The Biggest Update Since Launch
You told us nobody cooks in grams. You were right.
Last week, someone on X pointed out that cayenne pepper shows up in our database as 330 mg per 100 grams — flagged "Very High." They weren't wrong about the number, but they were right to call it misleading. Nobody uses 100 grams of cayenne pepper. A teaspoon weighs about 2 grams. The actual oxalate in a teaspoon? Around 9 mg. That's Low.
That feedback was the spark. Over the past four days, we shipped the biggest batch of features since OxalateGuard launched — 12 updates touching every surface of the app. Here's what changed.
Kitchen-Friendly Measurements
This is the headline feature, and honestly, it's the one I'm most excited about.
Every food in the database now displays in real cooking measurements — teaspoons, tablespoons, cups, ounces — instead of the clinical "per 100g" format that only makes sense in a lab.
Before: Cayenne Pepper — 330 mg/100g — Very High
After: Cayenne Pepper — 9 mg per 1 tsp — Low
Same food. Same data. Completely different story. The risk level shifts because now you're seeing what you actually use, not a hypothetical hundred-gram pile.
The system is category-aware:
- Spices and seasonings default to teaspoons and tablespoons
- Vegetables and fruits default to cups
- Protein and dairy default to ounces
- Grains default to cups (cooked)
If you're a gram-weigher (no judgment — I own a food scale too), you can still toggle to exact gram mode. But for most people, seeing "1 cup cooked spinach = 755 mg" is a lot more actionable than "755 mg/100g."
Try it yourself — search for any food below:
Kitchen measurements don't change the data. They change whether the data is useful. A food labeled "Very High per 100g" might be perfectly safe in the amount you actually eat.
Recipe Remix
Community recipes just got a lot more collaborative. You can now fork any community recipe and make it your own — swap out high-oxalate ingredients, adjust portions, or add your own twist.
Every remixed recipe shows a credit chain back to the original author, so the person who shared the base recipe gets recognized. One click from any community recipe page gets you started.
Look for high-oxalate ingredients in a recipe you love, then remix it with the suggested swaps. You'll keep the flavor profile while dropping the oxalate load.
Community Restaurant Contributions
We started with 10 chain restaurants in our database. Now you can help grow it.
If you're at a restaurant and your dish isn't listed, you can contribute the dish data yourself — including chains we already cover. Spotted a new seasonal item at McDonald's? Add the Big Arch. Found a hidden gem at your local Thai place? Add it.
All contributions go through moderation before they appear for other users, so the data stays reliable. And contributors earn the Restaurant Scout badge for their first submission.
Lower-Sodium Product Alternatives
When you scan a product that's high in sodium, OxalateGuard now suggests lower-sodium alternatives from the same category. Real brand names, real nutritional data pulled from open community food databases.
This matters because many kidney stone formers are also managing blood pressure or CKD, where sodium restriction is critical. Now you don't have to choose between tracking oxalate and watching sodium — the app handles both in a single scan.
Smarter Swaps
We completely overhauled the food swap engine. The old system worked, but it had some awkward recommendations — almond milk as a swap for cashew nuts, iceberg lettuce instead of kale for a spinach swap. Technically lower oxalate, but culinarily absurd.
The new system uses 30 culinary groups and a similarity score so swaps actually make sense:
- Spinach swap? Kale now ranks above iceberg lettuce (because you'd use them the same way)
- Almond butter swap? Sunflower seed butter, not cashew nuts
- Dark chocolate swap? White chocolate, not carob powder
Swaps that you'd actually make in a real kitchen.
IBD and Bariatric Smart Insights
Smart Insights — the personalized analysis of your food log — now includes condition-specific guidance for IBD and bariatric surgery patients.
For IBD patients:
- Fat malabsorption detection (enteric hyperoxaluria is a major risk factor)
- Trigger food pattern recognition across your log
- Calcium-with-meals reminders tailored to IBD absorption challenges
For bariatric surgery patients:
- Protein-first meal composition reminders
- Calcium citrate supplementation recommendations (not calcium carbonate — absorption differs post-surgery)
- Portion-aware messaging that accounts for reduced stomach capacity
These insights are available to Premium subscribers and update automatically as your food log grows.
And More
We shipped a lot in four days. Here's a closer look at the rest:
Star ratings on community recipes — Every recipe now has an interactive 5-star rating. Rate what you've cooked, see what the community loves, and sort by top-rated to find the best kidney-friendly dishes.
Vision OCR for nutrition labels — When a product isn't in the database yet, snap a photo of the ingredients list. The app reads the label, extracts every ingredient, and runs an instant oxalate analysis. No manual typing required.
6-part surgery recovery blog series — A complete guide from pre-op prep through long-term kidney stone prevention, written for patients navigating surgery recovery and dietary changes. Available now in the blog.
Press kit and clinician resources — Journalists can grab logos, screenshots, and a fact sheet from our press page. Healthcare providers get a printable one-pager at /for-clinicians that summarizes the app for patient handoffs.
Full data transparency — Our data methodology page explains exactly how we calculate oxalate values: which studies, how we handle conflicting measurements, and why our consensus algorithm uses medians instead of maximums.
Try It Now
The kitchen measurements update is live for every food in the database — no account required. Browse the food database and search for your go-to ingredients to see the new format.
If you're a Premium subscriber, check your Smart Insights to see the new condition-specific guidance.
And if you've been meaning to try the community recipes, now's the time — browse recipes and remix one to make it your own.
This update touches every surface of the app — search, scan, recipes, restaurants, insights. It's all designed to make oxalate tracking feel less like a medical chore and more like something you'd actually do every day.