Cooking a meal for someone on dialysis
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Anonymous
| I offered to make a neighbor supper since he's at dialysis several times a week. He said he's not on a renal diet (yet), but is supposed to eat red meat and avoid salt. What on earth do I cook? I was going to do baked beans from scratch (Gwyneth Paltrow's recipe - it's simple and pretty good!), roasted sweet potato, and... what for the main dish? I googled renal diets and now am concerned the beans are too high in phosphorus. If you have some insight on this, please share! I'd like not to make my neighbor feel worse. |
Anonymous
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Dialysis patients have to be really careful with diet. A potato, a banana are off limits.
It's so nice of you to do this, but just follow a recipe for renal patients. |
Anonymous
| I agree to do a renal diet recipe. Their diets are very tricky. Excess potassium can turn into a medical emergency. I agree that beans are too high in phosphorus. |
Anonymous
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Here are some recipes from the Kidney Foundation:
http://www.kidney.org/patients/kidneykitchen/recipes |
Anonymous
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Thanks, PPs. I ended up finding the Davita website and made some orange chicken with green beans (low salt soy sauce) and some brown rice (unsalted). Like I said, he's not on a strict renal diet (yet), but he has to reduce potassium.
Separately, did everyone know how many different aspects there are to the simple phrase "renal diet"? Am I the only one who didn't know this? Phosphorus, potassium, sodium, protein, liquid restrictions? I kind of knew about sodium, protein and liquid restrictions, but the other stuff... Anyway, hope he likes it and hope it doesn't make him feel worse! Thanks all. |
Anonymous
| I want to say it's so nice of you to do this for your neighbor. I read so many bad stories or nasty comments on DCUM that it's nice to read a good story. |
Anonymous
+1 He will probably be very tired and in need of the help too. |
Anonymous
He has said he's tired. I wish we could swing the grocery money to do it at least weekly, but that's an additional meal for another family and our budget is already strained right now. |
Anonymous
OP, that wasn't meant to make you feel guilty. I've just known some folks who've gone through dialysis and they got tired out easily. It was really nice of you to make the meal. You might want to mention to your neighbor about Meals On Wheels. They more than likely can accommodate the diet. |
Anonymous
OP, my husband went through end stage kidney disease about 3 years ago and for a while had to be on a pre-dialysis renal diet. That was so hard and counter intuitive. The kidney filters out potassium and phosphate, and it was failing to do its job, so we had to severely reduce those (generally healthy!) minerals. Phosphate is also a common substance in many preservatives, so I had to carefully read labels of all processed foods. The pre dialysis diet (as I recall) was: very low meat protein moderate low in vegetable protein (beans, lentils, humus soy) low in healthy leafy greens (lots of potassium) -- stick to ice berg lettuce low in healthy green vegetables like broccoli and asparagus radishes, celery were OK no potatoes low dairy white bread, not whole grain bread white rice not brown rice marshmallows you get the picture! It was so hard! But we followed it for over a year and I do think it helped keep him feeling well while his kidney failed. He was able to stay off dialysis completely while we were waiting for the kidney transplant, which is pretty unusual. It was a big surprise to me, how involved the kidneys are in nutrition. |
Anonymous
| PP again -- I was just sharing some of my personal experiences since you asked if anyone was aware of how complicated it all was -- my husband of course WASN'T on dialysis so the diet he was on would not be the same as one for someone ON dialysis. Just wanted to point that out. |