Transcription
Let's talk about the seven best foods to prevent and reverse kidney damage. The kidney is a filter. This one on the left is a dirty kidney. This one on the right is a clean kidney. We're going to show you how to go from this to this using foods.
I think the biggest myth about the kidney is this topic of potassium. I don't know how this started, but people tend to think that potassium is really bad for the kidney. You have to avoid potassium foods if you want to protect the kidney. That is absolutely not true. Potassium actually protects the kidney from damage. The only time you wouldn't want to take potassium is when you started to get advanced stage kidney disease. You need to consume a lot of potassium since our bodies require 4700 milligrams a day.
A couple ways that the potassium helps the kidney, other than directly protecting kidney damage, is this: potassium lowers your blood pressure, and having high blood pressure is one of the main things that destroys the kidney. If you have an imbalance with sodium and you don't have enough potassium, that can also be hard on the kidney. The way to handle the sodium on the kidney is simply to increase your potassium. Potassium can help protect you against kidney stones because it can lower the incidence of oxalates binding with calcium.
The real bad things that damage the kidney: number one, and this is the biggest one, consuming a lot of sugar, starches, things like that, because all that sugar in your blood ends up in the kidney, and it creates a lot of oxidation. And you can visualize that as something that's rusting out the kidney, damaging that little filter. Other things that will destroy the kidney: alcohol, NSAIDs like ibuprofen, medications, a lot of medications are synthetic, prazone, or even antibiotics, getting too many pesticides from the foods, heavy metals, food dyes, and too much phosphorus from soda, really damaging to the kidney. Being in the right diet with enough vitamin D and potassium and even magnesium can greatly help that.
I'm going to show you all the different foods that you should be eating that can help reverse a lot of the things I'm talking about. Number one is really a category of key vegetables that are really important with kidney function. Asparagus. Some people don't like it, but if you can consume it, it's really good for the kidney. It has a certain enzyme that helps to detoxify the kidneys. The next vegetable I would recommend is celery. Celery also has things in it to greatly improve kidney function. Bell peppers are loaded with vitamin C and a lot of other good nutrients for the kidney. Cabbage is another really good vegetable for the kidney. Cauliflower is another great vegetable. Garlic is loaded with allicin, which is really good for kidney function. There are plenty of other vegetables, but these are the ones that are very low in something called oxalates. Spinach is high in oxalates. You can have spinach, but I would recommend having it with cheese because those oxalates could irritate the kidney, and the most common kidney stone is calcium oxalate stones. And one great remedy for that is increasing your magnesium.
Number two, magnesium-rich foods: pumpkin seeds, anything leafy greens, avocados are all high in magnesium. I would, as a side note, also consume magnesium glycinate at least 400 milligrams per day because that magnesium also helps protect the kidney, and it does a lot of additional things for the kidney indirectly.
Number three, probiotic foods: kefir, yogurt, sauerkraut, kimchi. On top of that, there are two microbes that have a unique property helping increase a certain enzyme to get rid of excessive urea, which is a waste product. The first one is Lactobacillus casei and Bifidobacterium lactis. Both of those have been extensively used to help take the stress off the kidney. I would highly recommend them.
Number four, having not just a high-quality protein source, also not overdoing it. Adding more protein could stress it out a little bit more. If you're seeing excess waste from protein in your blood or your urine, you're consuming too much protein. Cut down the amount of protein. You don't want to go low, you want to go a moderate amount of protein, maybe you do six to seven ounces per meal. And as far as the source goes, wild-caught fish, sardines, and cod liver would also give you the omega-3 that's good for the kidney as well, and then also eggs.
Number five, high antioxidant foods: blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries. Beets are really good for the kidney as well to counter some of this rusting out effect that happens just having high blood sugar or other things.
Number six, quercetin. Quercetin has some really great properties for the kidney, and the best source of quercetin is white onions, red onions. I consume a lot of onions, and you can sauté them, eat them raw. Quercetin has an anti-inflammatory effect. It also then will prevent scar tissue in the kidney. It tends to put the fire out if there's oxidative stress. So just cook your eggs with onions or add onions to the meal.
And number seven, extra virgin olive oil. When it comes to olive oil, there are certain things in olive oil, certain chemical compounds that are just dynamite for inflammation, kidney support, and it's even good for kidney stones. And I've sampled a lot of different olive oils, and there's a lot of good ones out there. And of course, my favorite is the one from Italy. I will put a link down below of the one that I use. It's off the charts as far as quality.
As far as drinking liquid, it's also true if you're consuming too much liquid, that's not good for the kidney because it causes the kidney to work too hard. You need that sweet spot right in the middle. One additional little tip I'm going to recommend: when you drink liquid, pre-make some tea, keep it in the fridge, and consume tea as your main liquid because the polyphenols in tea do a lot for the kidney. These polyphenols also can bind with excessive iron that can damage the kidney. And of course, I'm not just recommending getting the tea that has the most caffeine or any caffeine, but there's a lot of different teas that can help the kidney. Green tea, but if I'm not mistaken, green tea might have caffeine, so you might want to not overdo that one. Nettle tea is a great anti-inflammatory tea. Dandelion tea is really good as well, it'll help act as a diuretic to get rid of excess fluid. Turmeric tea or even a black tea that is naturally decaffeinated.
The last point I want to make is think about this: the kidney is a filter of your blood, and you're eating food frequently, it is going to overtax the filtration. It's not a bad idea to do intermittent fasting to support the kidney for two reasons. Number one, you can decrease the stress in the kidney by just not forcing it to work so hard. And secondly, intermittent fasting will drop insulin considerably to the point where your kidneys can start to heal because one of the big culprits for damage to your kidneys is too much insulin. You definitely want to do a combination of low carb intermittent fasting with this program. And if you want information on that, you can check out this video on fasting right here.