A Kidney-Focused Dietitian Shares Her Favorite Tools for Making Mealtime Easier

The main benefit of having an electric pressure like the COSORI 6-Qt 9-in-1 Electric Pressure Cooker is you can make just about anything in a relatively short amount of time, Clancy-Strawn says.  

“This one pot makes dried beans and lentils realistic on a weeknight. Beans bring fiber and plant protein that helps slow that blood sugar rise, and cooking from dry means no canning salt,” she adds. 

The pressurized lid is what allows the pressure cooker to greatly speed up cooking times while still delivering great-tasting food. 

“It cooks hotter than boiling,” Clancy-Strawn says. “Stew meat is tender in about 35 to 45 minutes, and the grains and vegetables keep their texture instead of everything cooking down to one texture like in a CrockPot.” 

Pressure cookers can also make it easier to cook various types of whole and wild grains, which have several benefits for kidney health.

“I really love how it makes the grains because they're a good texture, they're not mushy,” Clancy-Strawn says. “They're for things that are really hard to cook. A lot of people stay away from them because they just don't know how to cook the harder rices and the quinoas and things like that. And it makes it a really nice texture.”

Additionally, the COSORI 6-Qt 9-in-1 Electric Pressure Cooker can easily be used in small spaces or by those who lack a traditional kitchen.

“Like for a college dorm,” Clancy-Strawn says. “We recently went to my husband's nephew in the dorm and we realized that they have to have all their food out and about on the street and not really cook at home. Like this is such an amazing, amazing, easy way to start early in avoiding that high-sodium diet and that extra bloating and weight gain that most college kids will get. You're protecting your kidneys.”

Kidney patients receiving any type of dialysis treatment can struggle with making home-made meals, Clancy-Strawn says. 

“A lot of them are very tired, washed out after treatment, and they will fall prey to malnutrition. They don’t have the energy to stand and cook.”

For those people, the registered dietitian nutritionist recommends Mom’s Meals. 

“Mom’s Meals is a kidney-friendly meal delivery,” she says. “The right plan will depend on the stage of kidney disease. So in earlier kidney disease you want to lean toward plant-forward with beans, lentils, whole grains, fruit, vegetables that’s going to help protect the kidney function.” 

Clancy-Strawn has recommended the service to several of her patients because they craft meals that meet kidney patients' strict nutrition requirements. 

“Once people are on dialysis or hemodialysis, sodium, potassium, and fluid needs tighter control, so that's where a renal meal service like Mom's Meals fits,” she says. “So their renal meals stay under 700 milligrams of sodium.”

The meals can also be fully or partially covered by eligible Medicaid and Medicare Advantage plans. 

“I think it's very helpful when they can get it to maximize that as a resource, if they can't afford the meals to continue to use them,” Clancy-Strawn says.