How much spinach, broccoli, and kale is too much?

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Question: How much spinach, broccoli, and kale is too much?

Cruciferous vegetables have an issue with potential goitrogens. At serving sizes like this, the only issue with cruciferous vegetables is that they increase your iodine requirement. In theory, if you are juicing cruciferous vegetables to have like ten servings a day, in theory, you might get to the point where you cannot overcome the goitrogenic effect with iodine. That is based entirely on animal experiments that were done a long time ago, and we have no human data on where you cross that threshold. But in this case, I think two or three servings of cruciferous vegetables basically just means you need to pay a little bit more attention to your iodine status.

In particular, you want to make sure that you're eating some seafood. If you're eating some seaweed in your diet, you're getting plenty of iodine in most cases. If you're not sure if you're getting enough iodine, then I would say 200 to 400 micrograms of iodine from a kelp powder-based supplement would be fine. Also, as a seasoning, you can get Maine Coast Sea Seasonings where you can just sprinkle seaweed onto your dishes as a flavor. It's like a salt shaker so it's really easy to use. Using that if you don't mind the taste is a great way to get iodine. I think that's really only the main concern there.

The spinach is not a cruciferous vegetable, so it's not really contributing to this problem. It is high in oxalates and so it has its own problem. As long as you're getting calcium with the oxalate, for most people, there are exceptions to this. But if you don't personally have an oxalate issue, meaning a high risk of kidney stones driven by high oxalate levels in your urine or potentially behavioral issues in children some people are tying to oxalates. But if you don't have a specific issue with that, then I think really the only issue with oxalate is you want to make sure that you're consuming calcium in the meal that you're getting it in.

The spinach has calcium, but it's only about 5% bioavailable so you should basically discount the calcium in the spinach. The kale and broccoli have bioavailable calcium. If you're mixing them together, that's probably a great way to do that, but you might not be hitting 300 milligrams of calcium in a meal. I think if you have a lot of oxalate in a meal, you probably really want to make sure you hit 300 milligrams of calcium in that meal.

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DISCLAIMER: I have a PhD in Nutritional Sciences and my expertise is in performing and evaluating nutritional research. I am not a medical doctor and nothing herein is medical advice.

[Candyapplebone]

I’ve been eating like a pound of kale a day, and half a pound of spinach. All raw. Interested to see what you have to say.

[granaro]

this is not the way I would have answered this. I would have encouraged diversification to different botanical families to spread the toxic load (chicory, dandelion, Malabar and NZ spinach, sweet potato leaves), or even better seaweed salads though they are expensive, and eating sauerkrauts containing some beets will contribute oxalate eating bacteria. with all these guys on youtube pushing greens, we end up eating an all cruciferous and beta (spinach) diet which is not so healthy.

[greentree_]

How much is a serving of broccoli? The tiny $1 packages I get from Walmart says it has 4 servings. That's really small! I eat that whole package in my meal. Am I eating too much?

[odus]

I drink 10 cups organic kale daily on weekdays and 10 cups organic spinach daily on weekends (always mixed with 1/4 cup frozen raspberries). Mmm...

[PANCHO]

And I'm over here eating 6 oz of kale a day lol

[janbeck]

I juiced for about a year. I got "something" overload, my hair started falling out. I stopped all veg bec/ I started a carnivore diet. Within 3 days, my hair stopped falling out. I now eat "some" veg, but nothing like before.

[HearturMind]

That much of ANYTHING every day is bad for you. Variety, moderation, why eat so OCD same same?

[nathansmith]

What does blending vegetables do to the fiber and nutrients? I don't want fiber but does it break it down so that the nutrients are more absorbed? Or even the opposite effect?

[Turbo-D]

too much of this stuff will lead to SIBO also and a lot of anti nutrients and pesticides...there is absolutr no need to overdue that stuff

[wreagfe]

227 yes, 228 no, too much!!!

There are no essential nutrients present in any of this stuff that you cannot get more bio-available and easier without downsides in digestion in other foods.
Disclaimer: I'm a meattard and sensitive to all kinds of plants and grains that I don't bother to figure out so I ditched them. So I'm biased. :)

[dallysinghson]

Seriously 100 grams and stuff? THAT IS NOTHING. Holy moly you guys in 1st world countries are really allergic to vegetables.