Meal Planning is SO PAINFUL!!
12 April 2026
Meal planning. We all have to do it to some extent. Some of us are good at it, some of us…not so much. In truth, it really does help to budget your daily food intake, and it helps your pocket book quite a bit as well. I am one of those people who is really good at making a meal plan and really bad at sticking to it. So many times I have promised myself that “this time, I’m just going to put the screws in and stick with it,” but my screws are usually a glue stick that was purchased from the dollar store, so my stick-to-it-tiveness very much lacks integrity. I know this about myself and acknowledgement is the first step to recovery, right?
Not keeping to plan is one of the biggest reasons we fall off of the food plan wagon - and there are many reasons we give up on our eating plans: we get bored with the menu options, we get tired of weighing and measuring our food, it’s a pain to keep a food journal, and coordinating a menu to what’s available and on sale at the groceries is a skillset unto itself. Also, sometimes the sample guides we are given read very well, but each meal requires its own shopping list. People with time and money budgets don’t need that hassle.
I have come up with what I call base elements for my weekly eating to streamline the planning process so I can plan by the day instead of by the week, keep shopping consistent, and that keeps my pantry prepared to make a variety of recipes that are filling and that can be mixed and matched without exceeding my daily limits. I still keep an honest food journal, though. We all have to journal in the way that works best for us. Whatever you stick down your gullet…WRITE IT DOWN and account for it! When you are eating for CKD and for Hypertension/Cardio, there are no “free food” options. Everything you put in your mouth has a cost - and for my CKD buddies, this includes water. It’s hard to do at first, but make a conscious effort every day. After a while, it becomes a ritual, and you will memorize the counts on your most eaten foods…in other words, it get’s easier and becomes a habit.
Back to the base elements thing. Here’s the hacks and cheats I use to keep myself on track and I truly hope this inspires and helps you.
Eat a Salad with Breakfast. What. You’ll eat pancakes for dinner and think nothing of it. A loose cup of salad greens tossed with a dram of olive oil and a molecule of light vinegar is refreshing, adds visual “bulk” to your breakfast, and is an easy way to pack in 2 vegetable servings and maybe one or two fruit servings. I usually toss in a serving of blueberries and sometimes mixed raspberries and blackberries, sometimes strawberries, sometimes I chop up a tangerine - but I always add red and/or green onions. You might not dig that, but the fruit helps the onions find their sweetness, and I love onions. Sometimes a little peeled cucumber finds its way in there, but usually I’m just in a hurry. I’m not a morning person, so having a tub of 50/50 or Spring Mix makes things easy.
Always have prepared rice in the fridge. Every country around the world uses rice - there are thousands of recipes based upon it and having it ready saves you time. Yes, refridgerating rice changes the texture, but we rarely just eat a bowl of reheated rice. This is to build recipes - like for fried rice or to add into soups. Besides, rice is very cheap and holds in your cabinet for a long time - white rice does. Brown rice will eventually go wonky, so don’t buy a 25lb bag of it. Cooked rice only keeps for a couple of days, so this is something to make a couple of times a week.
Learn to love the veggies that already love you. There are some veggies that prove Mother Nature isn’t totally against us. These veggies love us because they are low in potassium (K+) and phosphorus (PHO) and keep that low count when they are cooked, and they are used world-wide. They are cabbage (purple and green), cucumbers, onions of all varieties, collard greens, peas, and most varieties of lettuce. Keep some of these already sliced or chopped in the fridge and ready to grab. Yes, I actually cook lettuce and cucumbers sometimes. Cucumbers add a lot of body and a fresh, “green” flavor to stir fries and they are surprisingly delish sauteed with plant-based butter and (pick your variety of) onion. And lettuce? I use my wilting salad greens to make pesto, in soups, and toss them with rice or noodles for both hot bowls and cold spoon salads. Don’t yuck it. It's a good use of food that prevents the costs of waste - and sneaks in good servings of our much needed fiber.
Silk Cashew Milk: I stumbled across this in my mad search for a dairy alternative that was low in K+ and PHO, and that did not contain sea salt - which I am allergic to. It comes unsweetened and is very low in calories, and is lower in K+ and PHO than even almond milk (you do have to look up the full nutritional info on The Internet Oracle). More importantly, it does not have an odd aftertaste or weird mouth-feel - so it cooks and bakes like a dream. Rice Dream is my second runner up, but it has a sort of sweet flavor, and it contains sea salt.
Just use olive oil. And no, you should never think you have to buy an olive oil to sautee and a different one to use in salads. Find one you like and make it your staple. Olive oil does not deep fry well at all, so for that once or twice a year fry-fest, just use vegetable oil.
Eat rice, pasta, and hot cereal every day. On the DASH diet, we get SO MANY servings of grains…mainly because we get so little actual meat and because a high fiber diet eases so many ailments. Rice, pasta, and hot cereals are inexpensive, shelf stable, and can be used for purposes other than intended. For example, I use cream of rice cereal as a thickening agent, and Malto-Meal as a binding agent. I bake with oatmeal all the time. Whole grain pasta, brown rice, and oatmeal are higher in K+ and PHO counts, but their nutritional value is worth the few extra points. There are endless amounts of rice and pasta dishes from around the world so these elements will never get boring.
Eat all the berries. Most berries are on the low K+ and PHO lists and it’s really easy to slip in a ½ cup serving. Frozen is as good as fresh so we have access to them all year long. I use berries in salads, in hot cereal, with rice mixed with honey and pecans and as my TV snack. Pre-wash your berries and store them in lidded plastic containers. If you have a few left over at the end of the week, pop them in a plastic bag and freeze them. Think of these little baggies of numminess as future pies…or crumbles…or bread puddings.
And lastly,
Keep some boiled eggs and boiled chicken handy. Boiled eggs are a fast, hearty, and versatile protein source and so is boiled chicken. More importantly, boiling chicken leaves you homemade chicken broth/stock which you can use in EVERYTHING. Here’s my recipe:
2 or 3 chicken thighs, bone in, skin on
1 tablespoon of Olive oil
5 or 6 baby carrots
2 ribs of celery cut or ripped into 4 pieces each
½ onion, skin on - just cut it in half, maybe trim the little beard hairs off the bottom, and toss it in the pot
At least 2 garlic cloves, skin on…don’t peel them, just crush them a little with the flat of your knife, but keep the hulls intact
A handful of parsley if you have it. Don’t trim it, the stems are as edible as the leaves. Just wash it and toss it in the pot.
A quick dash of cinnamon
Salt and pepper
Optional: a bay leaf, fresh or dried: oregano, basil, marjoram, thyme, fennel, chili powder (for me, that’s not optional)
Heat a large pot over medium heat for a minute or so, then coat the bottom with the olive oil. Let the oil warm for a minute or two, then place the chicken thighs in, skin side down. Let these brown for a few minutes - not too dark, you just want to get a little color on the skin and render some of its fat out. Flip the thighs over and toss in all of the vegetables and spices. Don’t mix them immediately. Just let them flavor-meld for a minute or two, then you can satisfy your need to stir. Add water to the pot to about ¾ to the top and bring this to a boil. Once at the boil, turn the heat down to low, cover and let it simmer for about an hour - you don’t even have to stir it. After the hour has turned, remove the pot from the heat and let it cool for about half an hour. Then remove the chicken and veggies. Discard the veggies, but pull the chicken off the bone and store that in its own container - cooked plain chicken ready to be made into something wonderful, like a curry! Put your broth into a sealable container and pop it in the fridge. Once cooled, it should be a little gelatinous - this is a good thing. You now have broth that can be a soup base, a sauce base, a liquid to boil rice in…so many options. More importantly, you made it, so it’s a thousand times better for you than the store-bought - which is technically contraban.
So, these are the hacks I use to keep myself on track, but that afford me some planned spontaneity in my daily menu planning. I hope these ideas help you build your base. Remember, you should plan yourself some treats, and it’s okay to have an occasional cheat - forgive yourself and get right back on plan. It gets easier over time, and we can always find something fun and interesting to make together. That’s what I’m here for!
hank you so much for the read. Be good and keep bein’ groovy!
-Sparks
