Tracking oxalate intake is one of the most important keys to success for the low-oxalate diet. By researching and recording the oxalate content in the food you eat every day, you can stay on track to achieve your goals and build good nutritional habits. However, different oxalate tracking methods work for different people, from apps to spreadsheets to handwritten records. Below, we’ve collected five of our favorite apps and solutions for tracking oxalates, so anybody can successfully achieve the important nutritional and health benefits of the low-oxalate diet.
- Oxalator
This free app is specifically designed to help low-oxalate dieters navigate their daily meals. Oxalator comes loaded with information on more than 1,500 foods and their oxalate contents, which you can organize by oxalate level, category, or alphabetically, as well as search for specific items. You can keep track of foods you have recently eaten or a list of favorites by clicking the star icon next to any item.
Compatible with iPhone, iPad and Android. Read more or download at iTunes or Android.
- OxaBrow
Along with information about different foods’ oxalate contents, this app will point you to the source of its research and measurements. OxaBrow will also let you know what low-oxalate substitutes can be used as alternatives to oxalate-packed foods. All information is pre-loaded into OxaBrow’s database so you don’t need an Internet connection to use it. The app costs $4.99 and there are 500 foods logged in the database.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad. Read more or download at the app site.
- Oxalate Journaling
Oxalate journaling is a system for tracking your oxalate intake manually. It’s the best method for low-oxalate dieters who prefer to personally research the oxalate levels of each food item they eat, or who don’t want to store their data digitally.
To get started, you’ll need to pick up a lined or grid notebook. Every page of your journal will correspond with a single day in your diet. So when you wake up in the morning, turn to a fresh page, and write the date on the top. When you’re approaching a meal or snack time, get out your oxalate journal. Before eating, look up the oxalate content in each item of food and record it line-by-line. It’s important to do this before you eat because it will make you more cognizant of your meal preparation habits, and you’re also less likely to forget or procrastinate your journaling.
- Evernote
If you’re tracking a variety of nutritional or health information, it can be useful to keep it all in one place. Evernote is a multifaceted note-taking app where you can keep multiple diet logs – such as oxalate, sodium, Calories, etc. – across all your devices.
The added benefit of Evernote is that you can incorporate additional information or documentation into your oxalate log. If you’re at a restaurant and don’t have time to look up the oxalate content of your meal, snap a picture in your log so you don’t forget it. If you find a low-oxalate recipe online that you’d like to try, you can save it in Evernote for later.
Compatible with Apple and Android devices. Read more or download at the app site.
- Google Drive
If you’re a back-to-basics kind of person, but you want to have computer and mobile access to your oxalate log, you can create a simple but effective digital oxalate ledger with Google Drive. It’s easy to set up: create a Google account if you don’t have one already, and click here to access Google Drive. Then open a new “Google Sheets” spreadsheet document. In columns A, B, and C, write, “Date,” “Food Item,” and “Oxalate Content,” respectively. Now you can start filling in the rows with the corresponding information before each meal or snack. With Google Drive on your smartphone, you can update the list on the go when you’re eating at a restaurant or a friend’s place.