By Jerome A. Bailey

In the first few seconds of speaking with Katie Lee Joel, you know right away that she has two great loves… her family and food. It’s no surprise, either, once you hear about her up-bringing. Katie grew up in Huntington, West

Virginia , surrounded by loved ones. She is an only child, but several cousins, uncles, great aunts and her grandparents made her feel like she had a huge immediate family.

It was in her grandparents’ kitchen where she first got her appreciation for good food. “My family loves to eat,” says the 26 year-old. “At dinner time, we were always talking about what we were going to have the next night for dinner.”

The cook in her family was her grandmother, but Katie says her grandfather could hold his own around the stove. “My grandmother went to college when she was in her 50s, so my grandfather had to get in the kitchen and he was actually pretty good.” Katie refers to her grandparents dishes as comfort food. “Meatloaf, chicken pot-pie, we ate anything nice and hearty.”

The atmosphere in her grandparents’ kitchen changed when doctors diagnosed her grandfather with kidney disease and said he would need to go on dialysis.

As you can imagine, everyone in the family took the news hard. “We were all really upset and worried. We really did not know what to expect,” says Katie. “Dialysis sounded so scary and in a lot of ways it was. But my grandfather was brave. He never complained. He never appeared to be afraid. He put us all at ease.”

Katie’s family also worried about the dietary restrictions. They were a family that loved to be in the kitchen and eat. Katie and her grandmother did not want the dietary restrictions to keep her grandfather from enjoying family meals. So the pair took their passion for creating new recipes and turned old family favorites into kidney friendly meals. Some of the meals are included in Shire’s Kidney Friendly Comfort Foods: A Collection of Recipes for Eating Well with Chronic Kidney Disease. Recipes like the spiced zucchini pineapple bread, the breakfast burrito and apple cobbler all came from collaborating with her grandmother. According to Katie, her grandfather loved peach cobbler. However, peaches are not good for kidney patients because they contain high amounts of potassium. Potassium needs to be controlled if you are on dialysis. This helps prevent hyperkalemia (a high level of potassium), a common problem for people on dialysis. Knowing this, Katie made apple cobbler instead.

Katie says she had to learn a lot about kidney disease when her grandfather was diagnosed. One of the many things that surprised her about the disease is the food choices. “Instead of whole wheat bread, kidney patients eat white bread. Everything we are told is healthy to eat, kidney patients don’t eat anymore. That was a big shock to me.”

Katie’s grandfather has since passed away, and she says sharing these recipes is a way to honor his memory. She also still loves her comfort foods. “I still cook these foods for my family and every time I do, I feel the warmth of my grandfather’s smile.” In fact, she and her husband, singer/song writer Billy Joel, can’t get enough of the turkey meatloaf. She created the dish with her grandmother after her grandfather’s diagnosis.

Katie is currently working with Shire on another cookbook which will be distributed during the AAKP 34^th Annual Convention, Aug. 30 – Sept. 2, at the Adam’s Mark® St. Louis. She will host a cooking demonstration, showcasing some of her new renal-friendly recipes. Katie says, “I am very excited about coming to the AAKP meeting. Last year I had a chance to meet one on one with several kidney patients and I really enjoyed hearing their stories and concerns about the foods they eat.”

Changing your diet is one of the hardest challenges of adjusting to ESRD. The good news - help is available. You don’t have to go through this process alone. A dietitian can help you make the right choices for your condition. Dietitians are not there to “police you,” but to work with you to make the best possible choices for you.

 Jerome A. Bailey is the Communications Manager for AAKP and Editor of aakpRENALIFE.

This article originally appeared in the May 2007 issue of aakpRENALIFE.