Their Father’s Food

Here’s hoping you all enjoyed your Father’s Day yesterday.  Although we were missing Nima who lives in New York and Kelly and Sean who both had to work, it was a very good day for us.  Lara’s love played the guitar for a sing-a-long and Darin showed us the newspaper article which quoted him.  Abby had to leave early for the Blues dance lesson she teaches, but we’d had a good, long afternoon together by that time.  Long enough that Lara finally got to really just talk with her dad.

It was all good, except the food.  Bear doesn’t have Chronic Kidney Disease and usually follows the renal diet with me anyway.  Yesterday was the exception.  Since we finally figured out that I’m not Bear’s mother and he’s not my father, this was the last Mother’s Day (He always makes me a bar b q with food I can eat.) or Father’s Day we would host. I gave him a pad and pen and said, “Write down your menu.”

Bear was raised in the Midwest and eats a lot of food that’s still strange to this ex New York Jew.  Let’s start with the honey baked ham.  Okay, he spent his childhood summers on his grandparents’ farm; I get that. I grew up not eating ham because it’s not kosher and we were practicing Jews.  But why isn’t it on the renal diet?

Thank you Wedliny Domowe at http://www.meatsandsausages.com/hams-other-meats/hams for this information. Ham is a processed meat.  It can be cured in a number of ways, but most include the use of salt, and nitrites, which themselves are either sodium or potassium. The dry method of curing uses salt, while the wet method uses brine. And what is brine but a solution of sodium in water? And then there’s smoking. {Ack! Smoke contains formaldehyde and alcohol.}

We know as CKDers that we need to limit our sodium intake. As I wrote in What Is It And How Did I Get It? Early Stage Chronic Kidney Disease, pages 73-4,

“Basically, sodium balances fluid levels outside your cells.  You need it because it is responsible for watering your cells.  This watering is the prompt for potassium to dump waste [cell process by-products] from your cells….If you have damaged kidneys and cannot excrete most of the sodium you ingest, you’re up against higher blood pressure which may worsen your CKD which may further cut down on your elimination of sodium and so on and so forth in an ever spiraling cycle. In addition, for CKD patients, too much sodium causes fluid retention, thereby causing swelling, further resulting in weight gain, leading to shortness of breath.”

And let’s not forget that high blood pressure is the second leading cause of Chronic Kidney Disease.

Well, what about the potassium in the nitrite used in preserving the ham.  Why do CKDers have to limit the amount of potassium they ingest? By the way, too much sodium can increase your need for potassium.

But isn’t potassium good for you?  After all, it does help the heart, muscles, and our beloved kidneys function normally as well as dumping wastes from our cells. Here’s the kicker, an excess of potassium can cause irregular heartbeat and even heart attack.

We are not your everyday people whose kidneys can filter any excess potassium from our bodies.  We have compromised kidney function which could mean a buildup in potassium.  No wonder CKD may lead to cardiovascular problems!

I’m almost afraid to look at the rest of Bear’s Father’s Day menu.  He also requested cold cuts of roast beef.  Uh-oh, that’s another cured meat.  Cold cuts also tend to be fattier cuts and have nitrates, which are different than the nitrites discussed above.

According to Dictionary.com at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/nitrate, a nitrate is “a salt or ester [That’s an organic compound.] of nitric acid.”  Wait a minute!  Nitric acid is a corrosive liquid, as most of us learned way back in high school.

And, as Dr. Veeraish Chauhan (one of the nephrologists in Florida that received a donation of the book this past March when I was there) wrote in his April 6, 2013 {our wedding day!} blog, “… red meat could be a big source of uric acid, which has been shown to be associated with worsening of CKD.”

Red meat contains cholesterol.  Fattier cuts contain more cholesterol. This substance can clog the arteries, leading to heart problems.  We already have a higher risk of heart problems simply because we have CKD.  Why raise the risk???

And then we have the sweet potato casserole.  Sweet potatoes?  I don’t remember the last time I had one of those. Talk about potassium overload!  We already discussed the CKDers’ problems with that.

Well, what about the green bean casserole?  I didn’t have to eat the crispy, fried onions on top of it. But it’s in creamed mushroom soup.  Oh, right.  Creamed soup is high in phosphorous. The National Kidney Foundation at http://www.kidney.org/atoz/content/phosphorus.cfm tells us, although phosphorus is necessary to work with calcium for healthy bones:

“High phosphorus levels can cause damage to your body. Extra phosphorus causes body changes that pull calcium out of your bones, making them weak. High phosphorus and calcium levels also lead to dangerous calcium deposits in blood vessels, lungs, eyes, and heart. Phosphorus and calcium control is very important for your overall health.”

The orange mimosas seemed to delight everyone but Abby.  I didn’t even try one.  I.just.don’t.drink.  Too much alcoholism in my family history.  Anyway, while the orange juice in this drink didn’t seem to be a problem, the champagne was actually good for us, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Their MedlinePlus at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_145838.html posted new findings about the benefits of wine.  Champagne is a wine.  Surprise!  If you have CKD, wine in moderation may help protect you from that health disease you’ve at risk of.

I am not even going to analyze the carrot cake from Cheesecake Factory.  That is so bad for you on so many levels!  I am so glad I researched these foods AFTER the celebratory meal so I wasn’t tempted to spout this information to those enjoying the food.

I was thinking of combining the SlowItDown and book FB pages, twitter accounts, and website.  Any thoughts of your own about this?

Until next week,

Keep living your life!