Renal Diet Podcast 086: Can You Eat Pasta with Renal Disease?

Podcast #86 Released on March 23, 2018
I want to talk to you about eating pasta on a kidney diet because believe it or not it’s actually national noodle month. March is National Kidney Disease Month or Kidney Awareness Month and it’s also National Nutrition Month so as a dietitian, I’m interested in all of those.
So, I wanted to talk to you today about eating pasta on a kidney diet because a lot of times we see here all these weird diets and I shouldn’t call them weird but they’re weird, like low carb, Atkins – all that stuff and those diets might work for someone who is not experiencing a chronic disease and not dealing with a chronic disease but you, if you have kidney disease or you have a family member who has kidney disease, then you’re one of those people that really needs to follow a more traditional diet without trying to eliminate everything because you’re already going to have to manage and minimize some of those things that you already are eating like protein.
Pasta is kind of like its a little bit harder to give you nutritional information on because pastas a variety of things – it’s noodles, it’s egg noodles, it’s rotini, it’s spaghetti – it’s all those things so I can’t tell you specifically depending on the brand you certainly can look at the label but it’s definitely going to be lower potassium, lower phosphorus and potatoes. One cooked spaghetti serving which is usually about a half a cup has about 200 calories 7 mg of protein and 40 grams of carb so actually that’s probably closer to a cup if it has 40 grams of carbs and some fiber and it’s going to be enriched so it’s going to have some extra B vitamins in it. So, if you had about a cup of cooked spaghetti you’re already getting seven grams of protein just purely from the flour that’s in the spaghetti so if you’re protein just purely from the flour that’s in the spaghetti.
If you’re managing the amount of protein that you’re eating you want to be aware that pasta can be a source of protein; it can be good, if you’re on a vegetarian diet, it can be a good source of protein for you there. It’s typically low in phosphorus and potassium and that’s something that a lot of people are watching and it can be low in sodium; you just have to look at the label to be clear. But when you’re doing it, the main thing is to make sure you’re not putting it with things that are high in sodium or high in phosphorus and potassium like red sauce. If you’re going to have red sauce you might want to make your own and that you can make it in a little lower sodium version.
We’re going to have some new spices coming out on the Nickanny’s kitchen line and they’ll be salt free and you can use those to make a good sauce I’m going to have an Italian one eventually. I’m going to have in the Facebook group or in the Facebook page on this page we’re going to have if you are listening on the podcast it’s facebook.com/renaldiet, we’re going to have a poll for you to tell me what the next spice should be. I’ve already decided the first one it’s like a pepper blend with some cumin and chili still thinking of a name but next one, I’m going have a list of about four different ones that you can give me your vote on.
White versions of pasta in your meal. You want to avoid like the whole grains just because they tend to have a little more potassium and phosphorus in them so if you’re really concerned about that you want to stick to the whole grains. Watch out for the sodium content again, just make sure that whatever you’ve got,