Renal Diet
A renal diet is essential to treating renal disease or failure. Depending on the totality of your kidney and general health, a diet for renal failure may limit potassium, protein, fluid, salt and/or phosphorous. It is important to see a dietician periodically to determine if you need to adjust the foods for your renal diet.

Diabetes And Renal Diets
One of the leading causes of renal or kidney failure is diabetes. A renal diet for type 2 diabetes, or type 1 for that matter, should include eggs, lean meats, white bread, plain bagels and pasta, non-fat milk, non-starchy vegetables, whole fruits and sugar-free beverages. A type 2 diabetes diet for renal disease and failure should exclude high fat/low nutrition food stuffs, nuts, potatoes that are not boiled well, dried beans, whole wheat products and sweet and salty foods and sauces.

If you are looking for a collection of diabetic diet recipes for renal failure or insufficiencies, there’s no shortage of places to look. You can start at your library, searching the 610-615 classifications in the non-fiction section, looking specifically for renal diabetic diet cookbooks. You can also look online, using your favorite search engine to look for “renal diabetic recipes”, with the quotes. RNSHope, an organization dedicated to offering a renal support network, has a number of renal diet recipes on their website. Once at their site, look for Health Info along the left of the window, then click on Renal Friendly Recipes.

Gestational diabetes affects about 4% of pregnant women in the US. During pregnancy, the best odds for diet to prevent renal failure or long term damage are to keep potassium, phosphorous, sugar and salt to a minimum.

Information Sources
The National Kidney Foundation is a great source of information and recipes for eating a proper renal diet. The National renal diet exchanges, as set forth by the NKF, have been used to modify some traditional favorite dishes to be more renal friendly. They offer a plethora of tips and ideas for changing your day to day cooking for better kidney health.

The DaVita website offers a great deal of general information regarding the proper diet for renal patients. They also cover topics like dialysis, kidney transplant and insurance issues renal patients often face. Always consult your physician or a registered dietician before starting diet for renal patients.

Canine Renal Diet
Dogs are susceptible to renal failure almost as much as humans are. Their diets should include only the highest quality protein in very limited amounts (about 15% of their diet should be protein). A renal failure diet for dogs should comprise of four to six very small meals per day to reduce the chance of vomiting. There is no evidence that a renal diet will prolong a dog’s life but will make the remainder of his or her life much more comfortable.