Where can I find menus for my dialysis diet?

   Menus are a helpful tool for learning about what to eat on a kidney diet. Sometimes planning meals is the most difficult step in making diet changes. With pre-planned menus it’s easy to create a grocery list, do a little shopping, then start cooking kidney friendly meals.

A couple of drawback are that menus don’t take into consideration what a person likes or dislikes. Pre-planned menus aren’t designed for an individual’s specific diet, so may not have the amount of protein, calories or minerals that matches a person’s dietary needs.

Here are a couple of resources I have discovered for some pre-planned kidney-friendly menus for a dialysis diet.

Check out DaVita.com’s regional menus–each includes information about traveling to different areas, foods that are produced or served in the region, recipes for some regional favorites and a one day menu.
http://www.davita.com/diet-and-nutrition/c/regional-menus

Another place to find dialysis diet menus is at
http://www.kidneyschool.org/splash/toc.shtml

Kidney school provides 15 modules on kidney disease. One module is on nutrition and it includes 2 weeks of pre-planned menus for hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis diets. Modifications for diabetes or non-diabetes are also included.

A third resource for pre-planned menus is to ask your dietitian to provide menus based on your meal plan. 

After finding pre-planned menus it’s a good idea to ask the dietitian to look over them so they can help individualize the meals to match personal dietary needs.