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Draft: not yet reviewed by a clinician

Use this page to prepare questions for your care team. It does not replace their advice. Your own targets and doses come from your nephrologist, diabetes team and renal dietitian.

Sample menus

In short

Each menu is a full week of meals for one stage or treatment, built only from foods in the app's food list and checked by a script against the app's starting targets for a 70 kg adult with type 1 diabetes. Every meal shows carbohydrate, protein, potassium, phosphorus, sodium and fluid, so you can see where the numbers come from and swap foods with your dietitian. They are examples, not prescriptions.

Starting points, not your prescription

These numbers are typical starting points from guidelines. Your nephrologist, diabetes team and renal dietitian set your own numbers from your blood tests, urine output and medicines, and change them as your labs change. If your lab report or your team says something different, they win.

The menus

Menu Protein g/day Potassium mg/day Phosphorus mg/day Sodium mg/day Fluid mL/day Carb g per main meal
Stages 1 and 2 60.7–68.6 2,540–3,313 1,056–1,390 368–1,010 no limit (236–462) 50–60
Stage 3 (G3a–G3b), no dialysis 57.1–57.6 1,574–2,163 631–864 313–1,604 no limit (236–426) 52–57
Stages 4 and 5, no dialysis 57.1–58.7 1,357–1,733 593–747 674–1,338 no limit (236–499) 54–59
In-center hemodialysis 76.1–83.8 1,522–2,029 779–903 705–1,325 473–832 51–57
Peritoneal dialysis 75.9–83.6 1,713–2,382 706–960 746–1,451 710–949 47–54
After a kidney transplant 63.6–69.0 1,962–2,678 994–1,190 304–1,404 no limit (158–454) 51–59

Ranges are the lowest and highest day of each 7-day menu.

Each menu has a matching grocery list. For single dishes with the same kind of numbers, see the recipes.

How to use a menu

  • Pick the menu for your stage or treatment, and check its numbers against the targets your team gave you.
  • Scale for your weight. The menus are for 70 kg. Protein changes with your reference weight: about ½ oz of meat at lunch and dinner for every 5 kg before dialysis, about ¾ oz on dialysis.
  • Keep carbohydrate steady. Main meals stay at about the same carbohydrate every day (about 55 g, or 50 g on peritoneal dialysis) so a fixed insulin plan or ratio works the same way (ADA 2026 §5). Your own amount comes from your diabetes team.
  • Swap like for like using the swap list on each menu page and the food lists.
  • Treat lows first. Rescue foods sit on top of any menu (Treating a low).
  • Log it: every food is in the app under the same name. Under each day, Add this day to my plan opens the app so you can check the day and add it as planned; or save a day as a meal or copy it.

How the menus were built

  • Targets: the app's starting targets (Eating well) for a 70 kg, 170 cm adult with type 1 diabetes: protein 0.8 g/kg before dialysis and 1.0–1.2 g/kg on dialysis (KDIGO 2024; ADA 2026 §11; KDOQI 2020); potassium, phosphorus, sodium and fluid at or under the stage's ceiling; energy within 25–35 kcal/kg (KDOQI 2020); on peritoneal dialysis, food energy reduced for the calories in the dialysis fluid.
  • Stages 1–2 and after a transplant: protein 0.8–1.0 g/kg (56–70 g), sodium under 2,000 mg, and no potassium or phosphorus ceiling, because those are limited only when blood tests run high (KDIGO 2024). The stage 1–2 week also has at least 14 g of fibre per 1,000 kcal (ADA 2026 §5). The transplant week follows KDIGO's advice of a healthy diet (KDIGO 2009), leaves out grapefruit and its relatives (FDA) and cooks every meat, fish and egg to a safe temperature (FoodSafety.gov).
  • Carbohydrate at each main meal within 5 g of the menu's amount; snacks 10–30 g.
  • No foods with phosphate additives, no star fruit, and no hypo-treatment foods (rescue foods stay separate).
  • Every number is from USDA FoodData Central through the app's food list (FDC). The data and the checks live in handbook/data/menus.yml and scripts/build_handbook.py; run python scripts/build_handbook.py --totals to see every day's totals.

The original sample day

The diet guide that came before this handbook had one worked day for stage 3b–4 with type 1 diabetes, not on dialysis, for an 80 kg adult: protein about 0.8 g/kg (64 g), carbohydrate about 45 g at meals and about 15 g at snacks, potassium under 2,500 mg, phosphorus under 800 mg, sodium under 2,000 mg. Day 1 of the stage 3 menu is built from it.

The original sample day (80 kg): Carb g, Protein g, K mg, P mg, Na mg
Meal Food Carb Prot K P Na
Breakfast (~46 g carb) Cream of Wheat, cooked without salt, ¾ cup 20 2.7 30 28 11
Blueberries, ½ cup 11 0.5 57 9 1
Egg, hard-boiled, 1 large 1 6.3 63 86 62
White toast, 1 slice, with 1 pat unsalted butter 14 2.6 38 29 143
Coffee, 8 oz, with 1 tbsp half-and-half 1 0.8 136 21 14
Breakfast total 46 13 324 174 231
Snack (~17 g) Applesauce, unsweetened, ½ cup + unsalted peanut butter, 1 tbsp 17 4 180 60 5
Lunch (~46 g) White bread, 2 slices 29 5.1 73 57 284
Roast turkey breast (home-roasted, not deli), 1.5 oz 0 13.0 107 99 43
Mayonnaise, 1 tbsp 0 0.1 3 3 89
Iceberg lettuce, 1 cup + cucumber, ½ cup 4 0.9 178 26 8
Pineapple canned in juice, ⅓ cup 13 0.3 101 5 1
Lunch total 46 20 462 191 425
Snack (~14 g) Saltines, unsalted tops, 6 + cream cheese, 1 tbsp 14 3 42 34 183
Dinner (~42 g) Chicken breast, roasted, 2 oz 0 17.7 146 130 42
White rice, cooked, ⅔ cup 30 2.8 37 45 1
Green beans, boiled, 1 cup 10 2.4 182 36 1
Cauliflower, boiled, ½ cup, with 1 tbsp olive oil 3 1.1 88 20 9
Dinner total 42 24 453 231 54
Evening snack (~14 g) Peaches canned in juice, ½ cup 14 1 159 21 5
DAY 179 g 64 g 1,620 mg 711 mg 903 mg

Also: fibre about 17 g, energy about 1,470 kcal, phosphorus almost entirely natural (no additives).

What to notice (KDOQI 2020; KDIGO 2022; AKF):

  • It was deliberately light on calories. 25–35 kcal/kg is about 1,900–2,800 kcal for 75–80 kg; that day was about 400–530 kcal under the floor. Close the gap with fat (olive oil, butter, mayonnaise, a second tablespoon of peanut butter) or more measured starch covered by insulin, not with more meat, which would push protein and phosphorus up. The new menus do this and stay at or above 1,750 kcal for 70 kg, except on peritoneal dialysis, where the dialysis fluid adds calories (Eating enough).
  • There was about 1,100 mg of sodium headroom and 900–1,400 mg of potassium headroom for seasoning and a second vegetable, depending on the ceiling in use.
  • Hypo treatments sit on top: two 15 g lows treated with glucose tablets add 0 mg potassium; with apple juice about 250 mg; with orange juice about 500 mg. The app logs them as foods.
  • To fit a smaller person, shrink the meat (1 oz turkey, 1½ oz chicken): about 9 g protein and 65 mg phosphorus less.
  • If blood potassium is normal and the dietitian agrees, oatmeal instead of Cream of Wheat (about +125 mg potassium, +140 mg phosphorus and +2.7 g fibre per cup) is a fair trade for glucose control; the log makes the cost visible.
  • On dialysis that day would be wrong: protein must rise to 1.0–1.2 g/kg (75–95 g for 75–80 kg), fluid is limited (coffee, soda and canned-fruit juice all count), and the unit's labs set potassium and phosphorus.

Changing one food

Each menu page ends with a list of swaps that keep the day's numbers close. For a whole dish with its numbers worked out, use a recipe in place of a menu meal with about the same carbohydrate, and log it in the app to see the new day's totals.

Sources

Not yet reviewed by a clinician. Facts and sources last checked 2026-10-05.