nutrition: getting the facts on the kidney diet part 2

 When it comes to kidney disease, diet just may be the one aspect where you can feel some control again. As I've mentioned before, with the help of a nutritionist and your doctor you will be able to get a grasp on what nutritional guidelines should work for you. From here based on your food preferences, the nutritionist can help you create a menu, and advise you on tasty alternatives to some of your favorite meals. Its also an invaluable asset to have someone that can help you decipher the the sometimes cryptic looking code of certain recipes offered by the nephrologyst or other related cookbooks.

      The biggest problem I've had was figuring out how to get the nutritional facts and necessary portions from a regular recipe, so I know how much can be served, or if I need to tweak a recipe somehow to decrease a certain element. For example most people with kidney disease need to track their intake of protein, potassium, phosphorus, and for some salt as well. These need to be mitigated because they are preeminently hard on the kidneys. The goal is to reduce the amount of work for your kidney, and sub sequential damage caused by these elements in our food. Decreasing these elements is the diets goal. So knowing  how much of this stuff is in every meal is important, but can also create a deluge of information coming your way.  

    Another frustrating thing about the diet can be the fact that the portions can be very small, and you may not feel that you are getting enough to eat. This is also where your nutritionist/dietitian will be a great help. They will be able to come up with menus for you to follow so you can be confident you're getting all the nutrients you need, along with enough calories so you aren't feeling hungry all the time. This may all seem like a lot of work, but if it can stall kidney failure keeping people off dialysis and/or needing a kidney, I think its worth all the effort and is a small price to pay.                                                            

     There are lots of lists to be had giving the nutritional breakdown of food items, some you can get right from the nephrologysts and others from web sites such as http://www.kidney.org/. Look under kidney disease and then a to z health guide. This web site has all kinds of very helpful information, like all kinds of great recipes with their nutritional breakdown included. I have also found a number of websites and cookbooks for people with kidney disease. I will try to link them all, some I have already, but here are a few to check  out.                                                              

kidneywellbeing.com, sknutrition.worldpress.com are both web sites for Laurence Keogh who is a chef who had a kidney transplant, and has created a free cookbook you can download off these sites.  

                    

The mayo clinics web site also has a few under mayoclinic.healthinformation.low.phosphorusdiet

 aakp.org/aakp-library/food-for-holiday or if you have a hard time accessing the site this way, try going to aakp.org ,look under my holiday food list in the aakp my health section. 

ehow will also have some good ones just go to ehow.com/way_5157456_renal-diet-recipes.html