WHAT ABOUT MY KIDNEY KITCHEN??

by Robin Rose MD

🫐My kitchen is my laboratory, my work shop, my sanctuary, my refuge - a place to thrive and nourish and learn and play and experiment.

🍓With kidney decline, the kitchen takes on a sacred healing role - a temple of empowerment and optimism, a place to explore the self-love and willingness for the audacity and the pure intent to be well.

🧄First is making it fun. Exciting. A kitchen is the heart of the home. Where the flow begins.

🍍Then there’s that willingness to clean up - explore the kitchen for hazards. That takes some learning and study - and open mindedness. Acceptance that we are living in a culture with many kidney-unfriendly offerings is important: I sacrifice them gratefully and graciously on the altar of health and willingness. I recognize the annoying desire for unhealthy foods and drinks and even cleaning items - and I choose to let these things go. I am willing. I find ways to keep the kitchen clean - ways that chase away and clean away the microbes and bugs and insects and rodents - and yet I choose ways that support my well being. I find soap that isn’t toxic. I use vinegar to cleanse the counters.

🍆The detox continues. Dishes need to be lead free -that takes commitment. Learning about this is a self inspired hobby. The pots and pans have to be safe and free of poisons as well. I prefer iron cookware (despite some concerns about iron, there are approaches to lowering the risk like Carnosine and Lactoferrin ). I used glass cookware in the past- until I learned of it is a heavy metal risk. Stainless steel pans can leach nickel. Other kinds of pans leach chemicals as well- the coating breaks down.

This is an on going effort.

🍠Continued detox also includes the attitude I bring to cooking - again the fun means the joy of cooking offers healing. Gratitude is the portal. I make choices ( no I do not cheat - this isn’t a game).

🍎In my book RENOLOGY PEPTIDES I addressed the dangers of glyphosate in the food - there are many other toxins that a kidney-friendly kitchen needs to eliminate. This post is just a brief entry into the idea that a kidney kitchen is Medicine. So organic food is truly a medicinal path - avoiding what harms becomes a spiritual practice . Think of it just like the kidney tubules : discerning what to keep and what to eliminate - my obligation in the kitchen reflects this innate skill. As a self protecting organism I can no longer allow a casual attitude about things that harm nephrons - keeping every one I have healthy is my life work.

🫛Things to think about - fermented foods have become a major player in our kitchen sanctuary! My husband has become a master fermenter- every meal we have something fermented - from fruits and vegetables to soy dairy ( organic home made) and drinks ( kombucha and lacto- fermented fizzy drinks) - learning the role of a healthy microbiome in ckd is step 1 to thriving in kidney success.

🥦Avoiding foods treated with antibiotics is obvious. Eating fiber-rich food that supports healthy gut organisms makes sense. Avoiding food that encourages candida really helps - less grains and more fibrous carb foods like squash and sweet potatoes is a nice shift. Sugar be gone!! A little honey and maple syrup supported by the ground leaf of stevia (very sweet but not glycemic) has been a shift. I can still bake desserts despite eliminating dairy, gluten, sugar, and inflaming oils.

🥑Speaking of oil - the awareness that seed oils cause inflammation is becoming more accepted. And that means canola oil goes on that altar of sacrifice- bye bye to it and safflower and sunflower and corn and soy oil - but ghee and coconut, olive and avocado in small amounts is what this kitchen uses. I use sesame oil as a garnish.

🎋Think of herbs and spices as medicine - they are functional foods that bring antioxidant benefits - combining spices is world-wide knowledge and we have many traditions to embrace and fill the palate with an array of international delectables. When they grow in the garden that’s even better. I’m going to blog on more and more of these fabulous functional foods that prop up the kidney success story.

🌱Salads are a daily gift- growing greens is easy. After learning about nitric oxide and kidney, I began cultivating arugula in my garden and have supplemented salads with these spicy leaves that offer more healing in the form of edible nitrates ( with a healthy mouth microbiome, the body has the ability to transform this food into a blood vessel and immunity celebrating beneficial!) Daily fare!! That and cilantro - another amazing food that can keep the body moving heavy metals along .

🥬Everyone is unique - some people have a genetic SNP that makes cilantro taste like soap! Know your own specifics- including your phosphorus and potassium in lab work, also uric acid and level of acid base - why? The kitchen offers remedies to these problems that can become serious issues. Act soon and enjoy reversal of inner terrain disruptions.

☀️

🌈Join me in this adventure of creating a kidney-success kitchen - plant based protein is my ballpark and I will share some of my favorites in blogs.

🌊JOIN me in manifesting KIDNEY SUCCESS! That’s RENOLOGY🫶🏾