Phosphorus: How to Keep It In Check

The RenalTracker Team

May 1, 2019

I hope you enjoy reading this blog post. It has been written and vetted by RenalTracker's team of kidney experts and researchers. The same team was awarded the KidneyX Prize organized by the American Society of Nephrology and HHS for pre-dialysis solution in Washington DC in 2019.

If you want to join our exclusive coaching on how to avoid dialysis, book a call to see if you qualify.

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

According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), phosphorus additives in food are “generally recognized, among qualified experts, as having been adequately shown to be safe,” when used as intended.

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.

Information from nutrition databanks alarmingly underestimate the actual phosphorus content of your food. You could be consuming copious amounts of phosphorus without knowing it.

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:

dicalcium phosphate
disodium phosphate
monosodium phosphate
phosphoric acid
sodium hexametaphosphate
sodium tripolyphosphate
tetrasodium pyrophosphate
trisodium phosphate

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:

canned salmon and sardines
caramel candies
chocolate
colas
deli meats, hot dogs, bacon, sausage
packaged rice and pasta meals
pizza
tortilla / corn chips

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:

Beverages:

water
tea (herbal)
rice milk (unenriched)
apple, cranberry, or grape juice
lemonade
ginger ale or root beer

Dairy Products:

rice or almond milk
cottage or vegan cheese
sherbet
popsicles

Protein Sources:

chicken or turkey
eggs
fish (fresh)
beef, veal, lamb, or pork (only lean cuts)

Fruits, vegetables, & others:

apples
berries
grapes
carrot sticks
cucumber
rice cakes
pretzels, popcorn, and crackers (all unsalted)

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.