Kidney Disease Friendly Mocktails and Drinks

Hi there! It's Mathea Ford with Renal Diet HQ and today I want to talk about Kidney-friendly drinks like mocktails which is an alcohol-free version of a cocktail and some other things that you can drink when you just can't drink water anymore.

With kidney disease, it's important to understand that you can drink a few different beverages. There are some limitations depending on what stage you're in of course but alcohol and fizzy sodas aren't necessarily the best thing for you although you can drink them on occasion but in summer or any time of the year actually when everybody else is around you and they're cracking a cold beer or drinking a margarita by the pool or you know at a party, you don't have to just drink water. So, I wanted to give you some ideas for beverages that might work as a good advantage and help you kind of put something together maybe that would be delicious.

My first recipe is called a Spiced Mimosa which is obviously a Mimosa. It is orange juice and champagne and this drink you would use sparkling apple cider kind of as your champagne and maybe some cranberry juice which is a little bit healthier, a little bit less potassium than orange juice and alongside with other flavorings. You could put a little bit of ginger in there you can put a little bit of rosemary, crushed ice for sure. So, making something that has a little bit of ginger in it.

Ginger is actually very calming to your stomach but it's also got a little bit of zing to it so you might enjoy that in the Spiced Mimosa.

My second thought is a Strawberry Lemon Slush. Blending up some frozen fruits with lemon-lime soda can make a great slushie in place of like a Daiquiri or other frozen drink so you can use it. A lot of people are limited on phosphorous and regular colas, dark colas have a lot of phosphorus in them but actually clear sodas like lemon juice I mean like lemon-lime sodas Sprite, 7up that type of thing is going to have almost no phosphorous so you can drink that and mix it with a little bit of some frozen fruits and have a delicious drink and not have the not have to just do water.

Number three: Piña Colada which is a good drink but you could do some pineapple juice and gives you that little bit of Piña Colada flavor with again the lemon-lime soda which I explained before and some crushed ice and maybe a little bit of like coconut milk or a coconut flavoring if you had some little drops to give it some creaminess and that tropical flavor and adding a little bit of you know basil could be good for that. It makes a really good drink.

Number four is infused waters. There are so many options for this and it's taking plain water and stepping it up a notch so you can buy bottles or dispensers that you can put these you know fruit or whatever into the middle of and it'll automatically do it or you can just add it. One of my favorite drinks ever is just water with cucumber.

I just love the refreshing flavor of cucumber. You can pair cucumber with water, you can put raspberry, watermelon, some mint in there, lemons and strawberries. Anything that fruit will give it a little bit of that essence and it'll be a refreshing change without a lot of extra calories or you know potassium, phosphorus any of that or
sodium.

Number five: An Espresso Martini. Some brewed coffee whether it's decaf or regular coffee and then adding a little bit of non-dairy milk if you're concerned about your potassium or phosphorus - non-dairy milk or a little bit of creamer - and lots of ice to make that delicious a little bit of flavorful drink and iced coffee is everybody loves those right now so just even make it a nice coffee can be a good change. I know you're going to say coffee has some potassium and phosphorus and it does which is why you kind of blend it with a little bit of a non-dairy creamer or cream to give it a little more flavor without as much coffee.

One more thing, I love these products. They're True Lemon and they are actually little sleeves that you can put into your water and you get like 10 in a pack and I just take a 16-ounce bottle of water and put these in there and so they do contain a small amount of carbohydrate. They do have Stevia instead of Nutrasweet or Splenda and it's really just a little bit of lemon oil, a little bit of sugar, a little bit Stevia and then it says natural flavor. I don't see anywhere where it says phosphates so I think these are perfect to put in your drinks and actually they make them in peach lemonade, they have a watermelon lemonade, they have strawberry limeade. I love all those flavors and I actually drink more water because I put those flavor packets in there so I just drink a little sip out of the top pour that in there shake it up and it's good to go. Very delicious.

But I want to remind you that doing all of this, you're going to want to watch your sodium that you're taking in but you also need to review your lab so you may have heard "I need to cut out potassium. On a renal diet, I can't eat potassium." Really, the only two restrictions that are for everybody on a renal diet are sodium, you need to limit to 2300 milligrams are lower and protein you need to limit to about 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight and I've talked about that in other videos and but you want to look at your labs, if you don't have high potassium you don't need to restrict it. If you don't have a high phosphorous, you don't need to restrict it.

There are lots of things that your labs can tell you about your diet and actually how you're doing with your kidney disease and I want to remind you that starting next Tuesday, I'm going to have my course Understanding Kidney Test Results available.

A couple months ago I had it ready and I did like a preview course with some people and they loved it and so now it's going to be open to the public. It'll be on the website, it's called Understanding Kidney Test Results and I want to remind you it opens next Tuesday, it'll be open you know going forward. If you're interested in learning more about that head over to the website and I will put the link below for the waitlist and you can get on there and then I'll get you an email as soon as the course is open. I'm just finishing up a few little things so don't forget about that and I want to thank you for your time today.