Nutrition and peritoneal dialysis

Ever wondered what you should eat when on peritoneal dialysis?  I had the priviledge of working with Baxter and Malaysian Dietetics Association recently to do a talk and hands-on cooking session with patients on peritoneal dialysis and their carers.

(Clockwise from top) Lettuce, Cucumber and Pineapple Kerabu, Braised Chicken in Plum Sauce and Baked Apple Rolls

Whilst on peritoneal dialysis, in addition to eating a healthy diet, patients need to limit their intake of phosphate, sodium and potassium.

Phophate

• To reduce excessive phosphate intake, cook lean meat/fish without bones.
  

Potassium

• Choose vegetables/fruits with low potassium content.
  
• Peel off skin from fruits.
  
• Roughly chop vegetables and soak in water for about an hour to leach out some potassium.  Discard the soaking liquid.
  
• Use whole spices instead of ground spices.
  

Sodium

• Limit the use of salt and sauces.
  
• Use fresh herbs, spices, ginger, garlic, onion, lime/lemon to add flavour.
  

Lettuce, Cucumber and Pineapple Kerabu
This salad has low potassium and sodium content.  It uses low potassium vegetables such as lettuce and cucumber.  Tinned pineapples which are drained of their liquid were added as processed pineapple has less potassium compared to fresh pineapples.  Fresh herbs such as laksa leaves (daun kesom), torch ginger bud (bunga kantan) adds fragrance to this salad.  The dressing is made using fresh lime juice and sugar.

Braised Chicken in Plum Sauce
This nyonya style chicken dish was improvised from my recipe in 'Lite Malaysian Favourites' to suit patients on dialysis.  To reduce phosphate and fat content, boneless chicken breasts were used.  To limit the sodium content, salted plums were omited and a reduced amount of plum sauce and dark soya sauce were used instead.  Fresh herbs such as grated sand ginger (cekur), coriander, and plenty of garlic and shallots added flavour to the dish. 

Baked Apple Rolls
This dessert is similar to my baked banana recipe (Lite Malaysian Favourites), but I substituted the bananas (high potassium) with apples (low potassium).  The apples were peeled and grated.  You can use other low potassium fruits such as pineapple or pear.