Mathea Ford's Blog, page 56

RDHQ Podcast 94: Condiments Do’s and Don’ts

I want to talk to you about Condiment Do’s and Don’ts. So, if you started on a renal diet you may have found out that it can be sometimes bland or taste bland without the salt that you’re used to possibly eating.

Don’t think it has to be bland. There are ways that you can add flavor and one of those ways is through using condiments. Condiments are things like ketchup, mustard, mayo, spices, blends – all those things. So, I want to take a few minutes and talk to you about different do’s and don’ts for condiments so I want you to create delicious food but I want you to be healthy at the same time.

Condiments can be sneaky. Sometimes they can put you off track because you may not realize some of the things that are in the condiments so learn the basics do’s and don’ts and I’m going to help you with that to spice up your next meal.

One of the things you can do is to always check the sodium. Check the amount of sodium, look at the label, read the labels, see what it says amount of sodium. Sodium can be sneaky in these products so you may think of things like soy sauce or things that you know are salty but there’s other things like barbecue sauce can have a decent amount of salt in it; ketchup can have a decent amount of salt, it can also have a decent amount of sugar in it so just make sure that you’re paying attention to how much sodium is in there and when you read a food label its per serving so make sure you’re looking at the serving size that’s at the top of that Nutrition Facts label it says serving maybe one teaspoon. Make sure that you know you know that you’re getting just that amount. So, don’t.

Aside from a do let’s talk about a don’t. So, don’t assume that low fat or low calorie is better. Actually, in a lot of ways the regular stuff if you just use a smaller amount can taste just as good. Low-calorie versions of sauces and condiments like mayonnaise are higher in sodium a lot of the times. Obviously, you’re gonna read the label but be sure to check the label. Low fat a lot of times they’ll replace with salt or other things that may not be as healthy for you so always look at the label. If you want to have a little bit of mayo, read the Mayo for regular Mayo. Use a smaller amount it’s probably more flavorful.

Salt taste I know can be really strong so just make sure that when you’re using it that you’re paying attention to the amount that you’re eating and then over time it’ll go away but you’re just going to have to work through those few maybe weeks while your sodium taste buds flavors go away and you start to be able to taste those other delicious flavors that are in a lot of foods that salt may have covered up.

Back to a Do, do try a seasoning blend instead of a sauce. A lot of times sauces will have sodium, extra fat, those types of things but seasoning and you may know you can go over to Nickanny’s Kitchen nickannyskitchen.com. I have three or four seasonings over there that are salt free and make great additions to any meal but any seasoning just make sure when you read it you read the label again looking for salt so you can find some low sodium seasonings. You can use them as a dry rub so putting it directly on like your chicken or your fish. You can mix it with a little bit of lemon juice or oil or vinegar and make a little marinade with that flavoring and then add it to the sauce you know when you’re cooking cook it in there. So, use seasonings and sauces.

Sometimes if you can do that but just make sure you’re reading their labels for those because a lot of seasonings have salt in them too. So, Don’t, don’t use tomato-based sauces very often. Tomatoes can be high in potassium and that’s one of the things that as you advance in kidney disease, you’re gonna essentially have issues with. So, just watch the amount of tomato-based sauces that you use and if  you are using one just use a little less or thin it out with a little bit of a white sauce or a little bit of broth maybe some vegetarian broth that’s salt free that you want so it’s not as high in potassium.

Do go for fresh. I love fresh herbs. I love using fresh cilantro, fresh basil. They’re absolutely salt-free and they’re very flavorful. You use a little bit more just because the fresh like when it’s dried the flavor is more concentrated but it’s also lost some of those extra that makes the fresh taste so much better so freshly chopped or ground herbs will be better than you know potentially getting some salt and dried flakes in a jar but you can add more flavor to foods. I love pizza with you know basil leaf on it. I love to put basil in a lot of things because I love that flavor.

Think about if you love those flavors like rosemary, basil, cilantro. Those are delicious and you can make, you can chop them up and make dressings in the same way I told you just to make a marinade. You can chop up the herbs really fine add a little bit of oil, add a little bit of vinegar, mix it up and use that on your salad or on your chicken for like a nice delicious sauce. As long as it’s not like the marinade you need to cook or discard it doesn’t it shouldn’t have touched the raw meat but it can make a deliciously flavorful sauce to add on to your meat or your vegetables to be just extra delicious. 

The last don’t is don’t lose your imagination. Don’t stop thinking about different ways. Don’t stop trying new foods. If being on a renal diet shouldn’t mean you have a bland diet, it shouldn’t mean it’s boring. Think about some of those “approved seasonings” like cayenne pepper which is really strong, you just need a little bit, basil, ginger, mustard powder, onion powder, fresh garlic. Those are all great things to put into dishes. I know I talked to a lot of you and a lot of people love onion and garlic. I do have a toasted onion seasoning at  nickannyskitchen.com but you can dice up onions and that can be a seasoning for your burger for example or to add to your food. So, don’t forget to try new things, try fresh, try non-salted. Let that sodium flavor kind of take.

Use some other sauces that or other seasonings that can replace that a little bit of salty flavor and work through that period of time when you crave that salt and you miss it but you’ll be much healthier on the other side.

The post RDHQ Podcast 94: Condiments Do’s and Don’ts appeared first on Renal Diet Menu Headquarters.

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RDHQ Podcast 93: Easy Renal Diet Swaps

Hi guys! It’s Mathea Ford with Renal Diet Headquarters and today I wanted to take a minute and talk about something a little different than I’ve been talking about recently. I want to talk about Easy Renal Diet Swaps.

If you’re new to kidney disease or you’ve had kidney disease for a while but you are kind of bogged down with similar foods, I want to talk about some things that maybe you could swap out that might give you some ideas to try new things. I’m always about trying new things, getting new foods. So, today I wanted to go over some easy renal diet swaps.

First of all, you probably notice if you’ve been diagnosed with kidney disease that it’s overwhelming to be diagnosed with kidney disease. Any treatment that you might need. There are changes to your lifestyle that you have to adjust to. Going to maybe more doctor’s appointments, definitely changing your diet, adjusting, talking to

your family about it. All those things come about and today I wanted to give you some quick ideas to change your swap out some things in your diet.

Swap number one is dressings and marinades. So, think about how easy it is to make some of your own dressings because a lot of times when you buy like a standard dressing it’s going to be really high in sodium and that’s one of those things that you really want to eliminate from your diet so I would encourage you to either look for some recipes online or I have on the website renaldietHQ.com, search for Zestify recipes or at the top of the page it says recipes, there are several salads and they have a salad dressing that’s in them. But a lot of times vinegar and oil, some herbs and seasonings that you can get from like nickannyskitchen.com. Those can all make your salad dressing flavorful without all the salt that’s in a regular store-bought salad dressing. 

That’s one change and I honestly think they taste a lot better because you can flavor them specific to that salad or mix that you’re using and a lot of times, salad dressings can be used as marinades so you might mix up some vinegar and oil and a few seasonings then marinate your meat or chicken or poultry in it.

Swap number two is grains. So, there are so many options out there when it comes to grains and more than just white rice and more than just plain pasta because those can be if you’re especially if you’re diabetic it may be something that you’re not as interested in eating as much of. So, when it comes to grains, there are things like

couscous and bulgur, you can test out a few find your favorite when it comes down to both taste and texture. You may even make some vegetarian. I have a vegetarian broth recipe on my website and you can use that vegetarian broth which is flavorful to cook your grains and that will make them even more flavorful. 

If you’re looking at high phosphorus you may want to eliminate the brown rice or brown whole-grain bread but just think about looking at some different types of grains that you might want to use instead of I understand a lot of people want to get rid of potatoes because of potassium.

Number three: soft drinks. So, you might like all different kinds of soft drinks, you may like water. I drink a lot of water. The one thing you want to avoid with kidney disease is the higher phosphorus ones and the higher phosphorus ones are the dark sodas. So, things like Dr. Pepper, Cola, Pepsi you want to try to drink clear soft drinks and lower phosphorus or potassium ones.

If you’re like a diabetic and you want to adjust your blood sugar, say you’ve got a low blood sugar then one of the things you can do is obviously a lot of people go “oh orange juice” but orange juice might be high in potassium for you if you have renal diet so you may want to drink cranberry juice or like it clear like a sprite or clear soda to get less potassium in your diet but still affect that low blood sugar and you may even try some fun things like spiced apple cider or homemade iced tea. A lot of bottled iced teas tend to have a lot of phosphorus in them so an about a homemade iced tea like a Sun tea would be perfect.

Number four: fruits. So, swap out some fruits. As a general rule of thumb, you try to stay away you know obviously I’m not an all-or-nothing person I believe you can have all foods but if you’re looking for some swaps, you might want to try to stay away from yellow or orange fruits like bananas, citrus, honeydew and aim for red or green fruits like grapes and apples and berries those are all perfect foods.

Maybe once a week if you wanted some oranges or a banana, half a banana that’d be great but then the other days maybe you select things like grapes and strawberries. I’m not saying you should eliminate them I’m just saying maybe swap some out. And then so, those are the four renal diet swaps I had for you today that I wanted to talk

about.

Renal diets don’t mean you have to reinvent the wheel. It doesn’t mean you have to eat all these special foods you slowly but surely change your diet over time and improve your diet over time. You can make those swaps and start to adjust and it’ll make it more likely that you’ll stick to the new plan so if you’re like “I don’t, I can’t” you know “I don’t eat as many potatoes. I’m getting tired of rice.” Try out some bulgur, try out some quinoa, try out some

of those other things and see if you like them.

Be wary though, sometimes those come prepackaged and you just want to look at the amount of sodium that’s in them but for the most part, these are very delicious ways to change out some different foods. So change out dressings and marinades, look at the grains, look at the soft drinks and look at the fruits that you’re eating.

That’s all I’ve got for today. If you want to get a free meal plan, head on over to renaldiethq.com and I have a

free seven dinner meals for you and you just have to sign up for the email list at the top of the page. Just indicate which type of renal diet you’re on – dialysis, diabetes or just pre-dialysis – and we’ll get you one right over. 

The post RDHQ Podcast 93: Easy Renal Diet Swaps appeared first on Renal Diet Menu Headquarters.

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RDHQ Podcast 92: How Chronic Kidney Disease has Changed my Life {My Story}

Hi there! This is Mathea Ford, the creator of Understanding Your Kidney Test Results course and today I want to tell you a little bit about me. If you have been with me for a while you may know some of this stuff but I’m a Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist and I’m licensed in the state of Oklahoma which just like your doctor you get a license when your Registered Dietitian and I also have a Masters in Business Administration. I have always enjoyed the business side of being a Clinical Dietitian. I’ve also taught classes at the college level to new RDs or to people who are training to become a dietitian and I’m the owner of renaldiethq.com. I’m an advisory board member for the company RenalMate and I’ve been a Registered Dietitian for 22 years plus and working mainly in the foodservice and clinical sides but mostly in hospitals so I understand food a whole lot. And I want to talk to you a little bit about what made me realize that I needed to create this Understanding Kidney Test Results course because with the information that I have about kidney disease tests, what I’ve learned.

When I worked in the hospital, I worked in foodservice. I managed the menus and I really enjoyed creating great recipes. I worked with a lot of people. I always tried to make their diet healthier but tasty and I never really worked with them a lot to understand why the food that they ate was so important. You might understand that now because you’ve done research but the food that you eat makes a big difference in your kidney disease outcomes. But there are some things that you may not understand why but you just follow them because you read the information.

So, when I was in private practice, I’m working with people individually and I get lots of individual emails every week from people asking questions about their lives and wanting to know if they’re in stage 3 or stage 4 and how fast their kidney disease will progress, do they need to worry about dialysis, should they eat this food or that food and I realized a lot of those questions were answers that I had but they weren’t readily available online because it does take some interpretation. It takes some explanation of the way things work and why these labs are valid, why they mean certain things to change and those are things you get when you’re a Registered Dietitian.

When you learn about labs, when you learn about the biochemical processes in people’s bodies. And I always found it a challenge because even my own mom would ask me these questions and want to know more about her labs and what they could be and I could tell her on an individual basis what that means and if you came to see me individually you would pay to see a dietitian and I would go over your labs and talk to you but you wouldn’t necessarily have the individual knowledge of why. You might understand what and you might understand what next, you wouldn’t necessarily understand why and how to change.

I would have explained to you how to change but then the next time you get labs then you would need to come back to see me again and have me explain how those worked that time. And it can get really frustrating because sometimes the answer you might get from a doctor or a nurse. All they do is hand you a sheet of paper especially if they don’t know in detail about the clinic about the chronic kidney disease diet. They would hand you the paper that says you know “Eat this, don’t eat this!” You really just have to you know it’s kind of a list of products or a list of foods that you can or can’t eat so they rarely ever give you the can list don’t they because that’s a lot bigger

but they give you this list of foods you can’t eat. They don’t explain why and you follow it for a while but it’s hard to follow overtime because you don’t always know why and to me that’s a big important thing like why does this affect my kidneys? Why your kidneys do things with certain medications? Do you want this line to go up or go down so when you’re looking at trends over time?

When you’re looking at if you’re eGFR gets higher say goes from 45 to 50 that’s a good thing but if your potassium does the same that’s not a good thing. So, what is it that you’re looking at with trends and what is it that it should be and I’m not necessarily special because I have the knowledge. These are things that you learn in college and you learn as a dietitian and overtime talking to so many people you start to see trends and understand how they change but I know what those labs mean and then the information that’s what I want to share with you because you can understand and even if you don’t understand all the science and the chemical reactions behind it, you can 

understand enough to know this is a good thing and this is a bad thing and this is what I need to do next to change. And I’m glad to help you by sharing this Understanding your Kidney Test Results course.

It’s going to be a simple walkthrough of the different labs that you have in different modules. So, it’s Module 1 is you know basic kidney labs and then Module 2 is looking at different areas in those and Module 3 is talking about bone disease and Module 4 talks about what are the kidney labs that you need to worry about with you’re related to conditions if you have diabetes or anything related to that. 

Once you’ve watched these you can come back and watch them again they’re yours forever and you’ll not be so anxious and nervous and overwhelmed about your kidney disease because you’ll know what you need to do so you’ll know if my eGFR is a 45 that means this and these are the steps that I should take. But not only that, you won’t have just part of the picture you’ll know that your eGFR is just one piece of the puzzle and what other labs do you need to understand to know how fast your kidney disease is progressing. You won’t be overwhelmed.

If you’re interested in learning more about my course the Understanding your Kidney Test Results, I would love for you to head on over to renaldietHQ.com/waitlist-for-uktr Understanding Kidney Test Results (UKTR). You’ll get on the waitlist and I’ll put that in the comments below and I’m hosting a webinar all about this course and about the 4 Phase Method for Improving your Kidney Test Results on August the 1st 2019. I’d love it if you

join me there.

If you sign up for the waitlist I’ll be emailing out in the next couple days a link that you can sign up for the webinar and even if you don’t if you’re not able to make it to the webinar at that time then you will be able to see the replay. So, you can watch later and see and understand what the course is going to be about and understanding some about your labs and if you’re on dialysis, how this is important and all the different labs and not into everything related to kidney disease.

Diabetes is related to kidney disease, blood pressure is related to kidney disease, cholesterol is related to kidney disease. All those things put them together and how they mesh to make you healthy or what you want them to do overtime. And that way when you get your lab test results you’ll know and you’ll be able to go home look it up and then at that point you can call your doctor say “I see that this is trending down or I see that this is trending up that’s a good or a bad thing? What steps can we do? Is there any medications I need to change?” that type of thing and then you’re with your doctor making those important health decisions about yourself.

I want to thank you for joining me today and I will talk to you soon. I look forward to August 1st. Get on the waitlist and I will send you the email to sign up for the webinar. A webinar is just like a training maybe last an hour long and I’ll talk through all the things and like I said you can watch the replay if you don’t make it to the webinar.

Thanks! Talk soon!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The post RDHQ Podcast 92: How Chronic Kidney Disease has Changed my Life {My Story} appeared first on Renal Diet Menu Headquarters.

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RDHQ Podcast 91: What if it works? My thoughts on your future.

 

 

 

 

 

Hi! This is Mathea Ford, the creator of the Understanding Your Kidney Test Results course and today I want to talk about some of the things you might be struggling with my thoughts are I hear from a lot of people that they’re overwhelmed about being having chronic kidney disease or in stage renal disease and on top of that they really don’t understand what their doctor means when they’re talking about their labs so they might tell me “I’m an eGFR of 46 but they don’t know what that means and they don’t even know what questions to ask so they just kind of let their doctor explain and then take it in and go back home and then what happens?

You experience frustration, you’re spending a lot of time looking for answers trying to understand what those labs means so you have the normal range on your paper you know you look at your lab results and it says phosphorus or potassium is 3.5 to 5 that’s the normal range but maybe you don’t know what to do to make sure that it stays in the normal range and you don’t know what to do if it goes out of the normal range and maybe you don’t want to wait until your doctor tells you “Hey! You’re high on your potassium this is what you need to do!” You’d rather do some preventive things. So, you get anxiety when you’re thinking about getting your labs drawn because you don’t know what to do to help it or make it better and you’re even maybe a little anxious because you don’t want to go on dialysis, you don’t want to advance your kidney disease or if you’re on dialysis you want to do everything you can to make it the best possible.

Then you look online, you bring home your lab, you look online, you look around you don’t find anything that tells you more than like normal ranges or maybe you’re not 100% sure about the source of the information if it does tell you what else to do like drink green smoothies. You’re wondering how do they know that. So, you really don’t know what to do next. That’s the big thing like even if you understood “Okay, I’m in the normal range. I’m doing

good. Done this for a while. I’m in the normal range.” You don’t understand what that means or had to interpret it. So, you really don’t know what to do next if you think that it’s at all possible to change it like you’re like “okay, I don’t want to be on stage … I don’t want to advance my stage of kidney disease.” You call your doctor “what do I

do?”

You might get a sheet of paper, you might get a callback, you get a list of foods not to eat and that doesn’t tell you why and it’s hard to go outside of that list of restrictions and if you listen to me much and you know what I say, I don’t like restrictions, I like to think about what you can do, what you can have, what you can eat not necessarily like “don’t eat all these things” because then that’s all you think about and you don’t ever get to where what you can do.

If you have a goal of you know not advancing your kidney disease, making the changes you need to make, well, let’s talk for a minute about what it could be like if you did understand what your lab results were. What types of things affect your lab results and then you could eventually go back to your doctor and improve your health? What if you were to able to look at your lab results even when they just handed to them to you right there in the doctor’s office and understand and ask targeted and specific questions like related to your medications or foods you eat because you know that’s what affects your labs.

You’re not going to diagnose yourself, you’re not going to change anything without asking your doctor but you’re going to go in and ask your doctor he’s or she is going to be sitting there across from you. You’re going to know you got your CBC and all those hemoglobin numbers and you know they drew those labs and then you go into the office and you’re like “Okay, this is the hemoglobin is at the bottom into the range what can I do to help that?” Then your doctor can give you the answers you want and help and you would participate in your health care because you understood how does this medication affect this lab? How does this medication affect my blood pressure? Those types of things.

Why am I taking this medication? You would understand that some of those medications can interact and change your lab values cause you should retain more potassium or lose more potassium. So, you would understand what change. You would be able to get those answers from your physician and most of all if you understood what your kidney disease is how it’s progressing and what labs tell you if it’s progressing faster or slower instead of just looking at the eGFR, you could do know what to do next to change most of what’s going on with you and know how it’s progressing. You might be concerned, you might be scared, you might have anxiety about dialysis or kidney failure getting worse and what if you knew what to change to slow it down or if you needed to change anything to slow down. Maybe, if you’re of a certain age and your eGFR is a certain number that’s just normal but you get worried and concerned but you couldn’t have a few other tests and understand that “Hey! This is normal. I’m doing okay. It’s not progressing. I need to eat a healthier diet but I don’t necessarily need to worry about it so much.”

See this yourself in that situation where you go into the doctor’s office you had your lab drawn a couple days ago and they hand you the lab test results and you know what you’re looking at and you know your history and whether that number is improved or not so you have your documentation, you understand what it means, you can ask specifically your doctor “why did this increase? What medications affect this lab?” And you can change or understand how you’re taking your medications or what you’re eating and what might need to change. You put

yourself in that situation where you’re empowered to ask the right questions and be an advocate for your healthcare and that’s what I want for you.

So, I’m creating a course called Understanding Your Kidney Test Results and it’s about more than labs but for the most part, it’s about knowing what each of your labs means and then the other test that you might get done while you have kidney disease. It’s about understanding those and even some for diabetes and heart disease so you know that when you get your lab test results you can look it up in this course see what it means and know it’s you know these are the next things to do to keep it in line or these are the things to do to bring it back down instead of randomly making changes or  just making blanket changes or looking at list of restrictions you can understand deeper than that level. You can see how it’s affected and whether you’re confident, how you can do something what’s next and that depends on this course will teach you about how to advocate for yourself and how to improve your lab results.

I want you to head on over if you’re interested in learning more you go over to renaldietHQ.com/waitlist-for-uktr

Head on over there, grab that there’s a little information about some of the kidney test results stuff and you can learn more. 

The post RDHQ Podcast 91: What if it works? My thoughts on your future. appeared first on Renal Diet Menu Headquarters.

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RDHQ Podcast 90: Why You Should Always Read Your Labs Before You Go To Your Doctor

Hi there! This is Mathea Ford, the creator of the Understanding Your Kidney Test Results course and today I want to talk to you about something that is really important to me. I want to talk about something that I suddenly realized was happening when I with… to a lot of people with kidney disease. It’s something that’s really holding you back and really keeping you from being able to move forward or understand your labs better and what to do next.

So it’s the idea that you can read your labs and know what they mean or asking your doctor what they mean is going to somehow tell you what to do next perhaps your doctor even never told you that you had kidney disease and you find out by looking at your labs and you wondered what to do and so you started googling. So what

happens is you go you find your labs and you realize that they say that your eGFR is high or low and it’s out of whack and all of a sudden you start googling and looking around and your doctor never even mentioned it to you or they tell your eGFR is high but they don’t tell you what to do next.

So, you don’t know how to address that so again start googling and you may find the information you may not find reputable good information or you may not. So, you know what your labs are and you know what is a normal range because a lot of times on the paperwork it will show you the normal range. The normal range might be for potassium, for example, like three point five to five and so you’re in that normal range but do you know what to do with that knowledge on how to change?

So maybe your EGFR is high and you google and you find out that means for a kidney diet that you should restrict protein and salts and maybe even these this information says you should also restrict protein and potassium. I mean protein, phosphorus, and potassium but for a regular kidney patient, it’s typically only the protein and the salt that you have to worry about but a lot of people restrict potassium because they don’t know if they should or not. They don’t know if their labs are okay or not so I understand why people believe that just knowing and they’re

like make a few changes or maybe they make a ton of changes and then you don’t know really what was important or what might have worked so I’m actually a believer in making the least restrictive diet if possible because it will get more restrictive and it will change over time but it’s valuable to adjust your protein intake based on the stage of kidney failure you’re in for sure but it’s a little bit of a misnomer to not realize that there’s more depth to that

that there are other labs that should be taken or there are other ways to know whether you’re processing or progressing quickly and your kidney disease is getting worse or you can slow down kidney disease.

There are some other labs that maybe your doctor didn’t even measure that would tell you “hey! this means it’s progressing quickly we need to make more changes” or maybe they didn’t measure your potassium and phosphorus and you don’t know what you should do but that’s why so many people start restricting every single thing. They limit their diet, they excessively limit their diet. They end up with a diet that’s hard to follow and hard to tolerate and they might get upset or frustrated so you find out you have a 45 eGFR but you don’t know if it’s

progressing quickly or not so you suddenly switch and change everything you stop eating salt, you cut out protein, and unfortunately, I’ve heard from several people that their doctors just told them to eat no protein and while it

seems like doing a little bit of a change would be good and a whole lot would be even better the truth of the matter is that if you limit your protein if you cut out completely all your protein you’re going to put yourself in worse shape and you potentially are going to be sicker and then you’re not gonna be able to recover because your body uses proteins for tons of things in your body.

So, a lot of times there’s an optimum range and that can be as you get your labs it can adjust and as you progress or don’t progress with kidney disease you find out how much the improvement you can make but your doctors don’t know a lot about nutrition that’s what dietitians are for.

Dietitians understand the value of how your food is in your body and what kind of reactions that are going to affect. Not that doctors don’t know but they a lot of times have very limited education in nutrition. So, what you really should do is understand all the labs and the whole picture and really being able to know that just one lab

being out of whack; how to adjust that or adjust your diet or know what you should even ask your doctor to about your medications so I’m never going to tell you to change medications but I am going to point out to you that there are certain medications that can affect certain labs and that is why you should talk to your doctor and say “is this the right medication? Is this affecting my kidney disease? Is it time to go to a nephrologist?” That type of thing “how quickly is my disease progressing?”

There are certain labs that will tell you that and that allows you to be an advocate for yourself and for you to be in control of your health in a lot more positive ways than just waiting for the next lab or just waiting to get on dialysis because it’s really important that you do everything you can even once you’ve found out you have kidney disease you may have found out you have kidney disease and at that point you’ve lost a lot of capacity but your kidneys are remarkable and if you can do certain things to change that lowering your protein, lower your sodium and adjusting based on the other labs you really can do things to help your diet and help your kidneys slow down the progression of kidney disease.

What I teach people as a Registered Dietitian and a person that’s knowledgeable about nutrition’s effects on your labs and other things that affect your labs is that the best way to review your labs is to look at them over a period of time. So, ask your doctor the right questions and you can get clear answers. So, when you look at your eGFR, it’s really a trend so one measurement of eGFR might be the next measurement might be over 60 and the next measurement then comes back as 45. If you look at that trend you realize okay overall it’s going down. That’s a signal there are some other labs you want to look at is that going up or going down and when you put that all together and then you talk to your doctor in and you know to ask them specifically about labs – specific things – and how your medications might affect that, how your diet can affect that then you understand the whole picture. You understand what you can do to slow down the progression of kidney disease when you understand your kidney test results and that’s not just your labs it’s also your weight, it’s also your diabetes which is labs and other things and then also blood pressure so it’s understanding all those things and what they mean and what is actually the expectation at different stages.

So, actually you may not know this but when you’re diabetic if your diabetes suddenly starts getting better without you doing anything that’s a sign that your kidney disease is progressing because your kidneys are interrelated so close together that your kidneys actually help how much insulin you removed from your body so at some point in your kidney disease if your insulin is not able to be removed from your body it’s going to continue to work longer and that’s gonna cause your blood sugars may be to go down but that’s an indication that your kidneys are not working properly. So knowing… Okay this is what this means is important, you may just thought “oh hey! Look amazingly my diabetes got better!” But that’s really not what it maybe did get better but that’s not a positive thing at that point.

So, in the meantime, before I’ve got some more to talk to you about related to this but I want you to

head on over and get on the waitlist and get my informational packet about the process to go through and understand your labs and that’s gonna be at renaldiethq.com/waitlist-for-uktr Understanding Kidney Test Results. That’s the course I’m working on and that’s what I want to talk to you more about.

 

 

http://traffic.libsyn.com/renaldiethq/Why_You_Should_Always_Read_Your_Labs_Before_You_See_Your_Doctor.mp3

The post RDHQ Podcast 90: Why You Should Always Read Your Labs Before You Go To Your Doctor appeared first on Renal Diet Menu Headquarters.

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Kidney Disease Labs: “Kidney Disease: Common Labs and Medical Terminology”
Renal Diet Podcast 074 – Things To Talk To Your Doctor
RDHQ Podcast 88 – A Vegetarian Substitute Called Jackfruit

RDHQ 89 Flavis Desserts for Kidney Disease Patients

Hey peeps! This is Mathea Ford with Renal Diet Headquarters and today I wanted to talk to you live about the Flavis desserts that I’ve been reviewing this week. We’re doing a giveaway for that ends May the 12th but the good news is is if it’s after May the 12th and you’re  listening to this we do have a coupon code and I will put that below the video.  So, it will be in the comments just look for it there’s a coupon code that’s good through August for you to buy anything that’s on the Flavis site but also these cookies and desserts that I’m going to talk about.

So, I wanted to start with there’s three different ones. There’s one that’s a fruit bar, there’s one that’s called Frollini and there’s one that’s called cookies that seems to be the favorite so far this week. So, if you have any comments just put them in the notes below.

But I wanted to start with the fruit bar. So, it comes in a package of  five. Obviously, I’ve used a couple of these I’ve eaten them. It has like 0.2 grams of protein per bar and the reason I love them is because first of all, they’re in a little package so they’re about the size of like maybe 3/4 of a Granola bar if you’re used to a Granola bar and they come individually packaged so you can take them with you. I like them to take as a snack or to take to work instead of going to the vending machine but they’re individually packaged so that they stay together and then when you open up the package and you get it out it’s like it reminds me of a Fig bar. Obviously, it’s called a fruit bar because it’s Strawberry flavored but I want to show you kind of  there’s that what the inside looks like if I can get it to focus and then it kind of has like a Graham cracker crust a little bit.

It’s real easy to eat you know just have a little bit. It does have quite a bit of sweetness to it so if you want just that little bit of sweetness this is the bar for you and I like that the crust is like kind of like a Graham cracker crust. So, this product is gluten, considered gluten-free, it’s certified gluten free. It does say it contains wheat but what they tell me is that the way that they make the product that that makes it it’s actually a gluten free wheat that they used. It is specifically a low protein food and the cost on it is about $4.00 a box. So, my coupons for 10% off so that would save you 40 cents and if you liked them.

And they were healthy for you because they’re low in potassium and phosphorus each of these bars has about 20 milligrams of potassium and 10 milligrams of phosphorus so it’s really pretty low in both of those and it’s very low in protein. So, it’s a strawberry flavored fruit bar so that’s my little comments about those. I like these like I said because they’re very travel helpful. You can take them with you, you can use them on the road, you can put them in, if you’re going to dialysis you can take them with you to have as a snack during dialysis if you feel a little bit tired.

They do have 19 grams of carbs per bar so if you’re a diabetic this would be about one carb exchange which is typical if you wanted to add a little protein to it like some peanut butter or maybe an egg. If you’re in you’re allowed protein that might help to balance out that carb a little bit if you’re a diabetic but it’s very low sodium too let me remind you that. It’s 35 milligrams of sodium per bar. So, all around a good food. It is very much better than a Fig Newton or Fig bar for you if you were to eat them as part of your diet.

So, the next one I want to talk about is called Frollini and it is a cookie so they call it Frollini Biscotti and Biscotti to me are those dry kind of cookies that you eat with your coffee. So, if you’re a coffee drinker you may be familiar with that. I like these bags because you can fold them over and then they have like a little removable tab that you can close them down with to keep them easy to eat them later. What’s the right word for that? Make them so that they’re not dried out but the Frollinis come in the bag and they’re kind of loose in the bag if you can see that and if you’re on the podcast I know you can’t see it but they’re just kind of loose cookies in a bag. So, unfortunately this was one of the things I mentioned in the blog post I really that’s my only real disappointment. 

Broken cookies taste the same but they are they might want to rethink the packaging. So, let me remind you it’s got 0.2 grams of protein per serving which is three whole cookies. So, it has four grams of fat. It has 24 grams of carbohydrate and three cookies same thing it’s like one and a half exchanges for a diabetic. Again, as a diabetic if you’re allowed you might want to add some protein like a peanut butter or cashew butter or even just like some cheese with these crackers. They’re pretty dry so I think of them like coffee crackers but they’re pretty crunchy and dry. They have just a little bit of sweetness to them. Again, there’s 24 grams of carbs of that is some sugar but they’re they’re not super sweet so if you don’t like super sweet stuff but you wanted to add some calories without adding extra protein, these would be a good choice because there’s 130 calories in three of them and you would be able to kind of up your calorie level without upping the amount of protein that you’re eating.

A lot of what people don’t understand sometimes is that a lot of foods have protein in them and one of the things

you’re most concerned with with pre dialysis or End Stage Renal Disease is that you have protein limitations but like wheat, flour or whole wheat flour or grains have protein in them which is good for most people and it’s good for

you too but it just matters like how much you’re supposed to have in a protein in a day.

So, this one also has just ten milligrams of potassium and ten milligrams of phosphorus per cookie but I’ll show you kind of when you break it it’s pretty crispy and then like I said it’s pretty crunchy but it’s not too bad as far as it doesn’t break completely apart but they are kind of crispy they have like a little sun on them. So, I would like these you know either just as a light snack with your breakfast if you’re trying to add some calories but not to add protein.

I like these for that but I also just like them as in general. They’re good cookie. They’re just just a little bit sweet I

like a lot of sweet but if you don’t like a whole lot of sweet these would be good for you you’d like them. These are about five dollars I think they were $4.79 a bag right now and again that 10% off coupon through August will give you 47 cents off so think about the Frollini.

We’re doing a giveaway and we’re giving away one fruit bar, one Frollini and one cookie so you get a set of three and we’re giving away three of those packages by next Monday May the 13th so that’s something for you to think about.

If you want to enter head over to renaldiethq.com/flavisgiveaway F-L-A-V-I-S just like it says in the package, giveaway it’s all one word. So, head on over there, there’s the information on the giveaway you lots of ways to enter it doesn’t require a lot of effort so I would love to send you a package and again, if you’re past the giveaway you can always get a discount.

So, let’s talk about the cookies. Now, these cookies are what I call chocolate chip cookies. They’re probably close to chocolate chip cookies they’re just not really chocolate chip cookies. They have a little bit of chocolate in them so let me show them to you. So, they’re these come and they’re mostly whole cookies so they’re not broken up like the Frollini so they’re not quite as dry I guess you would say. They’re a little bit but they are pretty dry cookies and the bags that I got from Flavis.

They provided me with some bags to do my evaluation. They were good til December so these actually have a good date on them at least nine months so you can eat them a little bit over time. Again, if you have questions or comments put them in the comments and I will do my best to get that answer to you.

But this is the favorite one on the blog so everybody’s been making comments that they would love to have chocolate chip cookies again. So, when you look at them they’re again they’re like one and a half inches, two inches around and they’re nice. They have just that little bit of chocolate in them and just enough chocolate to give you the flavor and then they’re awesome not super-sweet, they are super sweet they are sweeter than the Frollini.

You get that chocolate flavor you really do and three of them is a serving again on these so you’ve got again 0.2 grams of protein so adding any type of protein you want to it some cheese, some whatever to make it a little more protein especially if you’re on dialysis you might need more protein, you don’t need more potassium and phosphorus. These cookies have 20 milligrams of potassium and 10 milligrams of phosphorus for each serving which is three. Again, it’s an easy way to add extra calories if you need more calories but you don’t want more protein. So, these are also made with gluten-free wheat and they’re certified as gluten-free food so you get about seven servings in each bag. 

This cookie bag again costs about the same as the Frollini to $4.79 so. I like them because they’re not quite as dry as the Frollini but in their little sweeter and but it’s not so sweet that you just want to eat a whole bunch of them but you get that little bit of sweetness that maybe you’re craving and again for the diabetics who may be listening these have 24 grams of carbohydrate per serving so you have a choice you could do only two cookies and that would give you like 16 grams of carb which would be about one serving. You could eat the third cookie that would be another half serving of your carbohydrates if you’re counting carbs, if you’re counting actual grams of carbohydrate it’s 24. So, if you wanted to do that.

So, with the Frollini, I liked the idea of crumbling them up and possibly putting them on some yogurt but you could also do that with these chocolate chip style cookies is to break them up and use them in like a dessert or a crust with a little maybe a little bit even I like the chocolate chip ones on some ice cream. You may not be eating ice cream but I do like them with that so it’s just another choice that you have to eat as dessert that you may be missing right now that you want you may be getting tired of eating fruit all the time or just restricting your diet so much so this could be a little treat that you give yourself that you have you know occasionally like I said they last a long time and they’re easy to take along so if you wanted to take you know these cookies like I said the chocolate chip cookies are not as “fragile” so you could grab those and put them in a bag, put them in your lunch and take them a lot easier.

The Frollinis might just break in half but again they taste just as good. So, it’s something that you can have with you instead of going to grab the snack machine. These are definitely better for you than just regular out of the vending machine cookies because you know more specifically what amount of carbohydrate and protein and specifically the

potassium, sodium and phosphorous. Both of these cookies have just about 10 milligrams of sodium. Let me look at the Frollini. Yeah, Frollini has 10 milligrams. So, each of them has 10 milligrams of sodium per serving which is 3 cookies. So, these are better for you than those. So, if you’re like “I’d like to get a little bit of a snack but I don’t want to have” you know you might think that they’re a little bit expensive although granted 5 dollars for a bag of cookies it’s probably not super more expensive than the other but if you’re using it just as a treat and maybe you have it once a week these would last a month or so and you could have that at that sweet that you really want.

So, those are my thoughts. I don’t know. I’m not seeing any comments or questions let me see if I can. I don’t really see. So, if you made a comment or a question during the live I will answer it in the comments below I will come behind it and make notes. I’m sorry if I missed it. My phone is just not showing me at the moment any comments so but I appreciate you listening and I appreciate your time today. I hope you enjoyed me talking about Flavis and I look forward to talking more about other things in the future. Thanks!

The post RDHQ 89 Flavis Desserts for Kidney Disease Patients appeared first on Renal Diet Menu Headquarters.

Suggested Reading:

Flavis Desserts For Kidney Disease Patients
RDHQ Podcast 88 – A Vegetarian Substitute Called Jackfruit
Frozen Treats for Chronic Kidney Disease Patients

Flavis Desserts For Kidney Disease Patients

Are you working really hard to stick to your kidney disease diet and wondering if you will ever get to eat anything for dessert?  
I want you to stick to your prescribed diet but not have to compromise on everything – especially desserts for kidney disease.

Flavis is sponsoring this post, and although I am being paid for writing and evaluating these products, I would not write about them if I didn’t believe they are a good option for people who want tasty foods for a kidney disease diet.

I have partnered with Flavis, a food brand by Dr. Schar USA,  that makes low sodium, low potassium and low phosphorus foods that are designed to complement the renal diet, regardless of the stage of CKD that you have.  Flavis is a specialty food from Europe and they are expanding into the US market. They make a variety of foods that are perfect for kidney disease patients and are created to help you stay on track and eat a larger variety of foods on your limited diet.

Flavis is partnering with me to provide a giveaway.  We are giving away dessert foods in this promotion. If you want to have a few more options for desserts for kidney disease, you can enter to win a set of 1 of each of their sweets that are made for CKD patients.  Keep reading to find out how to enter to win.

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

They are also providing a 10% off coupon for any items from their website through August 7, 2019.  That means you can grab some of their products at a discount to add more variety to your meals.  You can use code: MQV45HE6 at the website here:  https://www.renaldiethq.com/flavis to get the discount between now and August.

I personally believe in this product, and I want to talk about what I like (and don’t like) about these foods as they are designed for people with kidney disease and can be helpful in the management of certain dietary restrictions like low potassium and low phosphorus diets.  Whether you have CKD pre-dialysis or are on dialysis – you can incorporate some of these foods into your meals.

Desserts For Kidney Disease Patients

Let’s talk about my favorite part of the meal, shall we?  

I know that being restrictive with your diet has meant that you compromise on a lot of taste -although you don’t always have to.  You just don’t have the information that you need to make a decision about whether or not something fits in your diet.

Eating foods that are perfect for your diet is hard because all of the information is usually not on the label.  Not so with Flavis products. They have the nutrition information that people with kidney disease need to know to stay on their diet.  And with the ready to eat foods they make you get a full nutrition facts panel – including information about potassium and phosphorus.

Flavis makes more than desserts for kidney patients, though, they have pasta, crackers, and bread products that are also low protein and perfect for kidney disease patients.

You can use code: MQV45HE6 at the website here:  https://www.renaldiethq.com/flavis to get the discount between now and August.

Let’s talk about the 3 different products that are basically the best desserts for kidney disease.  

Flavis Low Protein Fruit Bar

This fruit bar comes in a package of 5 individually wrapped bars.  The only flavor they have in this product is strawberry – which I happen to like.  It tastes like a strawberry fig roll bar and is just a little sweet. The outside coating is a little like a graham cracker crust.  They use certified gluten-free wheat in making the product but it might still contain traces of gluten.

Each box has 5 bars, and the bars weigh a little less than 1 ounce each.  They are fairly small but provide a lot of flavor and satisfy a sweet tooth without overdoing it.  (Actually, the same portion size as 2 regular fig bars) Each bar contains 0.2 gm of protein so they are great if you are looking to restrict protein in your diets like people with stage 3 – 5 chronic kidney disease.  

Best of all, they are low in potassium (20 mg) and phosphorus (10 mg).  Honestly, a regular fig bar made with strawberry filling has about the same number of calories and more protein in 2 cookies.  

I love these to take along with you in your purse or keep at work in a drawer instead of going to the “junk food” machine where you don’t know what you are getting.  The strawberry flavored fruit bar is easy to take anywhere and make perfect snacks (or desserts).

Flavis Frollini Biscotti Cookies

I personally love cookies, although I know I should not eat them all the time.  Flavis has a shortbread style cookie that is also a low protein snack or dessert.  Think of them like shortbread cookies, just a little drier. I like the idea of nibbling on them with coffee and dipping them much like Biscotti to enjoy in the morning.  

A serving is 3 cookies, and again, they are low in all the P’s you worry about with CKD – protein, potassium, and phosphorus.  A serving contains 0.2 gm of protein, 10 mg of potassium and 10 mg of phosphorus. This serving size for dessert or a snack is a perfect bit of sweet but not too sweet.  

Each bag of Frollini has 7 servings.  This portion contains 24 gm of carbohydrate and would be considered 1.5 servings of a carbohydrate food if you are looking for desserts for diabetics with kidney disease.  Oh, and the sodium is also low – 10 mg per serving. Each bag has a reusable sticker to keep the bag closed and fresh between munchies.

Unfortunately, I was a bit disappointed with how many broken cookies are in the bag.  Now broken cookies taste the same as all the rest, but it seems the packaging is not quite protecting the cookies.  These bags were packed for shipping perfectly and still had about 40% of the bag broken.

The only other thing I didn’t like much is how crisp and bland they are, but you might enjoy that in a cookie or dessert.  They do remind me of shortbread, just not as soft. I would love to dip them in a little chocolate or put a dab of icing on them to make them less that way, but if you like crunchy sweets you will love these.  I also think I am going to crush them up and add them to yogurt as a topping. Or dip your fruit into chocolate then roll it in some cookie crumbs. Delicious!

Flavis Chocolate Chip Cookies

Last but not least, Flavis has cookies that have bits of chocolate chips in them.  Not huge chips, just small nuggets, and just enough to give you the flavor. These come in a bag with 7 servings as well.  Each serving is 3 cookies and they are crunchy and a little sweet when you eat them. Perfect size for a little treat after lunch or dinner.  

Let’s talk about details for the cookies that make them superb as a dessert for CKD patients.  Again, they have only 0.2 gm of protein per serving, and 20 mg Potassium and 10 mg Phosphorus per serving.  The sodium per serving is only 10 mg. That is very low sodium. Each bag has a reusable sticker to keep the bag closed and fresh for a long time – they have a great shelf life.

These have a little sweeter flavor but are still crunchy and a little bit dry.  I love them for the bit of sweet because I like dessert, but they are not overwhelmingly sweet.  They also contain 24 gm of carbohydrate so for a diabetic they are about 1.5 servings of carb.

Compared to regular chocolate chip cookies, they are much better for a kidney disease diet.  While both serving sizes are about 1 ounce, and the calories are about the same, store bought ready to eat chocolate chip cookies are higher in sodium, potassium, and protein.  

When you are counting grams and milligrams, every little bit helps.

Here is a picture of how the bag closes so you can keep them in the bag and eat a few at a time:

 

The Giveaway – And How To Enter

Flavis is providing 3 sets of 1 each from their dessert products – 1 fruit bar package, 1 Frollini, and 1 Cookie.  If you win the giveaway, I will ship you the package once the winner has been announced on May 13th, 2019.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

To enter the drawing, you can do several things.  

You can leave a comment on this blog post indicating what your favorite dessert is to eat.
You can visit our facebook page at facebook.com/renaldiet
You can repin an image on Pinterest.
You can tweet a message out about the product.

Each of those will give you an entry into the giveaway.  Don’t forget there are 3 prize packages total.  If you don’t want to wait you can buy some on the website and still get a discount.

You can use code: MQV45HE6 at the website here:  https://www.renaldiethq.com/flavis to get the discount between now and August.

I appreciate you and hope you enjoy these desserts for kidney disease and let me know if you try them.  Good luck on the giveaway and don’t forget to use the coupon for a discount.

 

The post Flavis Desserts For Kidney Disease Patients appeared first on Renal Diet Menu Headquarters.

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Frozen Treats for Chronic Kidney Disease Patients
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Butternut Squash, Cauliflower and Beef Shepherd’s Pie

https://youtu.be/t_vvQX-KpiY

This delicious recipe guarantees that it is also healthy for your kidneys and your heart.

The spice used in this video is called the Grandma’s Loaf and More which have a little sodium because of the dehydrated tomato granules. That’s 15mg per packet. It also have garlic, mustard seeds, red bell pepper, green bell pepper, black pepper, lemon peel, parsley, green onions, coriander, marjoram and oregano. A great mix of different spices that is also great on meat, chicken, turkey and beef. The seasoning will surely not let you worry about your kidney disease, cardiac disease, and diabetes.

Click on the Get Recipe button below to download this recipe. You may also go to http://www.nickannyskitchen.com to download the recipe and get more information about the spice used in the recipe.

The post Butternut Squash, Cauliflower and Beef Shepherd’s Pie appeared first on Renal Diet Menu Headquarters.

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RDHQ Podcast 88 – A Vegetarian Substitute Called Jackfruit

Hi there! It’s Mathea Ford with Renal Diet HQ and today I want to talk about vegetarian meat substitute although it’s technically not a meat substitute because it doesn’t have any protein but it’s called Jackfruit and I’m talking about vegetarian stuff this month because I think it’s important I hear a lot of comments from people that they want to try vegetarian. They want to go to vegetarian knowing that there’s a lower protein need in chronic kidney disease so I want to talk to you about this particular product because it’s something that you can probably find locally and maybe even incorporate it into some meals.

What is jackfruit?

If you’ve ever seen the BuzzFeed Tasty recipes videos that kind of have a vegetarian slant to them you may have seen jackfruit being used in those recipes. There, it’s such a versatile fruit and product that people can use and it’s just a little different so you might be a little bit afraid of it but I hope by the end of this video that you’re going to have a better idea of what it actually is and what it’s actually good for.

It’s a species of tree fruit in the fig mulberry breadfruit family. It was originally from India but it’s grown in Southeast Asia, Indies, Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia. It’s actually even grown  in the United States in Florida and that’s where a lot of the jackfruit that’s in grocery stores and available on Amazon for example is grown in Florida and shipped here in the US. So, it grows in a lot of different places. It needs to be a little bit tropical which is why Florida works because in Florida it rains like every day just a little bit but it rains. It’s also found in Hawaii because that’s a little bit of a tropical environment too. So, there’s some places that can be found it’s not necessarily imported it can be found in the United States so I wanted you to know that it’s a very safe you know choice if you’re buying from the United States because they’re going to have been reviewed and managed by the FDA.

Jackfruit is it’s kind of a weird name but it’s a fruit. It has a little bit of a sweet taste to it. If you eat it raw but in general in cooking it kind of has a bland taste. So, let’s talk

about why it’s good for a vegetarian diet.

In a vegetarian diet you may miss if you’re normally if you were used to eating meat and then now you’ve gone to vegetarian or vegan, this can taste like meat. It can have that shredded meat texture so it’s great for putting into meals that are like pulled pork or pulled chicken or tacos. It goes in all those things because it looks like and it gives you that visual idea of a meat but it also has the ability to take on the flavors of the spices that you’re using so you’re gonna have it take up those flavors but it’s not going to be like a lot of people who go vegetarian may think they need to use tofu or Tempeh and it’s not going to have that same texture. So, the texture of jackfruit when you actually eat it is more of a soft kind of like a whole fruit would be where you’re going to eat it and it’s going to kind of mush in your mouth, it’s not gonna be stringy, it’s not going be chewy in your dish.

I do want to remind you though that it does not have proteins so it’s very much like a fruit. It’s going to have you know fiber in it and that’s gonna be good and healthy for you but jackfruit doesn’t have protein so account for that and make sure that you’re getting protein in another way in that meal so that you’re not totally you know eliminating the protein from your day although as like I said with a chronic kidney disease you’re going to want to eat lower protein so you’re going to have that lower protein it’ll help you get a lower protein count for the day.

Why is jackfruit good for you? Why is it a good choice and why might you even want to do it like on a Meatless Monday even if you’re still eating regular meat but why might you want to do it on like a Meatless Monday?

It doesn’t taste sweet and it has some great benefits. So, let’s talk about that. It has immune support because it has a ton of vitamin C and antioxidants. It’s a perfect food for helping your immunity and helping boost your immunity to reduce colds and other illness and in general I’ve done some I’ve talked to some other dietitians recently and found out that antioxidants are super great for your brain and your brain health so getting lots of foods with antioxidants is a great idea. Jackfruits gonna fit right into that. It’s going to help with your digestion because it has a lot of fiber so it’s going to be like eating a whole fruit it’s going to have fiber in it and that’s going help your digestion, help you’re feeling fullness and satiate you.

It has some anti-cancer properties so it’s got phytonutrients, it’s got carotenoids and it’s really just you know in general like fruit is it’s pretty a healthy product. This is going to have a decent amount of carbohydrate in it because it is fruit. It has B-6 as well so if you’re watching your carbohydrate count you may want to manage that but probably the amount of jackfruit that you’re gonna eat in your meal like 3 to 4 ounces is not going to be excessive but I want to make sure that you’re aware that it’s gonna have carb and that’s going to affect if you’re a diabetic, it’s going to affect your blood sugar. But because it has carbs it can have that boost of energy that you might need for your day.

It’s heart-healthy. It’s going to have some potassium in it. Jackfruit has about 740 mg Potassium in 6 ounces (1 cup) so 3 ounces would have about 370 mg which is ok on a renal diet (of course, your personal diet prescription may vary.)It is advisable for the amount of potassium is going to be decent and help you with your heart health because potassium helps your heart. It’s going to give you beta-carotene, lutein for your eyes for bone health it has some calcium in it so it’s going to help with your bones and it has water and it’s gonna give you fluid.

Is it best getting the fresh fruit or would the canned one be okay?

Because it’s kind of difficult to necessarily find it locally, I would recommend the canned one. The one that’s canned they have they come canned in brine or in syrup and I would recommend the brine and I would definitely try to find it at like your local Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s they have it in the canned version that’s perfectly fine. The brine is sodium so you’re gonna have to watch that amount of sodium that comes in there but you can rinse it off a little bit too that’ll help with reducing the amount of

sodium that’s in that canned product. I mean it’s always a balance if you can find locally the fresh one or you can order it then I would recommend considering that but if you can’t or you want to buy it and have it you know a couple days later it can sit on your shelf for a couple days. Three, four or five days you may even continue to ripen but you want to use that quickly whereas if you bought the canned you could take it with you so consider looking at the sodium on the count on the can and figuring out if it has a lot of studying in the brine you may want to pick the one that’s in syrup just to reduce the amount of sodium that you’re getting because I know that can be a huge

concern for people with kidney disease.

I wanted to talk about like I said that where you can get it. You can get it at Whole Foods, you can get it at Trader Joe’s, you can get it on Amazon, you can buy the fresh fruit on Amazon and they’ll ship it to you but jackfruit can be a good thing to add to your diet if you’re vegetarian or you’re wanting to be more vegetarian. I love the idea that it cooks quick it absorbs the flavors like Tempeh or tofu would but it doesn’t have that same flavor.

It’s not going to give you protein. It’s going to give you a little bit of carbs so I would recommend you consider looking into it and buying it and trying it. I’d start with doing it like as a tacos like a soft taco maybe with a little bit of taco seasoning we have some Texas Twist at nickannyskitchen.com. That kind of has a little bit of that chili flavor and you could put a little bit of that in there, absorb it and it’d be good, a little bit juicy.

 

The post RDHQ Podcast 88 – A Vegetarian Substitute Called Jackfruit appeared first on Renal Diet Menu Headquarters.

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Renal Diet Podcast 078 – Vegetarian Meals For Kidney Failure
VEGETARIAN RENAL DIET: WORTHY OR NOT?
Easy Vegetarian Diet To Help With Kidney Failure

Low Sodium Turkey Stuffed Green Peppers

https://youtu.be/KxY4WCSGR-E

 

This delicious recipe guarantees that it is also healthy for your kidneys and your heart.

The spice used in this video is called the Grandma’s Loaf and More which have a little sodium because of the dehydrated tomato granules. That’s 15mg per packet. It also have garlic, mustard seeds, red bell pepper, green bell pepper, black pepper, lemon peel, parsley, green onions, coriander, marjoram and oregano. A great mix of different spices that is also great on meat, chicken, turkey and beef. The seasoning will surely not let you worry about your kidney disease, cardiac disease, and diabetes.

Click on the Get Recipe button below to download this recipe. You may also go to http://www.nickannyskitchen.com to download the recipe and get more information about the spice used in the recipe.

 

The post Low Sodium Turkey Stuffed Green Peppers appeared first on Renal Diet Menu Headquarters.

Suggested Reading:

Low Sodium Stuffed Spaghetti Squash – RDHQ
Cheesy Bacon Turkey Wraps Perfect For Pre-Dialysis Or Dialysis Kidney Disease Low Sodium Meals
Broccoli Bacon Salad Low Sodium Recipe For Kidney Disease – ZYD