Last week, I chanced upon some excellent cauliflower, green grapes and filtered water, and I had made saffron-spiced, riced cauliflower dish with sliced grapes, which inspired me to look up kidney disease-friendly diets last night.
There are many different diseases that can affect the kidney, but kidney failure from chronic kidney disease (CKD) is generally classified by stages of severity, with different needs for each stage.
Since kidneys act as a most wonderful filter for substances within one's body, those with a high level of kidney damage are generally recommended to minimize their sodium, potassium intake to further reduce greater damage to kidneys, which healthcare providers can help check by measuring various serum levels in one's blood, taking into account both how a person is feeling at the time and the objective, physical/numerical measurements that are collected.
For a very severe form of kidney disease, I did some research on whether saffron would be considered safe, and it appears as though saffron is a spice with a relatively high level of potassium!
According to the National Kidney Foundation's article here, a food is considered low-potassium if it has 200 mg or less per serving of 1/4 cup of fruit, and the information below is displayed for 100 g of saffron.
Using dimensional analysis,
I typically use about 2-3 saffron threads per 1/4 cup - 1 cup serving of rice when making saffron rice, so if that picture below truly represents 100g of Saffron, then probably it's okay to use that small amount of saffron and be kidney-friendly, since that picture below has like, definitely at least 100 threads.
17.24 mg of potassium / gram of saffron / 463 saffron threads (courtesy of Gemini AI), so that's about 0.037 mg of potassium/saffron thread x 3 saffron threads at most = 0.11 mg of K+ per serving of saffron rice that I typically make.
So, in conclusion, I would say using 2-3 saffron threads is still kidney-friendly, given that the recommended amount is 200 mg or less per 1/4 cup of serving.
The ratios again are as follows:
17.24 mg K+ = 1 g of saffron ~ 463 saffron threads.
It's been like, years since I've practiced my dimensional analysis skills that I learned in Chemistry! The system that I prefer to use is more based on using fractions written out with lines in a horizontal fashion, to write out on scratch paper, but there's no right or wrong way to go about it.
Screenshot:
Image Source: An excellent, colorful reference where one can look up different nutrient profiles of different foods: Encyclopedia of food & nutrition focused on comparison
I love wonderful references like these, because one cannot possibly know or remember everything! All the most sage experts I know have admitted they do not know everything, and often keep a wealth of references to look up information at their disposal, as well as help with collaboration.
More resources for kidney-disease friendly diets:
Also, on the vein of filtered water, would like to give another shout-out to the Jolie Showerhead, that helped soften my shower water and was extremely user-friendly and easy to install. I did notice my hair getting softer as a result.
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