How Much Oxalate Is in Lentils?
mg oxalate
per serving
Serving: 1/2 cup (100 g)
Verdict: 🟢 Safe
Per 100g: 8 mg
Data: Harvard T.H. Chan SPH (2024)
The bottom line for Lentils: Safe (🟢), with 8 mg oxalate per serving — comfortably below the 25 mg safe cutoff. There's no need to limit it. Just keep your usual kidney stone basics in place: water throughout the day and calcium-rich foods at meals.
Putting Lentils in context: it lands well below the category average of 20 mg. In the database, 73% of legumes (44 of 60) fall in the 🟢 Safe group (under 25 mg oxalate/serving). The typical legumes here averages 20 mg oxalate per serving, so Lentils runs 59% below that baseline. That places it among the lower-oxalate options in its category. Why this matters: the gap between two Safe foods can be wide — one may hold 5 mg oxalate while another sits at 24 mg. The lower one leaves more room in your day. See all legumes rated Safe for a full side-by-side.
Why does oxalate per 100g matter?
Per-100g values put every food on the same scale, which is handy when serving sizes differ a lot between foods — or when your portion doesn't match the standard serving. It lets you compare apples to apples on oxalate density. Lentils comes in at 8 mg oxalate per 1/2 cup (Safe) in the measured database.
How accurate is the oxalate measurement?
These values come from Harvard's 2024 ion-chromatography analysis — the gold-standard method for oxalate. Real measured data rather than estimates. Sample-to-sample variation exists, but no published source is more dependable for food oxalate. For context, Lentils measures 8 mg per 1/2 cup, rated Safe.
How does this compare to other foods?
The ratings split at 25 mg (Safe) and 100 mg (Avoid), with 25-99 mg in the Caution band. For context against similar foods, the category pages on OxalateWatch rank every item in that group by oxalate. For context, Lentils measures 8 mg per 1/2 cup, rated Safe.