Some foods that you really want to eat are high potassium foods.  And it's hard to not be able to eat them because they are a potassium rich foods.  You can do several things to lower the amount of potassium and help you in your quest to achieve a low potassium diet.  Learning how to leach potassium out of vegetables to reduce the amount of potassium is a basic skill that is very important to you when cooking for a renal diet.  You will need more potassium restriction as your kidney failure worsens, and while on dialysis.  So, being able to still eat some of the high potassium foods by leaching vegetables will enable you to continue to have some variety in your diet.

What is leaching?  Leaching is the process of removing potassium out of vegetables by soaking and other means so that the vegetable releases some of it's potassium instead of ingesting it.  Learning how to leach potassium out of vegetables is a valuable practice for people on a kidney diet to allow for continued variety of foods.  Leaching reduces the amount of potassium in vegetables to 25-50% of the original value.  The longer you soak them, the warmer the water, and the smaller the pieces makes the difference.

Now, lets get started learning how to leach potassium out of vegetables.

High potassium foods need to be prepped for eating by leaching the potassium out of them for a period of time.  This usually takes about 2-4 hours.

Potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, beets and rutabagas require the following process:

1. Prepare a pot with cold water that is large enough to hold the amount of vegetable you are preparing.
2. Peel the vegetable and slice it about 1/8th inch thick (or as thin as you can), place the slices in the cold water to prevent them from turning brown
3. Once you have peeled all the vegetables, empty the pot, and rinse the vegetables in warm water.  Then fill the pot back up – using about 10 times the amount of water to the amount of vegetables.  If you have 1 cup of potatoes, add 10 cups of water.
4. Cover the pot and let it soak for a minimum of 2 hours.  If you soak them for longer, change the water about every 3-4 hours.
5. Once you have allowed them to soak for the time allotted, you should pour out the water and rinse the vegetables again.
6. Cook the vegetable using a ratio of 5:1 for water to vegetables.  Again, if you have 1 cup of potatoes, cook them in 5 cups of water.  Eat them.

Other high potassium foods that you can process by leaching vegetables are squash, mushrooms, cauliflower and frozen greens.  You should do a slightly different process when leaching those vegetables – follow this process:

1. Thaw the frozen vegetables to room temperature and drain the excess water.
2. Rinse the vegetables in warm water.  Then fill a pot up – using about 10 times the amount of water to the amount of vegetables.
3. Cover the pot and let it soak for a minimum of 2 hours.  If you soak them for longer, change the water about every 3-4 hours.
4. Once you have allowed them to soak for the time allotted, you should pour out the water and rinse the vegetables again.
5. Cook the vegetable using a ratio of 5:1 for water to vegetables.  Enjoy them.

I hope that you understand how easy it can be to remove some of the potassium by learning to leach vegetables.  This will help you add some variety to your diet without having to eat too many special foods.

What are your favorite foods that you miss, and how do to incorporate them into your diet?

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