Are you like me who is supposed to be in a low protein diet? If you think you can no longer eat real meat, well I have to deliver you good news. My dietician gave these details around 10 years ago. You can still eat meat restricted to 8 ounces daily which is equivalent to 226.79 grams. (If that created confusion, the grams referred on this 1st paragraph tackles on the amount or weight of the meat that an individual battling lupus nephritis or cases that needs to have low-protein diet). This amount of meat must be divided into 2-3 servings per day. One serving should be limited to 3 ounces or equivalent to 85 grams in weight.
Part of living with Lupus Nephritis is maintaining a low protein diet. A low protein diet is a type of diet that allows a person to at least have 20-50 grams of protein content from the weight of the meat.
Why do we need this low-protein diet? The lesser protein you eat the lesser inflammation can happen in your kidneys. Inflammation happens in our kidneys and other organs when our internal organs are stressed. To make them stressed it can be an external factor or internal factor. One of the internal factors is making our organs digest high proteinous meat. Once the meat is high in protein it makes our organs double its efforts in digesting and filtering it out from our system.
The servings of protein may vary accordingly to your kidneys' stage. This means some may have lower kidney function that may be prohibited or restricted to a much lower amount of protein.
What are these low protein meats that I can serve?
There are many types of meat that you can serve. Mostly, doctors will advise you to take white meats, and those are chicken breast and fish. A chicken breast has 31 grams of protein for every 100 grams of chicken breast cooked. While fishes may vary to its types a tilapia also known as St. Peter's fish or amnoon contains 26 grams of protein in every 100-gram weight of tilapia. Salmon and other Atlantic fishes when cooked has 22 grams of protein in every 100 grams of those fishes. Whilst red meat like pork has 27 grams of protein in every pork weight of 100 grams. A cooked egg that has a weight of 50 grams is equivalent to 6-7 grams of protein. Lastly, beef has 22 grams of protein in every 100-gram weight of beef.
For better understanding, below is the amount of protein in every 100 grams of meats mentioned above:
100 grams of chicken breast = 31 grams of protein
100 grams of tilapia = 26 grams of protein
100 grams of Salmon and Atlantic fishes = 22 grams of protein
100 grams of pork 96% lean =32 grams of protein
50 grams of egg = 6-7 grams of protein
100 grams of beef 85% lean meat= 22 grams of protein.
As suggested in a day you can only have 20-50 grams of protein content per day.
The following list of meats are suggested for low protein diet:
lean meat
fish
poultry
eggs
So let's say in the morning you will eat 2 boiled eggs and each egg weighs 50 grams. Therefore you have consumed 14 grams of protein for your breakfast and you still have 36 grams of protein to add up for the whole day.
Is there any plant-based protein I can take?
The answer to this is a big YES. In case you will do this, make sure to consult a dietician and nutritionist that will give you the list of all good plant-based protein since it still depends on your severity and health status. Otherwise, here are some of the list that you can add to your diet:
1. Tofu, tempeh, or edamame (use only if allowed by your dietician if you have Nephritis). Tofu is consist of 8 grams of protein for every 100 grams of weight.
2. Seitan is also known as Gluten Meat heat in the Philippines. I have posted this on my personal FB page but I'm going to share it into this post too. Some people make it out of flour while others make it from a glutenous flour. You can make searches on how to make this homemade. My uncle actually sells some. Seitan is consist of 75 gram of protein for every 100 grams of weight. Maybe someday I can show you how to do this at home once I mastered it, let me know in the comment if you like me to make a vlog or blog of making homemade ones?
NOTE: If you have gluten sensitivity issues, please don't try this.
3. Soy milk has 8 grams of protein in every 1 cup or 243 grams.
4. Oats and oatmeal are 2.4 grams of protein in every 100 grams.
5. Fruits and vegetables. Yes, they have it, but most come in a very small amount of proteins.
6. Dark green leafy vegetables
Literally many more. Some are lentils and legumes, but I do hesitate to tell because some cases like people with kidney issues can't take or have many or prohibited to have lentils and legumes as part of their diet.
Before I end this blog, let me give you a simple dish that I cooked for tonight. I didn't have any large amount of protein eaten for the whole day and my dad wanted a Chinese meal. I decided to cook a braised glazed pork belly. I see no reason for not spoiling him since he is too stressed about his medical check-ups and tests.
Chinese Braised Glazed Pork Belly with Tofu
Ingredients:
300 grams of Pork Belly cut into 2 inches (Cooking 300 grams because it will be my dad's breakfast too, and we're three adults in the house).
4 pieces of tofu cut into square-shaped strips and fried.
1 Julienne cut onions
1 finely Julienne cut ginger
5 Spoons of sugar
2 tablespoon of cornstarch (slurred)
500ml of water
30 ml
30 ml of soy sauce
10 ml of vinegar (any types)
2 tablespoon of oil
4 pinches of pepper
Preparation
Dissolve sugar in a saucepan with hot water and set it aside.
Stir fry your pork and set it aside. (This is optional)
Sautee your onions and ginger.
Add in the pork.
Sprinkle your pepper and mixed them all.
Add in the soy sauce, vinegar, cornstarch slurry, and water. Let it simmer within 3 minutes.
After 3 minutes, you can now add tofu and liquid sugar.
Cover the lid and mix the food every 5 minutes to avoid burning as the sauce thickens. Keep your heat at medium-low when letting it cook.
The total time to cook this meal is 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, you can now serve it to your family.
In the picture, I have matchbox-sized pork, 3 pieces of tofu, and 1 egg. That is equal to pork is 7 grams of protein, the 3 thin strips let's say equal to 10 grams that is equivalent to 0.8 grams of protein, and lastly a whole egg 7 grams, all in for tonight I have 7+0.8+7 = 14.8 grams of protein for one meal. Then I'll partner it up with rice.
I hope this blog helps you understand what a low-protein diet is, how it can help you with inflammation, and how you can plan your own meal.
In case my incoming book has an activity that tackles planning and making your meal, it will be launched soon if you want to be updated about it please register at:
If you have additional thoughts, please don't forget to comment it down, lastly, being generous in spirit is a wonderful way to live. Be generous enough by SHARING this to your family members and friends, you can never tell it can help them.
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