What can kidney stone formers eat for breakfast?

Welcome back to the Kidney Stone Diet Podcast, the show about reducing your risk for kidney stones and living your best life. I'm your host and fellow student, Jeff Sarris.

And I'm Jill Harris. I am a person. I am a nurse.

I'm a person, too. I'm a nurse who helps people navigate kidney stone prevention through dietary changes.

Yeah, then this podcast is where we synthesize all that information, all the stuff that you do one-on-one with clients, and we help people directly through their ears, through their headphones. So, we do our best to get as much information out through this show as we can.

So, what do you say we dive right into this week's topic?

Let's go. Let's go. I'm ready.

All right. So, this question came right out of your Facebook group, the Kidney Stone Prevention Diet. "Breakfast is my hardest meal.

What can I possibly eat for breakfast?"

I think that's a great question, so I'll tell you a little story. And people are thinking, "I didn't ask for no story, Jill. I'm asking about breakfast." I'm going to tell you a little story anyway.

So, for years and years and years, I did not like breakfast. It was just not, you know, eating in the morning was just not my deal.

And then, you know, I'm always trying to change up things that become habits for me. And I wanted to, you know, my client load was a lot, and I was finding that I was really my energy was draining by like 10:00. If I'm on the phone at 7:00 AM with clients,

You know, by 10:00, I was really drained, and now at that time, I didn't have time to eat. So, it's like, maybe I want to rethink that I'm somebody who doesn't eat in the morning. So, I tried just doing something really simple like I'd bake some oat bran muffins that are kidney stone diet-friendly, of course.

That recipe's at kidneystonediet.com. It's one of my favorite little breakfast things. Super quick.

I put them in the freezer. I take them out the night before, and I'm ready for breakfast. A good amount of fiber.

I like to have it with my coffee in the morning. And it really helped me keep my energy throughout the morning until it was time or I had,

You know, until I could get something else in my mouth in between clients. So, I've rethought the whole breakfast thing. I am not somebody who says, "You have to eat breakfast.

Breakfast is the most important part of the day." Look, in order to stay compliant, you will hear me say this always. In order to stay compliant

To a healthy lifestyle, you have to be eating the diet that works for you, so you can stay compliant. Breakfast, it may work for you. It may not.

If you like breakfast and you're looking for things to eat, but you don't want it to be laborious and cumbersome, make things that are super easy. Start your day with some yogurt or non-dairy yogurt. Put some high fiber fruits in there that are low oxalate.

Almost all of them are except raspberries. Maybe a little bit of honey. There you go.

There's a nice,

Satiating, breakfast. That's easy. Maybe you want to have some granola in there as well.

Maybe, maybe you want to have last night's leftover pot roast and vegetables. You know, we don't have to have breakfast foods for breakfast. Remember when you were little or even as adults that you just loved having eggs for dinner, like, "Woah, can you believe I'm having eggs at 7:00?"

I mean, you can eat food whenever you want it. It's interesting to me that we let time dictate what kind of food we're going to eat. So, maybe you just want some leftovers from last night's breakfast.

Whatever it is, make sure that it's kidney stone diet safe, you know? So, there's the yogurt, there are some healthy cereals you can have, like making your own granola. Anything I suggest that you make, you can find recipes on my website.

They're less than a half hour, so nothing's a long time, and you can get a nice size amount of what I'm asking you to make, and then you have it throughout the week.

The other thing though I want to say is I really wish people would change up not having a an oat bran muffin every single morning for breakfast, not having the same yogurt, you know, blueberry every morning for breakfast. I find that my patients eat the same breakfast for 20 years, and there's absolutely no variety in their day as far as food goes, so mix it up.

Eggs, if you eat eggs, maybe just egg white omelet with some kale in there and tomato. I mean, none of these things take a long time, so, you know. And I'm going to say this, too, Jeff, not that anyone asked.

A lot of people will say, "Jill, I don't have time," or, "Jill, I don't want to think about food." Well, I push back. What else is there to think about besides how you're going to nourish your body? Because guess what?

If your body doesn't work well for you, you're not going to work well throughout the day. So, it's very important you take 10 minutes to think about what you the possibilities, what do you enjoy for breakfast,

What kind of foods do you like, what are you willing to make, you know, and think about it. Google stuff. "Ideas for breakfast." Again, you know, my website has ideas for breakfast, too, but you can just Google and decide what you may like.

It doesn't take a long time. It just doesn't. So, I know everybody wants quick and easy, and I totally get that, but it's super important that we put some time into our health.

So, it's not just about diet. We put time into our health, because what we feed this machine—I like to call it a machine so we don't get too heady about bodies—you want to nurse your machine the best you can so it can perform for you.

Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, that's the whole thing. We want to be optimized.

We want to like, optimized might be a little like far down the path. We just want to not be in pain, maybe. We want to feel better throughout our day and not suffer from any of the consequences of some maybe poor choices consistently day after day over a long period of time.

So, when it comes to breakfast, like you mentioned, like eggs and the muffins and cereal, is there What does it take to make something kidney stone diet compliant? For someone who might be just coming in on this episode, what are the things to look out for?

Well, the things that we're most worried about for kidney stone, and general good health, by the way. So, again, the reason I can talk about kidney stone, the kidney stone diet for 21 years is because it's a healthy diet. We're asking you to keep your added sugar as low as possible.

We're asking you to lower your sodium. We'd like it to be between 1500 and 2300 mg a day. We want you to get enough calcium, because you have a skeleton you need to feed, obviously, but you also it's it's how the body rids itself of oxalate, so you need enough calcium.

So, that's why that's part of the kidney stone diet.

Lowering your oxalate to about 100 mg a day, unless your doctor has told you otherwise. Not overeating meat protein, because that can lead to uric acid stones and calcium oxalate stones. Getting enough fluid.

So, those are the things, we ask from you. And so, you may just look at some recipes. What I do is I'll look at some recipes.

I'll play with them until I make them kidney stone diet safe. So, you know, if someone something says in a recipe, "Add salt," guess what? You don't have to add no salt.

When I first started cooking, and it was just a few years ago. I'm such a nerd. I'm like, "Oh, shit.

It says to add salt, but I can't. I don't want to add the salt. What am I going to do?

I can't make this recipe!" Like, You know, so even after just cooking for 3 years, now I'm like, " I'm not going to add the salt. I'm going to add this. I'm going to wing this." And now, I was such I was so afraid to do anything except what the recipe said.

Now, I'm like, the rebel in me. So, I'm I have such a dichotomy. I'm a rule follower, but a rebel as well.

So, the rebel of me has now taken over, and I'm like, "I'm going to make this kidney stone diet friendly if it's the last thing I do." So,

You know, you don't have to add the extra sugar a lot of times in the recipe. Of course, if you're baking you may, but, you know, like some of the recipes I have, if it asks for like a quarter cup of sugar, oh, heck no, I've put that really low, and in sometimes I'll even use sugar-free substitutes like maple syrup that has absolutely no sugar in it.

I never add the extra salt, and I season my foods with

And real quick on the maple syrup, it's you choose a specific one with no sugar, not cuz they generally are sugar, correct?

Yeah, I choose one that says it's stevia sweetened, so that's important. And so, people will tell me, "You know, well, you're using ingredients that aren't natural." I'm like, "Look, it's so little. I'm not worried about it." And people will get mad, because they'll say, "Jill, that has artificial sweeteners in it." Okay, let me tell you what, Pam.

When you're working with somebody who's 400 lbs, and they need to get off sugar and lower calories, because they're going to die unless they don't, a little bit of sweetener, that's the least of our problems here, right? So, I have to look at the whole picture. So, you know, getting sugar and salt, the least amount in a recipe that we can, while adding beautiful like fresh herbs, so I'll season my food with and I'll spend extra money on all fresh herbs, cuz it's so delicious, right?

So, and all the money I'm not spending on medical bills, I can buy fresh herbs with, so there you go. So, you know, there's ways in which to do it. It takes a little practice, and that's why I'm here.

I'll do it for you. You can get recipes off my website and get it that way, you know?

You don't even have to think about it, right.

And I think a lot of people can relate, too, because in this past year, I'm sure a lot of people are cooking so much more than they have in the past just because of everything we've been going through with COVID and what not. So, one of the things that we wanted to mention in this episode is we have a really exciting service that we are product, service, whatever you want to say, which ties directly into this, because I mean, the listeners, the people in the group, the people in the email list, they've been asking and begging for recipes and things for so long.

Yeah, for years. For years. For years.

For years. And I'm like, "You know what, people? I'm not a cook.

I mean, come on. I'm I'm teaching kidney stone prevention." But the more I kept thinking about it, I'm like, "Okay, Jill, your patients are telling you what they want. Come on now, girl.

Get to it." So, I Yeah, and what they need. And look, so, I got over myself, just like I'm always asking my patients to be patient with themselves, change takes time, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, "Jill, listen to what you tell everybody all the time." So, I started on YouTube.

I started to learn how to cook, and I started making recipes kidney stone diet safe. And, you know, it's been a great It's been so much fun for me, I have to say. So, anyway, so we've made this new thing, and it's basically meal plans, inspirational meal plans for you.

So, you know, every month we'll send you new recipes, and you can, you know, say instead of saying, " I don't know what to make this week,"

There's going to be all kinds of inspirations, so you get that sent to you. And

Yeah, and so, every Sunday, we're going to send you an email just with an update to let you know, "Hey, this week's meal plan is ready to go." you can think of it sort of like a living cookbook of sorts. It's we're still like we're in the early days. There's there's, I mean, dozens of recipes already in there just for meal plan subscribers, and every week, every month, as Jill mentioned, there will be new ones added, but we have it randomly, set up, your like, weekly plan every week.

So, then a lot of times what we run into when it comes to like figuring out what we're going to cook, what we're going to eat for our next meal, it's just like you said, Jill,

People will go for the same, the same exact thing every breakfast. So, what we're doing here is we're really just trying to like add that variety. Like, give people the inspiration to maybe today's eggs, maybe, like you said, maybe it's leftovers, maybe it's a roast, maybe it's whatever it is, but everything is there to help guide you along the way on this journey, because we've been we've been hearing so much for so long now, just how much people are begging for recipes and ideas.

Yes, and yes, and here's what I've learned, and I finally listened to my patients on this one. I always say, "Look, you're going to have to put some time and effort into this. That's just how it is.

This is your health. This is your life. No one wants to live a long time if you don't feel well.

That's not fun." So, I'd get on my high horse and say, " you got to cook, and you got to do this, and you got to." So, I started thinking, I'm like, "Look, people are telling you exactly what they want, and you're being a pain in the tush, quite frankly."

So, I made recipes based upon what people have told me. "I don't want to think about it too much. I don't have time, but I want them to be good." So, they are easy recipes.

A baby doll can make them. They are quick. They're simple.

And they are all kidney stone diet-friendly. There will be ones for diabetics, there will be ones for keto, there will be low-carb people, cuz I eat low carb,. There will be all kinds of things, but each recipe I have made is based upon what patients have told me.

So, what am I, Rachael Ray? Julia Child? No.

They're simple, safe, kidney stone-friendly recipes. But anybody who wanted to, you know, watch their sugar and salt, which everyone should, and get more calcium, all of those things, anybody should be eating this way, quite frankly, because it's very mindful of the sugar and salt, it's mindful of portion sizes, so you know, this isn't for people like, "I have this many calories." You'll have to figure all that out.

This is inspiration, so when you're like, "I have no idea what to cook this week," you have your meal plan inspiration right there in your email. It's It'll be I think that it's going to be a really great thing. I'm excited about it.

Yeah, we're we're hoping it really helps out, because this, like you said, this isn't tailored for an individual. Like, that's a diet a registered dietitian will tailor a meal plan for one person, but this is giving the broad strokes of if you say, "Okay, what am I going to eat next that's going to be a positive for my kidney stone disease?" Let me Let me look at this, and it's going to be a good option.

Accessing the New Meal Plan Service

So,

Yeah. If you're interested in checking it out, be sure to head over to kidneystonediet.com. This is actually the very first time we are letting anyone know.

So, this is sort of a thank you for listening to this whole episode. And it's it's a soft launch, so we have most recipes have photos, but some don't have the photos yet, and we're going to continue to grow and progress with the product and service as it is, but if you're interested in getting in today, you can head over to kidneystonediet.com and click the big link on the homepage, and check out more info.

Yep. And here's the Here's the other thing that I do love extra about it is each recipe, pretty much, and like Jeff said, we're doing soft launch right now at a very low price, by the way, so get in while it's cheapest, because it will really grow and get more robust as time goes on. But what I've done, too, is I've added kidney stone diet safe tips to each recipe, so you can see why I chose the things I did.

I wrote those tips with what I knew patients would say, "Hey, Jill, why'd you do this?" or "What about this?" So, I tried to address each of those things that I thought you guys, as my patients, might think about or kidney stone formers. So, it also comes with education throughout it, too, which I really—well, you know, that's what I love, so, yeah.

So, we're excited about it, and you guys are the very first people to know. We haven't told a soul.

Yeah, it's special for the podcast listeners, and it'll be on the homepage, but yeah, I mean, we're going to do this soft launch of sorts, and then yeah, just start to get it out there, drip it out to say the Facebook group and the email list over time. But yeah, this is all for you guys, all for you listening right now, and I think we'll wrap there.

I think that's a great spot to end. So, thanks again, Jill.

Of course.

Yeah. You guys listening, I hope to be back with you next week.

Bye, guys.