The food habit of modern man has changed enormously from past that lifestyle diseases and diseases related to diet imbalances have become very prominent. Calcium oxalate crystals in plants have significance in modern diet as high oxalate levels in certain plant-derived foods can cause serious health problems like hyperoxaluria, urolithiasis and renal failure. Food derived from rhizomes, corms and bulbs are found to be the hghest sources of crystals. Stored food in modified stem among the members of certain families such as liliaceae, araceae, acanthaceae contain crystals abundantly in their mature parts. CaOX antinutrient can be minimised by cooking procedures such as adding yoghurt and milk, boiling, fermenting, treating with baking soda are commonly used methods. Food handling methods such as repeated washing, steaming, fermenting are found to be very effective. More sophisticated way of minimising food allegen is by adopting genetic manipulations in food crops which is paved way by knowledge of mutant analysis studies and SNP marker analysis.
Keywords: Calcium oxalate crystals, Mutant analysis studies and SNP marker analysis