So yesterday I told my boss I wanted to build a collection of renal-friendly, vegan recipes. I was excited that the domain name VeganDialysisRecipes wasn't taken - she laughed at me and I knew she was thinking I was crazy. A - vegans, in theory, should have excellent control of their blood pressure or blood sugar and thus, would be less likely to develop kidney disease. B - how many of my own patients are actually interested in following a vegan diet?
These are good questions to consider. Starting with question "A," as the Gen X-ers move closer to middle-age, it is possible that there could be a slight rise in the number of renal patients who are already following a plant-based diet, whether that be as a strict vegan or as a lacto-ovo vegetarian (there is already evidence that interest in these kind of recipes exist if you look at the Davita website). Also, who's to say that an individual, upon receiving a diagnosis of kidney disease, wouldn't want to embrace a plant-based diet to better manage their health? This leads me into answering question "B" - how many of my own patients are actually interested in a vegan diet? You'd be surprised. I am periodically asked about "juicing," "going raw," or "eating clean" depending on what has recently been featured on Dr. Oz, The Chew, Ellen, etc. And my patients are always asking me about my own diet - the idea of eating soy-based ice cream seems to intrigue. And I can't forget to mention the fact that a lovely article on plant-based eating in dialysis patients came out just this past September (Joan Brookhyser Hogan, 2011). Call me crazy, but I'm thinking there might be an interest in these kinds of recipes
So I have tried to begin my work on recipes and I'll be posting my notes here rather than waiting to see if I've got the perfect recipe - waiting for perfection means I won't get any work done. So over the past week I've created a gumbo recipe that rocked my world (I still need to work on that a bit though) and this asparagus-basil soup, pictured above. Having a well-established "salt-tooth" it should come across as no surprise that I found this soup to be mild at best. That doesn't mean it wasn't tasty, it just means it didn't rock my world and perhaps that is just what I'll need to accept if I'm going to be working on low sodium recipes. I'm not sure.
Speaking of my salt-tooth, I must digress a moment and briefly acknowledge that I recently had a session with a hypnotherapist about my binge eating episodes. It was an interesting experience and she tried to work with me on decreasing my intake of pita chips and other salty snacks, which tend to be a problem area for me. She did a lot of guided visualization about me turning down the "salt gauge" and finding foods in bags much less appetizing than previously. She also talked a lot about my desire to carry water with me and my thirst increasing. That was a week and a half ago and I haven't touched a pita chip since Mardi Gras.
So if I am going to turn down the salt gauge, I suppose I had better start acquiring the taste for low sodium foods. That certainly is what we're dealing with here in this attempt at a springtime soup.
Ingredients:
1 tsp canola oil
1.25c chopped onion
6 scallions, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tablespoons of garbanzo flour
4 cups water
1 lb asparagus (minus the tough ends)
3 sprigs of thyme
1 cup loosely-packed basil
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp low sodium vegan Worchestershire sauce
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4c coconut milk
2 tsp garlic powder
a pinch of powdered ginger
Heat a dutch oven (medium heat) and saute the onions and scallions in oil until soft. Add garlic and stir for about a minute. Add the garbanzo flour and cook for an additional minute or two. Add the water, asparagus, thyme and allow to simmer until the asparagus becomes tender (easily pierced with a fork). Reduce the heat to low and add remaining ingredients. Remove the thyme springs and blend with an immersion blender (optional: remove some asparagus pieces before blending to use as a garnish).
Like a fool, I failed to measure the yield of the entire recipe but let's say the recipe can be divided up to make six servings (I'm thinking this would be six cups total but it might be more - I'll have to measure this out next time). One sixth of the recipe (whatever that measure ends up being) would provide the following:
Calories: 75.5
Fat: 1.4g
Carbohydrates: 12.3g
Protein: 3.4g
Sodium: 11mg
Potassium: 324mg
Phosphorus: 79mg
Unfortunately the recipe wasn't very high in protein - I was hoping the garbanzo flour might help but that wasn't the case. Perhaps actually adding garbanzo beans and blending down would help with this as well as add some texture to the soup. Not all recipes can be high protein though, so maybe this would pair nicely with some grilled tofu wedges or something...or maybe the low protein level of this soup would prove valuable to someone in the early stages of kidney disease (a time when some say reducing protein intake can be of value).
The good news is the recipe is wicked low in sodium - you could actually add a pinch of table salt to the soup without sending the sodium content over the edge.
So next time around I'm thinking these are the changes I'll be making:
Replace the garbanzo flour with actual chickpeas
Replace the garlic and the garlic powder with a few roasted garlic cloves
Skip the thyme
Add half a teaspoon of salt - there's definitely room for it
Decrease the onions to 1 cup
Substitute leeks for the scallions
Try lemon zest instead of lemon juice
