DCI releases first kidney-friendly cookbook

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Dec. 15, 2015 - PRLog -- Dialysis Clinic, Inc. (DCI), the nation’s largest nonprofit dialysis provider, released its 2015 renal cookbook, Kidney Cooking, in conjunction with a brand new recipe section on the DCI website (http://www.dciinc.org/recipes/).

Kidney Cooking is a collection of kidney-friendly recipes submitted by patients and staff from around the country. All recipes include a potassium, phosphorous, sodium, protein and calorie analysis to aid kidney patients in identifying recipes that work best with their restrictive dietary needs.  Each recipe was selected based on meeting the National Kidney Foundation’s parameters for renal cookbooks, with entrees containing less than 250 mg of phosphorus, less than 500 mg of sodium, and less than 450 mg of potassium per serving.

“People with kidney disease have many dietary guidelines to follow to stay as healthy as possible, and to many, the renal diet can seem boring or dull,” said Meredith Marinaro, dietitian at DCI Uconn and National Kidney Foundation’s 2015 Dietitian of the Year. “Having a cookbook with recipes from other patients provides a new source of inspiration for patients. It’s not just their health team telling them what to eat anymore, its other people just like them, sharing what worked best for them.”

The cookbook offers 80 recipes divided into the following sections:
·         Breads
·         Breakfasts
·         Poultry, Meat, and Seafood
·         Sides, Sauces, and Snacks
·         Soups and Salads
·         Drinks
·         Desserts
·         Vegetarian

The online recipe section of www.dciinc.org is part of an on-going venture where patients and staff can continue to submit and retrieve kidney-friendly recipes for years to come. Online, the recipe section also includes a grocery list and a key to define basic lab results.

“Providing these resources is an excellent way to highlight the variety of options that are both ‘kidney-friendly’ and that taste good,” said Marinaro. “At this time of year when people are gathering and sharing food, I suggest to my patients that they prepare a kidney-friendly dish so that they have a healthy option to enjoy and share at a gathering. Kidney Cooking will provide a source of healthy and delicious new recipes for my patients and their family and friends to try.”

DCI will be promoting the launch of Kidney Cooking on social media through the rest of December with a “12 days of Kidney Cooking” campaign featuring different holiday recipes from the online recipes section. Kidney Cooking is available as a free PDF for download here (http://www.dciinc.org/download-kidney-cooking/).

Kidney disease affects more than 1 in 10 Americans. People with kidney disease usually have to maintain a restricted diet, where they must rigorously monitor their potassium, phosphorous and fluid intake as their kidney disease progresses. Every person has unique dietary needs and should always check with their physician and dietitian before following any specific dietary plan. To learn more about kidney disease, please visit www.dciinc.org/ckd/

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Founded in 1971, Dialysis Clinic, Inc. (DCI) is the nation’s largest non-profit dialysis provider with over 230 outpatient dialysis clinics in 28 states. Headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, DCI employs over 5,000 people serving approximately 15,000 dialysis patients. DCI’s services include in-center hemodialysis, in-center self-care hemodialysis, home hemodialysis, Continuous Ambulatory Peritoneal Dialysis (CAPD), and Continuous Cycling Peritoneal Dialysis (CCPD). Acute dialysis facilities are located within hospitals around the US. The United States Renal Data System has found DCI to have the lowest patient mortality and hospitalization rates among the national dialysis providers for the last 13 years. DCI operates under the mission “We are a non-profit service organization. The care of the patient is our reason for existence.”