Low Potassium Foods for Kidney Patients

Taking a reference from the series of Netflix ‘Bard of Blood’ where a terrorist kills his fellow mate by inoculating a vaccine filled with potassium, he explains that excess of potassium becomes a cause of death.

We know it may sound baseless to you, but it is not. The reason behind starting this content with that reference is to make you aware of what high levels of potassium can do to your body.

High potassium is dangerous for the functioning of the human body. It becomes a reason for heart attack, kidney failure, and other multiple complications.

Especially the patients battling with Chronic Kidney Diseases need to low potassium foods in their diet for the healthy maintenance of kidneys.

What is potassium?

Potassium is an electrolyte that regulates the blood flow in the human anatomy when in balance. Potassium doesn’t end here and helps with the maintenance of healthy water balance, digestion, muscle contractions, nerve impulse, and pH balance in the body.

A human body doesn’t produce potassium like protein in the body, so we need to take care of the food and beverages we consume.

Kidneys are the organs that help maintain potassium levels when they are healthy and functioning normally. A normal kidney would eliminate the excess of potassium and keep only the specific amounts.

Generally, people undergoing the treatment of Chronic Kidney Diseases have a well-planned diet for the betterment of kidney health. The diet usually comprises foods low in protein, sodium, phosphorus, and potassium as they create complications in the way kidneys function.

Now let us discuss the low potassium foods for kidney patients. What are these foods? Let us get that straight now. Every time you eat any dish made with potato as its key ingredient, you are consuming potassium. If we look at the fruits, then banana is the most significant source of potassium.

Many of us have a habit of eating potato-based dishes without understanding the potassium amounts; then, it may be a problematic condition for you.

Classify low potassium foods for kidney patients

Foods that are low in potassium mostly have refined fats, grains (cornmeal, white rice, and pasta), cheese (soft goat cheese), blueberries, eggs, cabbage, and chia seeds. Also, by using numerous techniques to reduce potassium in foods, you can make even the edible high-potassium foods.

An average intake of potassium in a day should be between 3500 mg and 4500 mg. If you are restricted from the potassium consumption (like kidney patients), it should be specifically 2000 mg per day or as per your dietician and nephrologists suggest.

It would be best if you take your dietician’s advice first to rely on the articles published. We will provide an overview or hypothetical data about low potassium foods for kidney patients.

Even low potassium food taken in excess can act as high potassium food. So, the following are the foods that are low in potassium making edible for kidney patients:

Fruits	Vegetables	Other foods
Apples	Cabbage	Bread (Not whole grains)
Blueberries	Parsley	Coffee (limited amounts)
Cranberries	Radish	Skimmed milk tea
Pineapple	Onions	Pasta
Plums	Cucumber	Rice
Watermelon	Cauliflower	Digestive biscuits
Pears	Celery	Small amounts of cakes

It is worth understanding that how much you love food and difficult it would be for you to skip meals that once you have binged on.

Especially, potato; potato is a staple food that is found almost in every house. Kids love it like French fries and potato wedges, while most of us like to have it as vegetables, stuffed paranthas, etc.

Similarly, banana is abundant with multiple nutritional values that can benefit an average person by easing the problem of digestion or to fill appetite.

But it is considered as high potassium food for kidney patients. However, if you are a kidney patient reading this content, you don’t have to get disheartened because there are ways to help you with the problem.

The leach process: 

It is a process that can make high-potassium vegetables worth eating for kidney patients. In this process, the fruits and vegetables are leached, and their potassium is released. Here is how it is done:

• Take vegetables abundant with potassium and peel them all one by one.
• Now, cut them in slices/dices and put them in cold water to prevent them from darkening.
• Wait for 30 minutes and then drain the water.
• Now, rinse off the vegetables with warm water.
• Soak the rinsed vegetables in warm water only for the next two hours.
• Drain out the existing water and rewash the vegetables with warm water.
• At the time of cooking, make sure to add enough water, and it should be dense enough to eat.

Note: While soaking, make sure that you have added plenty of water so that they don’t get dry, especially in summer.

The Big Takeaway:

Potassium is an electrolyte that is not found naturally in the blood henceforth; it comes from the food we consume throughout the day. The healthy kidneys maintain a balance between the electrolytes floating along with the blood in human anatomy.

It removes the extra potassium from the blood and releases it through the urine. The process continues until kidneys meet an unexpected or expected loss in the forms of trauma and kidney diseases.

In such cases, a kidney patient needs to watch out the levels of nutrients he/she is taking. Hence, an Ayurvedist would recommend the types of food that are low in potassium, phosphorus, sodium, and other nutrients.

In this content, we have discussed the low potassium foods for kidney patients, along with one technique to reduce the amount of potassium from the foods we all love to eat.