Fact: every nutrient we take into our body does, in some way, serve a purpose.

For example, sodium helps the body regulate its fluids. Protein, on the other hand, mainly builds our muscles, tissues, and organs. And potassium adds to the functions of the two, helping muscle-building and fluid regulation.

That said, phosphorus is one of the minerals necessary for bone development, along with calcium. This is why milk is good for the bones because it’s a great source of both nutrients.

However, one could easily go overboard with phosphorus, without even realizing it.

The Truth about Phosphorus in Your Food

They are also not “subject to pre-market review and approval by FDA” and are not required to be indicated in nutrition facts and labels.

While phosphorus additives serve a lot of purposes (i.e., as acidifiers, taste enhancers, or leavening agents, among others), your damaged kidneys will have a hard time filtering these out of your system. Add to that the fact that most food items today have more than 2 kinds of phosphorus additive.

What makes it worse? Often, the phosphorus content of certain food items based on direct chemical analysis do not match what is in food composition databases. 

Which Foods Should You Avoid?

One step to take to limit is to identify and avoid food items which have inorganic phosphorus in them. They might not indicate their phosphorus content in their Nutrition Facts, but if you find the following in their Ingredients, it’s best to avoid those food items:

Another step to take is to stay away from processed food items, especially processed meats. The preservatives mixed in these foods often contain huge amounts of inorganic phosphorus and sodium. These are foods like:

Low-Phosphorus Alternatives

Another basic thing you can do to avoid consuming too much phosphorus: food swapping. There are a lot of fresh, low-phosphorus alternatives to replace your usual high-phosphorus favorites. Here are some of them:

Of course, we need to remember that everything is better in moderation, so you also have to learn how to portion your foods and find out how much you should eat for certain food groups. Read about that in this article.

Hopefully in the future, we’ll finally be able to see phosphorus amounts reflected in food labels. It’s high time to acknowledge that this nutrient should also be closely watched, like every other one of its kind.