Can You Have Milk With Kidney Disease? Yes, But There’s A Catch

Milk with kidney disease is a controversial topic as milk contains phosphorus, protein, and potassium. These minerals are essential for the body but they can negatively impact your kidneys if you have chronic kidney disease. People with CKD and those prone to kidney stones may benefit from drinking different plant-based milks. Some plant-based milks listed in the research are:

  • Almond milk
  • Cashew milk
  • Soy milk
  • Hazelnut milk
  • Hemp milk
  • Oat milk
  • Rice milk
  • Macadamia milk
  • Flax milk
  • Coconut milk

 

Today’s video is about milk and kidney disease we’re going to talk about milk from animals and plant-based milks. Thanks for watching everybody, this is Healthy Kidney Inc. I’m Robert Galarowicz, from one kidney survivor to another empowering you with information from our channel and our website here to help you have better kidney health. We’re always citing the latest scientific research that comes out there because that’s what’s most current and that’s what’s going to help you. Today’s piece of research comes from the Journal of Renal Nutrition, March 2021. It was from NYU, New York University where I’m not far from. They looked at different milks on the market, they looked at plant-based milks and plant-based milks are growing in popularity. They’re made from grains, coconut, rice, nuts and they looked at all these plant-based milks and compared the nutritional profiles the nutritional content to regular cow’s milk. Now, any type of milk from an animal, whether it’s cow’s milk, goat’s milk, or sheep milk, generally wants to be avoided with kidney disease.

 

Why Cow’s Milk Is Bad For Your Kidneys?

The reason is it’s high in potassium, it’s high in phosphorus and high in protein. All the things that stress the kidneys out and make it work a lot harder to do its job and we don’t want to make it work harder instead we want it to work less. The less it has to work the longer it’s going to last.

 

So they looked at all these different milks. Now when I’m talking about animal milk, I’m talking about having large portions of cheese, yogurt, milk etc. If you’re putting like two tablespoons of milk in your coffee generally that’s going to be okay but even if you can replace it with one of these plant-based alternatives it’s just going to be better for you. What the researchers did was they looked at the nutritional profiles and they came up with the two best milks for people with kidney stones and people with chronic kidney disease.

 

 

 

What’s Best Milk For People With Kidney Stones?

For people at risk for kidney stones, they recommended oat milk due to its lower oxalate content, lower potassium and so that’s what they recommended. Now we’re gonna have the rest of the milks that were done in the study, we’re gonna have them on our website so you can always take a look at the blog associated with this video. So for kidney stones, if anybody’s looking to change their diet, they’re looking for plant-based milk or to replace their animal-based milks.

 

What’s Best Milk For People With Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD)?

Oat milk is the number one thing you want to look at for people with chronic kidney disease. They recommended coconut milk due to its lower potassium, lower protein, and lower phosphorus content. So with coconut milk, I do want to make just a little note on coconut milk. Most of them are lower potassium but depending on what the source is, you might find one that’s a little bit higher potassium. I did come across that in the supermarket when I was looking at them. All of them were lower potassium
except one so just be mindful to look at the label for the ingredients just to make sure what you’re buying. With kidney disease, you want to avoid or minimize the amount of your animal-based milks and replace them with plant-based milks.

 

For kidney stones, oat milk is best whereas, for chronic kidney disease, coconut milk is best according to this research. Make sure to subscribe to our channel, if you haven’t taken a look at our other videos, our website has a lot more information where you can learn about things to help improve your kidney health. And to your best kidney health everyone, bye.

 

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