This cookbook wasn’t what I’d hoped for. The base ingredients don’t fit the needs of a renal diet specific recipes. Some of them look tasty but if you need this to help with specific health needs I feel a nutritional specialist will be more helpful. I wanted to like this book but I can’t recommend it fir it’s intended purpose. I received this book from NetGalley for an honest review.

I wanted to like The 30-Minute Renal Diet Cookbook by Aisling Whelan as I am searching for a cookbook to use to prepare renal friendly recipes. Sadly, her cookbook missed the mark for me as recipes that need milk to prepare the recipe use almond milk to accomplish the task. There are other recipes using nuts and peanuts/peanut butter too. I am allergic to nuts/peanuts so her recipes would not fit my dietary needs. Other recipes use oats or avocado too and I am allergic to both. This is not a reflection on Whelan's attempt to write a renal friendly healthy cookbook as it seems to be the trend for the newer healthy cookbooks.

What I did LIKE about her cookbook was the explanation of recommended renal dietary intake based on staging and/or dialysis. I also liked the nicely linked pages which allowed to view pertinent information. I also liked how she tagged recipes showing key information such as diabetic friendly or protein status. A good example showing what I mean is the Brie and Fruit Omelet which states Diabetes-Friendly, Medium Protein.

Overall, this is an excellent cookbook if you can eat nuts, oats or avocado.

Review written after downloading a galley from NetGalley.

So much helpful material here, and lots of good information about what to avoid and why and still so many options for everything else. They're also really easy to do, never more than a couple of steps to the directions. Some highlights were a Thai-style chicken stir fry, Moroccan tagine, double corn muffins, roasted radishes, garlic cauliflower mash, and even recipes for sides like making your own buttermilk ranch, ketchup and mustard. I absolutely love these kind of cookbooks and this one would be endlessly useful for navigating this difficult dietary requirement.

This is the cookbook I have been seeking for years! My husband has polycystic kidney disease with diabetic and hypertensive comorbidities…even his nephrologist says his diet should only consist of water and rocks! That being said, this cookbook is chock-full of awesome charts, great dietary information, and super helpful recipes for everything from ketchup to dessert, all while addressing the special needs of the Renal Diet, The recipe categories (High protein, diabetes friendly medium protein, etc) really help individualize the best options to meet specific dietary restrictions. I would like to see more photos with each recipe to aid in preparation, but it’s a really terrific resource that I can see myself turning to with frequency.

30-Minute Renal Diet Cookbook by Aisling Whelan is a recipe collection and cookbook for improving renal health and coping with chronic kidney disease. Released 17th Dec 2019 by Callisto on their Rockridge imprint, it's 182 pages and available in paperback and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately. The book also includes appendices with charts showing phosphorous contents of various foods, food lists for the renal diet, metric conversions, etc. For Kindle Unlimited subscribers, this book is included in the KU subscription library to borrow and read for free.

The book is well formatted and has a logical and easy to follow layout. The introductory chapters (~18% of the page content) cover some of the phsyiology behind the diet, what chronic kidney disease is, what to expect, ingredients and foods lists, and other general info. The following chapters contain the recipes grouped roughly thematically: breakfast, vegetables sides & snacks, vegetarian & vegan mains, seafood mains, poultry & meat mains, sweet treats & snacks, and sauces broths condiments and partial ingredients.

Each recipe includes an introduction with other info such as portion control and yields followed by bullet list ingredients in sidebars with prep-time estimates. The recipes' ingredients lists are provided with English/American measurements only. Nutritional info including sodium, potassium, and phosphorous content is provided in the footer under the recipe instructions. Most of the recipes are not photographed. There are some photos, and they're clear and attractive, but they only represent a fraction of the recipes. I also felt some of the portions were fairly minuscule, even for side dishes. The baby carrot fries for example split a 16 ounce bag between 6 people. I've literally seen my (admittedly perfectly healthy) 20 year old kid eat a 16 ounce bag of baby carrots in one sitting (alone).

There are quite a number of interesting, appetizing, and relatively easy to cook foods contained here. I would recommend it to people who are interested in making a solid plan to comply to a healthy diet and mitigate or possibly reverse chronic kidney disease.

Four stars.