I must admit before my husband was diagnosed with kidney disease I did not know much about what the kidney did. Since then I have been doing research on top of more research. I must say there is so many websites for information when it comes to medical issues. You really need to be careful what websites you trust for information. For example do not trust what you read on Wikipedia.com but you can trust webmd.com or mayoclinic.com. The biggest difference is that webmd.com and mayoclinic.com are actually monitored and uploaded with information provided by researchers and doctors where anyone can post on Wikipedia.com.
When I was trying to find out what creatine levels are and what they mean I found out what the main purpose of kidneys are. So here is the skinny on kidneys; the kidneys are used by the body to filter out waste from the blood. They say that a pair of kidneys process about 200 quarts of blood every day. It takes out extra water and waste and turns it into urine. There are certain foods that make the kidneys work even harder. When you have kidney disease or only have one kidney there are foods you definitely should cut back on and just plain remove from your diet.
When you have kidney disease you should reduce how much protein you eat or drink. You need to reduce your sodium so cut back on your salt. Potassium is another thing that you need to avoid eating too much of. That means cutting back on potatoes, oranges, nuts and beans. I did hear from our nephrologist that if you want potatoes (which my husband loves) you need to peel, cut and soak them in water for about 4 hours before cooking them. After they have been soaking you rinse out the water and then put them in the pan to cook.
I am trying to get my husband to eat more vegetables, less animal proteins and it is not going to be easy. He is a meat and potatoes kind of guy. I keep telling him that he needs to do this for our family so he will do it. He may not like it but he will do it.