A specific type of cookbook hunt

November 30, 2014 8:37 AM

I'm in a cooking rut and have a toddler who eats a medically-necessary low-protein diet. Any ideas on how I can most easily find cookbooks that have nutrition facts listed for each recipe and are non-meat-centric? I've browsed through a bunch cookbooks of libraries but seem to have a 6% success rate at finding ones with nutrition facts. Those that do seem to be low-fat or low-calorie-focused books, and fat and calories are very much A-OK for my toddler.

Is there some sort of search filter I can use? Or do you have any cookbook recommendations yourselves?

posted by Maarika to Food & Drink (8 answers total)

Best answer: If you look for cookbooks aimed towards renal patients who are not yet on dialysis, you'll find lower protein recipes. Renal patients need to watch their protein, sodium, sometimes potassium, and phosphorus, so I think such books would be more likely to include nutrition facts. These recipes may be lower calorie, but you can always bulk them out with the addition of more fat and starchy carbs without significantly altering the protein content.

(The not-on-dialysis part is important, as dialysis patients need about double the protein.)
posted by obfuscation at 8:50 AM on November 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

In my experience, cookbook series from big companies (Better Homes and Gardens, for example) are (more) likely to list this sort of information. The Sunset cookbooks also seem like a good bet, though I'm not sure offhand.
posted by needs more cowbell at 8:50 AM on November 30, 2014

Best answer: Amazon search for cookbooks with nutritional information
posted by colin_l at 9:04 AM on November 30, 2014

You may have better luck focusing on finding cookbooks that meet your dietary requirements, and then plugging the recipes into a nutrition calculator. There are plenty to choose from, but MyFitnessPal has a nice recipe calculator that allows you to enter the measurements of all ingredients, state how many servings it makes, and it will spit out nutritional info for each serving.
posted by bluloo at 9:50 AM on November 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

I have a friend with a son on a similar diet. She loves apples to zucchini: a collection of low protein recipes (sorry about the lack of link, on my phone). This page might also be helpful http://www.hamiltonhealthsciences.ca/documents/Patient%20Education/LowProteinDietChild-trh.pdf
posted by snowysoul at 1:26 PM on November 30, 2014

I did a search for PKU recipes and PKU cookbook as I think PKU is probably the commonest metabolic disorder that requires a really low protein diet.

That got some results that look interesting, though unfortunately many of them only give the quantity of phenylalanine (the amino acid PKU patients need to avoid) in the recipe rather than protein.

These have the protein listed as well.
posted by *becca* at 1:38 PM on November 30, 2014

I'm a little late, but you should try to find a dietitian that specializes in metabolic disorders (like PKU, citrullinemia, etc.). He/she should be able to provide you with excellent ideas and suggestions. I work with one of these metabolic dietitians, and she is a life-saver for so many families with young children with these problems.
posted by kuanes at 6:22 PM on November 30, 2014

You can also type recipes into Wolfram Alpha and get the nutritional info. For example.
posted by Jacqueline at 6:34 AM on December 1, 2014