It is not enough to tell people they need to change this or that in their diets for stone prevention. We did that already, here, in a lot of articles. What people need is a meal plan that has in it all the things for stone prevention and tastes good, is easy enough to make for busy people, and not too expensive.

The enticing salad is kidney stone safe, and from the Jill Harris kidney stone diet Meal Plan collection. 

What Problem Are We Trying to Solve?

For years Jill and I have heard patients complain that they do not know how to eat or what to eat. All the lists, especially the oxalate lists confuse them, and they wonder what they can eat. We both know that the palate of available foods is vast, enough so that anyone can be safe against stones and lavish in their food choices. But we have not done well in making that clear.

The answer now seems obvious – people need meal plans for the kidney stone diet. That does not mean plans so strict or complicated that no one will use them for long. What we mean is by way of guidance, the main elements of food over perhaps a week, with lots of room of variations. This is what we are here for – the solution to the problem: Ideas and Inspiration that are safe.

What is a Meal Plan?

For stone formers it means each meal and snack is low sodium, oxalate controlled, without excessive refined sugar, and high enough in calcium, all at once, and for a whole week at a time. Even more, the foods in the plan have to make up an eating experience people can enjoy. The foods have to go together as a cuisine, not just this or that. Eating always needs to be a pleasure or no one will stick to a diet plan of any kind.

We Now Have One for Kidney Stone Prevention

Jill Harris, my long standing collaborator and expert on the kidney stone diet has made up a real cuisine for you.

She created many new recipes that adhere to the kidney stone diet, and has arranged them into weekly suggested ensembles that go well together, healthy to eat, and will do what diet can for stone prevention.

Each recipe comes with kidney stone diet tips about substitutions, and adapting it to the life style of a particular person: for example, diabetes or not, hypertension, cardiac disease risk, weight loss or maintenance. A lot of the recipes can be adapted to vegan and / or vegetarian.

We are well aware that the US government has long provided meal advice for the US population that apart from oxalate accords exactly with what we need for stone prevention. But contemporary experience with nationwide obesity makes clear that the problem is not easily solved. Within our narrow and disease bounded world we hope for better.

Jill’s Meal Plan Service

The plan is available via this link.

It is already an active program, so we know it works for people. We waited to be sure of this before putting it up on this site. As for the science behind the kidney stone diet, this site has already exercised itself overly much. The principles seem very sound. The problem of implementation is ongoing and chronic and diet change is very difficult. Especially in modern society that is given over to high sodium, high sugar, inadequate calcium, and overly adequate calories, changes all seem overwhelming. We hope that meal planning services will help solve the problem.