Shireen Abdullah 0:00

Podcasting from Dallas, Texas. I am Shireen, and this is the Yumlish Podcast. Yumlish is working to empower you to take charge of your health through diet and exercise and reduce the risk of chronic conditions like type 2 diabetes and heart disease. We hope to share a unique perspective and a culturally relevant approach to managing these chronic conditions with you each week.

Shireen Abdullah 0:33

Today’s episode dives into what it really looks like to keep joy and flavor in the kitchen while living with chronic kidney disease. You will learn how to reframe restrictions into opportunities. Core principles for building kidney-friendly recipes that will taste amazing, and simple ingredient and cooking tweaks that support kidney health. We also share practical meal planning tips for those newly diagnosed with chronic kidney disease and a look at how culinary education is changing to better serve this community. Stay tuned.

Shireen Abdullah 1:12

Chef Duane, a current instructor at the Inland Northwest Culinary Academy, successfully put his own CKD into remission through diet. He now travels the United States, sharing his culinary expertise and journey with medical professionals and fellow patients. Welcome, Chef Duane.

Duane Sunwold 1:30

Well, thank you for having me.

Shireen Abdullah 1:33

Thank you for coming on. You have, man, a remarkable story to say the least. But before we jump into that, Chef Duane, help us understand a little bit more about your own background. What background do you come from? Why this focus on culinary-friendly cooking, on kidney-friendly cooking?

Duane Sunwold 1:51

Okay, well. I always liked cooking. I grew up with my grandmother in the kitchen. She was my major influence. So for me, relaxing time was always to be in the kitchen. So when I was in high school, my dad said, “Well, what do you want to be when you grow up?” And I wanted to be a teacher. And he’s like, “Yeah, but you like to cook, you should go to cooking school.” So off to cooking school I went. And the very first class I had in cooking school, I was like, “That’s it. I love this. I love this field. I love what I’m doing, and I could teach it.” And I, literally, at 18 years old, knew what my career was going to be. And I, you know, I finished cooking school, I did all these jobs that would make me credible to students, so that I could be ready. And then I ended up teaching at the school I went to, so I’ve been here 40 years. Love working with culinary students, love the culinary field, and that’s kind of my cooking background.

Duane Sunwold 2:55

How I ended up with kidney-friendly cooking was in my early 40s I started losing a lot of energy. I don’t have a medical degree. I just wrote that off as midlife. That’s what happens. And I was just so exhausted, and my blood pressure started rising, and that’s when I went to the doctor. And it literally took them three months of going to a general practitioner to figure out that I actually had kidney disease. I was spilling just a ton of protein.

Duane Sunwold 3:28

So before I could even go see my first kidney doctor, I crashed completely, went through the emergency room, admitted into the hospital. The next morning, I met my first kidney doctor, and he said, “Absolutely, you have chronic kidney disease.” I was diagnosed with what they call minimal change disease, which is where the filtration part of your kidneys actually change, and this is what causes the protein to be spilled out. And he actually never – the doctor never talked to me about diet. So he started, he started me on, you know, the typical pharmaceutical treatments, and I wasn’t responding well. And I was also, I was on an immune suppressive treatment and a steroid treatment.

Duane Sunwold 4:16

So I literally gained about 75-80 pounds on that treatment, so I was much bigger than I am right now, and after about four months, I wasn’t feeling better. So I started I went to three other doctors for consults, and only one of the five doctors I’ve ever seen ever talked to me about nutrition, and she said, “Your kidneys are stressed out. Animal proteins a little hard on your kidneys, so you probably should be eating, you know, a more plant-based diet.” And like a good patient, I didn’t listen to her. I kept deteriorating for another six months.

Duane Sunwold 4:59

And, here at the cooking school, at the time, we had a registered dietitian who was teaching our students, so she was the one following my case, and she was the one that literally came in my office one morning and said, “I want to do an experiment. I want you to go off of animal protein, or as much of it, for 30 or for 90 days, and let’s just see what happens.” And believe me, I was ready. So what amazed me was just two weeks into a plant-based diet, I actually started feeling better. None of the medical treatments made me feel good. So that’s why I love this. Love talking about kidney disease and food.

Shireen Abdullah 5:40

Just remarkable, Duane, and then tell us what that meant for your health, like, what, what happened? Where did that take you?

Duane Sunwold 5:47

You know, from a health perspective, it was, it was life-changing, literally, because I was on the doorstep to dialysis. There was no doubt that my kidney function just kept declining. And they managed… we were able to manage my blood pressure, but the actual kidney filtration was just deteriorating. And what shocked my doctor, who did make the recommendation, she thought she would, she thought we would see a slight improvement in kidney function, because what I transitioned to is what they call FSGS. It’s an actual scarring of the filtration part of your kidney. And no one had ever changed their diet 100% to a vegan diet, and to see this kind of results with someone who has scarred kidney filtration, I think obviously, shocked the medical community. I didn’t understand it at the time. I’m just thinking, “Well, anybody could change their diet.” But now to see these kinds of results were pretty amazing. Yeah.

Shireen Abdullah 6:56

That’s incredible. Now, for context here. You’re not saying everyone should do this in order to go into remission on their kidney disease. Let’s go ahead and get that out the way…

Duane Sunwold 7:08

Right. Let’s get that out there ready, right? Not all kidney diseases are going to respond to 100% plant based diet. What research has been showing over the last 20 years that plant-based diets for all kidney patients can be more friendly to your kidneys. The thing about animal protein is that there’s so much of it when we eat animal protein, and when we eat a lot of protein that gets digested, gets dissolved into our bloodstream, and then as it goes through the kidneys, they have what they call hyperfiltration. Our kidneys actually swell if we eat a lot of protein.

Shireen Abdullah 7:54

Very helpful to understand. So let me ask you this other question then Duane, which is sort of top of mind for me. So most people get a diagnosis, they’re told to get on a bunch of medication, and they start doing they eventually dialysis, like you were talking about that you were right there, almost on the on the path to there. And most people do that. And someone offered in your life, which is absolutely great, talking to a dietitian, understanding, you know, what you could, what you could try potentially, that could, that could help. What? What was it within you that made you think, like, I need to try something else. Like, what? Like I said most patients, like, All right, give me all the medication. Let me see where this takes me. What made you take this different approach and stick to it? And stick to it.

Duane Sunwold 8:39

Yeah, it’s, it’s interesting. I’ve had a lot of medical people ask me my motivation. What was your motivation to you know, you’re sick, you don’t feel well, and that takes a lot of emotional energy to get through that, and then the emotional energy to get through actually changing your diet. And I think the medical term would describe me as a weenie. I didn’t like feeling good, and I and I actually saw my life shrinking, you know, my world was becoming the recliner. I was so exhausted I didn’t feel good. And, it was interesting. Even subconsciously, I just had this gut feeling that food, food had an impact here. And I used to keep telling myself in my head, “Oh my gosh, you’re around food all the time. This is why you think food.”

Duane Sunwold 9:27

But you know, I mean, we do know that food is medicine. There truly is, and if you eat the right things and you fuel your body with the right foods, your body’s going to be healthier. And you know what? Chefs do not eat healthy. We’re not.. we’re not good. We, you know, we were always on our feet. We never have enough time to do our job. We’re always just grabbing a bite here and there as we work. So it was, it was a real mind shift for me, that it’s time to look at this, as what are you putting into your body, right? And I was really fortunate, you know, to get to get a physical response within two weeks of changing your diet really helps you stay motivated.

Shireen Abdullah 10:13

Indeed. Now, how does that? How does it change your perspective in the way that you cook? So how does this personal experience really influence the way that you’re thinking about nutrition and cooking? Just not cooking myself, but nutrition as well.

Duane Sunwold 10:25

Okay, you know, I know this is weird, but I love my kidney disease. It has made me a better cook. It’s, I really believe it’s made me a better person. So for me, you know, as I was super sick and changed my diet. I did not have a lot of energy, and I was trying to work full time, so it organized me at home that I would rest on Saturday, I would cook on Sunday, and I would meal plan. So I actually became better organized at planning meals, and because I had such limited energy to begin with, that really helped me organize. And I knew if I cooked my food, I would follow my diet. It’s when I don’t cook my own food that I’m going to like everybody else, be short on time, I’m going to go grab something quick and easy. And you know, most all packaged foods are not as healthy as whole foods. So, for that respect, I really do appreciate my kidney disease on the nutrition side of this; this has been a fascinating journey. I have learned so much.

Duane Sunwold 11:35

First of all, I have the utmost respect for renal dietitians. I have to tell you, I think dietitians are the most undervalued part of a medical team, and they know so much about the science that as a chef, I don’t know the science of how our body digests the food and how it impacts us, but every time I get to work with a dietitian, I always learn something so I am so appreciative of their knowledge and their expertise, what what I think the medical community should do, and this is just one person talking I think the medical community needs chefs and dietitians together for patients, because if we don’t make the food taste good, the patient is never going to follow that diet.

Duane Sunwold 12:18

So in that respect, I’m a big advocate for learning the nutrition from dietitians. But I also think dietitians need…we need, we need this team approach. I actually met one, what they call a medical chef, where a hospital hired a chef, and she actually teaches patients how to cook the dietary requirements that they’re given from their doctors and their dietitians. I think we need more of that. I think that would be that would really improve the patient results. I am loving learning more and more about nutrition. I read so much nutritional research material now that I never did before, and I am, I’m fascinated by this. You know, we’re learning, we’re learning that, you know, the gut bio in our GI tract, you know, 90% of the bacteria in our body is in our GI tract, and there’s a healthy bio, and there’s an unhealthy bio, and that’s totally based on the food we eat. So I think, I think it’s so, so important. And you know, I have a quality of life that I never expected from my kidney disease. So I’m like, I keep going back to I love my kidney disease. I even love my diet. How many people get to say that?

Shireen Abdullah 13:40

Indeed, and in fact, that’s going to be my next question to you, what was one of this most challenging dietary adjustments you had to make?

Duane Sunwold 13:50

Well, the first thing, the first dietary challenge for me was I had to think about food as a journey. It’s not just what do I want to eat for this one meal? Okay? So for that purpose, I now think about what I eat over a volume, over a period of time, right? Because most of us just think we’re hungry, we eat, we forget what we ate, and we move to the next meal. But I also have to think about what I am constantly putting into my body, okay? And then the other thing was, how do you change your taste buds? Because for me, this was a 40-year eating pattern and habit. So I had to start shrinking down the animal protein on my plate and increase the plant protein. Then I had to start getting rid of cheese. Cheese was probably the hardest. You know, cheese not only tastes good, but there’s a lot of fat, there’s a lot of salt in it, and there’s an emotional response that we have to cheese and dairy products.

Duane Sunwold 14:54

So for me, I had to learn I now make a vegan soft cheese that I use that’s totally plant-based. I play more with flavors now so that I can do that. And the other big thing for me on this journey was I am so excited to learn different ethnic cuisines, because a lot of the cultural foods are so much healthier than the standard American diet. So I, I love learning how to cook. I mean, I had a little Hispanic grandmother teach me how to cook beans. She’s been doing it all her life. You know, I had a grandmother in Texas teach me how to make pie dough because she made the flakiest pie dough I’ve ever experienced in my life. So I think that’s what’s so exciting about food, is it connects all of us together.

Shireen Abdullah 15:48

Oh gosh, amen to that. I, you know, when you’re talking about the flavor element, walk us through a couple of examples, like, what are those types of things you talked about the cheese in particular? But when you’re looking at flavors and then again, making it match to like a healthy plant-based. Walk us through a couple more examples.

Duane Sunwold 16:07 

So, you know, for me, what helped me make make my my comprehension of my diet feel normal, was the day I realized I could eat at Mexican restaurants. You know, most Mexican restaurants have beans, they have rice, and they have vegetables. I felt like I was a normal customer when I realized I could eat at a Mexican restaurant. And that’s kind of how I started this journey.

Duane Sunwold 16:36

I developed recipes for the National Kidney Foundation for their website. And one of the recipes I’m probably most proud of is I created a low-sodium vegan peanut stew. And I developed the recipe, and we happened to have a student in our program who had traveled to Africa, and we switched roles. I said, you’re now the instructor. I am the student. I need you to taste my soup and give me an honest critique. And he goes, Duane, this reminds me of traveling through Africa. And I said, “Perfect. I nailed it.” That’s what I really wanted to do. And I’m excited about that, because it’s such a flavorful stew, and you can make a batch of it, and you can freeze it in individual containers. So it’s something that is easy to make. You can have it in the freezer, so on those days that you’re tired or you’re working, you’ve got an easy way of following your diet. And I just think that’s that’s so important for people, especially for patients, to help them stay on track.

Shireen Abdullah 17:44

What are your core principles, if you will, when designing kidney-friendly recipes?

Duane Sunwold 17:48

You know, every, every recipe that comes across my desk, I always look at it and say, how kidney-friendly is it? Or can we make it kidney-friendly? So, there’s kind of a standard process. First, it has to be low-sodium. So I always look at a recipe and say, how can we take out as much salt as possible? Then I look at animal protein, how much animal protein is in it. I also look at the fat content, what’s the percent of fat, and what type of fats? You know, we have healthy fats and unhealthy fats. So I want to make sure we’re not- This recipe doesn’t have as little saturated fat as possible in it. And then I go, I go, actually, we’ve checked animal protein. We’ve tried to reduce animal protein as much as possible or take it out. And then, believe it or not, the last thing is flavor and texture.

Duane Sunwold 18:43

So once I’ve tried to remove what I can, then I go back and say, “All right, have I destroyed the flavor? Can we replace the flavor with something?” You know, I’m trying to think of an example. Well, I to be honest with you, I did not know how to cook tofu when I tried. When I went on this diet, I made the worst tofu ever, in fact, and my family won’t let me forget about it so. But what I’ve learned with like, with tofu, like just, just scramble a tofu, make it into, like a scrambled flavored egg dish, is that you can add turmeric, which gives it kind of an eggy flavor. And I love a Southwestern scramble, so I put a lot of chili powder, onion powder, garlic powder in that, and then once it’s cooked down, I add a few diced tomatoes, fresh tomatoes, maybe a scoop of salsa, and if I want a little cheesy flavor, I use nutritional yeast. But for me, that with some tortillas or even some crostini, I just feel like that’s a wonderful meal, and I just don’t feel deprived at all.

Shireen Abdullah 20:01

And that, and that’s really the core of it, right? Like, how do you feel fulfilled, right? Not only full, but fulfilled in what you’re eating. So otherwise, I think that’s the biggest roadblock for people, is, like, it’s not tasting the same, the texture is not the same. Like, that becomes the biggest roadblock there for individuals.

Duane Sunwold 20:18

You know that that truly is, but what people don’t understand is that you can have some real winners here. And let me give you another example. My daughter, in college, got really sick and had to go gluten-free. So now our family dinners are really strange, because now we have a low-sodium, vegan, gluten-free. But Thanksgiving, you know, we just finished the holidays, and my daughter wanted some kind of stuffing that she could have that was gluten-free. So I said, “Okay, I’m going to make some gluten-free, dairy-free cornbread, and then I’m going to cut that up into pieces, make it into croutons.” That’s our favorite stuffing now, is the gluten-free recipe, not the regular one that we’ve all grown up on. So, I mean, I love these kinds of things. You know, when the outcome is something like this, I’m like, Oh my gosh, we’re coming up on the holidays. And holiday, you know, Christmas cookies are really big in my family. So once again, my daughter, I had to go gluten-free, dairy-free. So we have this kind of shortbread cookie that I make dairy-free. And then I had to make a vegan ganache to put on top of it, and then I sprinkled toasted almonds. Once again, the gluten-free cookie is my favorite.

Shireen Abdullah 21:33

Oh, look at that. Absolutely love that. We have to, by the way, share some of these recipes because I know my mouth is salivating right now. Okay. What are, what are practical strategies or tips regarding meal planning that you know? You mentioned meal planning was a big, big one for you. So, what are some practical strategies around meal planning that you recommend to someone who has recently received a chronic kidney disease diagnosis?

Duane Sunwold 21:59

If you were just diagnosed with kidney disease. Obviously, I would say talk, talk to a dietitian first to make sure. Because I don’t, I never recommended major dietary change without the medical support people knowing it, and what they recommend for me, it was obviously plant-based. So I immediately look at what’s in season. So I I do my meal planning a lot of times based on what the fresh fruits and vegetables are in season in the grocery store, which is amazing, because they’re at their highest quality and they’re at their lowest price. So I meal plan through the produce section first. And the other thing I do is I plan out my week so that if I make a dinner, I make enough so leftover is for my lunch the next day. So I’m not having to cook all these different meals, but I’m trying to stretch what I make out two or three times. The other thing I learned is to plan on getting hungry for a snack, and that you have to plan ahead and think about what are the healthy snacks, or what are the snacks that you can eat?

Duane Sunwold 23:07

So for me, I mean, I love crunch. I get it, why people buy crispy, crunchy things. So for me, I will, I sometimes I will make my own flatbread, and then I make it into pita chips so it’s low-sodium. Or even if you buy pita bread and toast them in the oven, they’re still healthier than if you buy the actual pita chips, because the actual pita chips you buy, they add a lot more fat and they add a lot more salt. So I’m always saying meal plan-wise, and plan your snacks, and you got to plan dessert. We all like dessert, even if it’s just a little bit of sweetness. And I was at, I was at a restaurant in Phoenix.

Duane Sunwold 23:46

I had to give a speech, and I’ll, and the people were like, “Oh, we told the chef, you’re coming, Duane. We want to make sure you know your food’s okay.” And the chef made me a nice little entree, and I was still hungry at the end of my entree, and I thought, wow, okay, Chef, not real happy. And then he brought dessert, this beautiful plate of fresh fruit, and he had, he had made like a sorbet, and melted it over the fruit. It was the most amazing dessert. And I go, “Okay, now I feel rewarded.” And it was a healthy dessert. So you can, you can do those things. You have to kind of think outside the box. And for me, I have to admit, I probably have more failures in a kitchen than any chef in the world, but I refuse to give up. It’s like, no way we’re going to get flavor back into patients one way or another.

Shireen Abdullah 24:34

I absolutely love that. Looking ahead. Duane, how do you see culinary education evolving to better support those living with a condition like chronic kidney disease?

Duane Sunwold 24:43

Well, one thing I’m super proud of is that we’re the only cooking school I know in the country that teaches future chefs how to cook for kidney patients. But we have always been teaching, how do you teach for patients who have diabetes? How do you teach patients who have cardiac disease? So I see, obviously, our industry has gone to a whole new world where every banquet now has dietary constraints on that, you know. So we’ve, we’ve become very acceptive of that. What I’m proud about is that my students have now learned to put a face to every one of those dietary restrictions. So it’s, you know, used to be in the kitchen. “Oh, crap, this is a pain in the rear. Here we go.”

Duane Sunwold 25:30

Now we’re all like excited. In fact, I’ll tell you a story. I have a friend who’s a sales director for a very, very, very elaborate hotel, and the chef was having to do a tasting of new banquet menu items, and they were going to do a whole day of vegetarian, vegan banquet items. And the sales department’s like, “Oh, it’s going to be vegetables today.” And they came out of that meeting so excited to sell their vegan, vegetarian menu items, because they tasted so good and they’re so unique. So that’s that’s where I see our industry going more and more, and I really have to give credit to the younger generation – they forced restaurants, and they forced our food chain to give us more plant-based options.

Shireen Abdullah 26:21

And that’s becoming more and more common when you’re picking up menu items and looking at it, yeah, absolutely. With that, Duane, unfortunately, we’re toward the end of the episode, but at this point, I’d love for our listeners to know how they can connect with you. Just stay more informed about your work, all the stuff that you’re cooking in your kitchen. Where can we get more information?

Duane Sunwold 26:40

Well, I work with the National Kidney Foundation, so definitely, if you check the Nationalkidney.com, they have a lot of recipes that I’ve developed. I also have a website, ChefDuane.com, you could reach out there, and I have patients from all over the world who want to ask me questions, and I’m more than happy to talk to you. Email me. My email address is CKD, like the disease. CKDchef@gmail.com.

Shireen Abdullah 27:13

Love it. Thank you so much for your time. Duane, to our listeners, thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Yumlish podcast. You know what time it is. It’s time to ask you a quick question and head over to our social media to answer this quick question, which is…What is one kidney-friendly ingredient or cooking technique that you’d like to try adding to your meals, starting this week? So again, head over to our Facebook, which is @Yumlish, or Instagram, and comment and find this podcast post and comment below to tell us again, what is one kidney-friendly ingredient or cooking technique you’d like to try adding to your meals this week? We’ll continue the conversation there. Chef Duane, such a pleasure. Thank you so much for sharing your story.

Duane Sunwold 27:52

Thank you.

Shireen Abdullah 27:54

Thank you for listening to the Yumlish podcast. Make sure to follow us on social media @Yumlish underscore on Instagram and Twitter and @Yumlish on Facebook and LinkedIn for tips about managing your diabetes and other chronic conditions, and to chat and connect with us about your journey and perspective. You can also visit our website, Yumlish.com, for more recipes, advice, and to get involved with all of the exciting opportunities Yumlish has to offer. If you like this week’s show, make sure to subscribe so you can hear more from us every time we post. Thank you again, and we’ll see you next time. Remember, your health always comes first. Stay well.

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Connect with Duane Sunwold!
Website URL: chefduane.com

LinkedIn URL:https://www.linkedin.com/in/duane-sunwold-23b767b/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ckdchefduane9517