By Anna Bennett
When I was incenter on dialysis 3x a week - healthy menu planning was an issue. When I went home on NxStage, I was much less restricted, and the planning became easier.
I started on a renal diet when I was in CKD3 I had many years to adapt to low protein and no salt (see Bill's post on top 10 ways to limit salt intake). The transition to a dialysis diet was still a big adjustment - I ended up having to supplement my protein (once you start dialysis, the battle is to keep your protein up which is the exact opposite of the pre-dialysis renal diet). And I counted the days until I could start high dose home hemo.
I have always maintained that the easiest way to transition into a renal diet is to modify what you are already enjoying, I wrote a post about reworking your recipes to have less protein (while in CKD3 - CKD4).
I also collect cookbooks, and obsessively look on line for recipes. It is possible to be a "foodie" and be on dialysis. It just takes some work. One website that I relied on was food.com. I would type in some renal friendly ingredients, hit search and it would search its database for possibilities, I would then have to modify recipes to be dialysis friendly when necessary, but all in all it made me feel like I wasn't being forced into a fixed diet and ultimately, it was my choice.
A quick search of Amazon.com showed some CKD5 cook book possibilities as well:
Cooking for David: A Culinary Dialysis Cookbook
The Cleveland Clinic Foundation Creative Cooking for Renal Diets
The Cleveland Clinic Foundation Creative Cooking for Renal Diabetic Diets
Dialysis Diet, Revised Edition
Since diet affects people with kidney disease in such a major way, I am surprised that there aren't an overwhelming amount of resources. Bill has some good on line resources (from CKD Links to knowlege and resources)
- Dialysis and CKD Recipes and Nutrition Information
And then there is always DaVita's Diet Helper. If you want dialysis friendly menu planning with little effort, and very little input on your part, this is the service for you.
After you go through a quick, free online registration, the helper will provide you with a dialysis friendly menu for every day of the year.
(click to enlarge) Here is a sample day's menu. When you have registered with the website, you simply click on the item, and the recipe and food values pop up for that individual recipe.
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