Is a vegetarian renal diet possible? Yes! Possible and recommended! Our handout has examples of low sodium vegetarian meal ideas for people following a renal/kidney diet. For people with renal disease, incorporating vegetarian meals into your diet is not only doable, but also healthy!  Vegetarian meals help slow progression of  kidney disease, improves nutrient intake, and increases fiber. (See Grocery List for further food ideas).  For people on dialysis, more recent studies have shown that you can get plenty of protein without meat and even sometimes have equal or better phos control (even with some extra beans!)  Our handout was recently updated with all nutrition information for recipes.  Please note, we aim for <700mg potassium, <600 mg sodium, and <250mg phos for a large meal item, taking into consideration other possible meal accompaniments.
Not ready to go meatless, but trying to cut down on animal protein? Check out our “Meals with Less Meat!”
[pdf-embedder url=”https://kidneyrd.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Vegetarian-meal-ideas-updated-2017.pdf” title=”Vegetarian meal ideas (updated) 2017″]
do you have the potassium and phosphorus content of the vegetarian recipes?
Hi Jennifer,
We uploaded the updated handout. You should see nutrient content listed on each item. We’re still cleaning up a little bit since the site change! Thanks for visiting KidneyGrub! Please send any thoughts or suggestions our way!
Thanks !
I booked marked this page to return to and see if I received a response. I completely forgot about the question but came back to just explore the page again. Not sure why I didn’t get an response email notification as I did click on the option. Anyways….I am Renal RD here in Canada. The vegetarian menu looks great. Any nutrient specs for the menu too?
We did the menu to show ideas on different vegetarian-kidney friendly breakfast, lunch, and dinner ideas. I didn’t run a full nutrient analysis on a day but that this something in the works!
Hi, my elderly father has to follow a “renal” diet, and he and my mother have recently moved to my town. Your recipes are a godsend to me! I want to be able to cook for my parents to ensure adequate nutrition, but I am an ethical vegan, and these recipes give me some great ideas for meals.
I noticed that you include eggs, which I would like to avoid. Is there a plant substitute that I could use? Tofu?
My mother tells me that my dad can’t have pulses. Is there a way to include plant based protein sources while following a renal diet?
Again, thank you so much for the meal suggestions. Very, very helpful, and much appreciated!
Sharon
Hi Sharon, I wish I had a short easy answer for your question. It is not a short answer because there are many many variables. Wonderful that you are already following plant-based eating and have many ideas of your own! Every person is different and it very much depends on stage of kidney disease on how to apply plant-based eating. If there is no restriction on potassium then he will be able to eat pulses, tofu, seitan, and many other common plant-based proteins. If he has a potassium restriction (later stage 4 for some) then it would be a good idea to analyze where he is getting potassium from (especially produce and whole grains) and see if these can be modified to lower potassium choices to allow for higher potassium plant-based proteins. I’d recommend you reach out to a renal dietitian in your area so that you can have a specific plan with as much flexibility and personalization as possible (renalnutrition.org has a search function). I also do private counseling – my counseling website is just getting finished (www.kidneyrd.com) but I’ll email you privately if this is of interest to you. – Jess
Hi Jess,
We’ve got lots to attend to with my parents’ move, but once that’s sorted, I will be interested in getting some direction on what food I can feed my Dad. Mom & Dad are in their 80s, and becoming frail and uninterested in preparing meals. My sister says that they are filling up on junk food.
My mother did tell me that they have to limit potassium, so that’s definitely a consideration.
I really love the meal suggestions that you’ve provided, and your email and response here is so helpful.
Thank you again!
I have stage for kidney disease and I am 86 years old. I just found out so this is all new to me I’m going to have to have a lot of new test done so I’m not on medication or anything yet so I have to start a new diet change everything so any help that your flight can you help me I would appreciate it very much thank you very much.
Hi Jackie, we’d love to help! We recommend joining our free monthly class or scheduling a free consultation to learn more about how we can help!