potatoes

These foods are consumed daily, often multiple times per day.

Historically, humans did not eat these foods in such large quantities.

Nutritional Myths About High-Oxalate Foods

One common argument is that foods like spinach are necessary because they contain nutrients like calcium.

But studies going back to the 1930s showed that spinach actually blocks calcium absorption due to its oxalate content.

In experiments:

  • spinach caused calcium deficiency in children

  • animals fed spinach developed infertility and malnutrition

In contrast, low-oxalate greens like:

  • kale

  • collards

  • turnip greens

provided nutrients without these problems.

Oxalates and Kidney Stones

Many patients are told to stop eating meat to prevent kidney stones.

This is incorrect.

Kidney stones primarily require oxalate to form.

Protein does not create oxalate.

In fact, some studies suggest protein intake may support kidney recovery.

Vitamin C and Oxalates

Vitamin C can convert into oxalate in the body.

Even vitamin C supplements can degrade into oxalate.

High vitamin C intake—especially IV vitamin C—may contribute to oxalate accumulation.

Final Advice

Reducing oxalate intake can dramatically improve health for many people.

But it should often be done gradually to avoid detox symptoms.

For most people, removing the highest oxalate foods—such as spinach, almonds, and Swiss chard—can make a significant difference.

Where to Learn More

Sally Norton’s book:

Toxic Superfoods

More information is available at:

sallyknorton.com

Host:
Sally, thank you for joining us. This has been eye-opening.

Dr. Ovadia:
Absolutely. I encourage everyone to read the book.

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