Your First Steps
Setting Up Your Profile
The first time you open KidneyPal, we’ll walk you through a quick setup (about 2-3 minutes) so the app can personalize everything to you. Here’s what we’ll ask and why it matters:
- Your kidney condition — This is the most important step. Whether you’re at CKD Stage 1, on dialysis, managing kidney stones, or just being proactive about your health, your condition determines exactly how much sodium, potassium, phosphorus, and protein you should be eating each day.
- Your weight — We use this to calculate your protein limit, since protein recommendations are based on body weight.
- Any other conditions — Things like diabetes or high blood pressure can affect your nutrient targets too.
Don’t know your CKD stage? No worries — just choose “Not Sure” and we’ll use safe, moderate limits. You can always update it later in Settings once you’ve talked to your doctor.
Trying a Demo Scan
Before you even create an account, you can try scanning a meal during setup to see how KidneyPal works. Take a photo of whatever you’re eating and you’ll get a full breakdown — it’s the best way to see what the app can do.
Changing Your Language
KidneyPal works in 13 languages — English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Arabic, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Polish, Turkish, and Chinese (Traditional). Everything switches over, including what the AI says when it analyzes your meals.
You can change your language anytime in Settings.
Scanning a Meal
This is the heart of KidneyPal. Snap a photo of your food, and in a few seconds you’ll know exactly how it fits into your kidney diet.
How to Scan
- Tap the camera icon at the bottom of your screen
- Point your phone at your plate and tap the big capture button
- Wait a few seconds while the AI works its magic
- Review your results — you’ll see a safety score, nutrient breakdown, and tips
A few things that help get better results:
- Make sure your whole plate is in the frame
- Good lighting makes a big difference
- After scanning, you can tell the AI extra details like “I didn’t add any salt” or “this is a half portion” and it will adjust the numbers
Scanning a Nutrition Label
Buying something packaged? Switch to Label mode (top of the camera screen) and point your camera at the nutrition facts panel. KidneyPal reads the label directly, which gives you more precise numbers than a photo scan. It also catches phosphate additives that are easy to miss.
Scanning a Barcode
For packaged foods, you can also scan the barcode. Switch to Barcode mode and hold your camera steady over the barcode. If the product is in the database, you’ll get instant nutritional info.
Quick Log — Just Describe What You Ate
No photo? No problem. Tap Add Food in your diary, choose Quick Log, and either:
- Say it — Tap the microphone and describe your meal out loud: “I had a grilled chicken sandwich with lettuce and a side of coleslaw”
- Type it — Just type what you ate
The more specific you are about portions and preparation, the better the estimate. Saying “one cup of white rice” is way more helpful than just “rice.”
Understanding Your Results
After a scan, here’s what you’ll see:
Kidney Safety Score (0-100) — Think of this as a quick grade for your meal. Lower is better:
- 0-25: Excellent choice for your kidneys
- 26-50: Generally good, nothing to worry about
- 51-70: Some things to watch — check the details
- 71-85: A few concerns — the AI will suggest alternatives
- 86-100: This meal is tough on your kidneys — consider the suggested swaps
The score is personalized to YOUR stage. The same meal might score 30 for someone in early CKD but 70 for someone on dialysis.
Nutrient Breakdown — Shows how much sodium, potassium, phosphorus, and protein is in your meal. Each one is color-coded: green means you’re fine, yellow means watch it, red means it’s high.
Smart Swaps (Pro) — The AI suggests kidney-friendlier alternatives. For example: “Swap the banana for an apple — 75% less potassium.”
Asking Follow-Up Questions
After scanning, you can chat with the AI about your meal. Just type a question at the bottom of the screen:
- “Can I eat this every day?”
- “What if I used less cheese?”
- “How much of this should I eat to stay in my limits?”
The AI knows your CKD stage and daily limits, so the answers are always personalized to you.
Saving a Meal to Your Diary
Once you’re happy with the analysis, tap Add to Diary. Pick the meal type (breakfast, lunch, dinner, or snack), confirm the date, and you’re done. The nutrients get added to your daily totals automatically.
Tip: If the AI detected something that wasn’t actually on your plate, you can tap on that food item and remove it before saving.
Your Daily Diary
Your diary is home base — it’s the first thing you see when you open the app. It shows everything you’ve eaten today and how you’re tracking against your nutrient limits.
The Nutrient Dashboard
The four colored bars at the top are your daily progress:
- Sodium (orange bar)
- Potassium (green bar)
- Phosphorus (purple bar)
- Protein (blue bar)
As you log meals, the bars fill up. They’ll turn yellow when you’re getting close to your limit and red if you go over. If you go over on anything, a friendly warning pops up to let you know.
Pro users can also turn on tracking for Calories, Carbs, Fat, and Magnesium in Settings.
Tip: Tap the little chevron on the dashboard to collapse it if you want more screen space.
Adding Food
Tap the + Add button in any meal section and you’ll see five options:
- Scan — Open the camera
- Quick Log — Describe your meal with voice or text
- Saved Foods — Pick from foods you’ve favorited (more on this below)
- Recipes — Log a recipe from your collection
- Manual Entry — Type in the nutrients yourself (handy if your dietitian gave you specific numbers)
Quick Actions on Entries
Here are some handy shortcuts most people don’t know about:
- Swipe left on any entry to see three quick buttons:
- Star it as a favorite (so you can quickly add it again later)
- Copy it to a different day or meal
- Delete it
- Long-press any entry to select multiple items at once — great for bulk deleting or copying
Copying Meals Between Days
Eat the same breakfast most days? Instead of scanning it again:
- Swipe left on the entry and tap Copy
- Pick the day and meal you want to copy it to
- Done — nutrients and all
You can also copy an entire day’s worth of meals at once. This is a huge time-saver once you’ve been logging for a few days.
Saved Foods
Every time you star a food entry, it gets saved to your Saved Foods list. Next time you eat the same thing, just tap Add Food > Saved Foods and pick it — one tap and it’s logged with all the correct nutrients.
Navigating Between Days
- Use the arrows at the top to jump between days
- Tap the calendar icon to go to a specific date
- The colored dots on the week strip give you a quick snapshot: green = great day, yellow = a bit over, red = over the limit, gray = nothing logged
Daily Notes
Want to jot down how you felt, any symptoms, or just a reminder? Tap the Notes card on your diary to write a note for that day.
Tracking Fluids
Staying on top of your fluid intake is especially important if you’re at Stage 4+, on dialysis, or managing kidney stones.
How to Log Fluids
The fluid tracker sits right below your nutrient dashboard. You’ll see a wave animation that fills up as you drink throughout the day.
Quick-add buttons let you log common amounts with one tap — 100 ml, 250 ml, or 500 ml (or the equivalent in ounces if that’s your preference). There’s also a custom option for any amount.
Why Fluid Type Matters
When you log a fluid, you can pick the type — water, coffee, tea, juice, milk, soda, or soup. This matters because beverages aren’t just fluid — they contain nutrients too:
- A glass of orange juice adds about 480 mg of potassium to your daily total
- A bowl of soup can add 840+ mg of sodium
- A glass of milk adds potassium AND phosphorus
KidneyPal counts these nutrients automatically, so your daily totals stay accurate.
Your Fluid Limit
Your daily fluid limit is set based on your condition. Dialysis patients typically have the strictest limits (around 1,000 ml), while someone with kidney stones actually needs extra fluids (3,000 ml). You can see your limit on the tracker, and it’ll turn red if you go over.
Tracking Your Weight
Logging Weight
Find the Weight row on your diary screen. Tap Log to enter your weight for today. You can switch between kg and lbs anytime.
Viewing Your Trend
Tap the arrow on the weight row to see your full weight history with a trend chart. You can look at the last 7, 30, or 90 days.
Tip: Set a goal weight in Settings — it’ll show up as a green target line on your chart so you can see your progress at a glance.
Syncing with a Smart Scale
If you have a smart scale connected to Apple Health, your weights will appear in KidneyPal automatically (Pro feature). They’ll show a little heart icon so you know they came from Apple Health.
Recipes
Finding Kidney-Safe Recipes
Tap the Recipes tab to browse a library of kidney-safe recipes. You can filter by meal type (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack), search by name or ingredient, or tap My Recipes to see just the ones you’ve imported or created.
Each recipe card shows a kidney safety score so you can quickly tell how kidney-friendly it is.
Viewing a Recipe
Tap any recipe to see the full details — ingredients, step-by-step instructions, and a full nutrient breakdown per serving. Each ingredient is color-coded for kidney safety so you can see exactly which ones to be mindful of.
Serving adjuster: Use the serving size control to change the number of servings. All the nutrient numbers update automatically — super helpful if you’re cooking for one instead of four.
Adding a Recipe to Your Diary
From any recipe, tap the menu and choose Add to Diary. Pick your date and meal type, adjust servings if needed, and the nutrients get logged to your day.
Importing Your Own Recipes (Pro)
Found a recipe online you want to try? You can import it into KidneyPal in three ways:
- Paste a URL — Just paste the recipe link and the AI extracts everything, analyzes each ingredient for kidney safety, and gives it a score
- Take a photo — Snap a picture of a cookbook page or handwritten recipe
- Upload a PDF — Select a PDF from your device
After importing, you’ll have a full kidney analysis of the recipe with per-ingredient safety ratings. It also keeps a “View Original” link for URL imports.
Generating Custom Recipes (Pro)
Want the AI to create something for you? Tap Generate and tell it what you’re in the mood for — pick a meal type, cuisine, and any ingredients you want to use. The AI creates a recipe that’s specifically tailored to your CKD stage.
Asking Questions About a Recipe (Pro)
On any recipe, tap Chat to ask the AI questions:
- “Is this okay for me to eat on dialysis?”
- “How can I make this lower in potassium?”
- “What can I substitute for the cheese?”
Customizing Recipes
See a recipe you like but want to tweak? You can:
- Clone any recipe to your collection, then edit the ingredients or instructions
- Add your own photo once you’ve made it
- Favorite it with the heart icon for quick access later
Tracking Your Progress
Weekly Summary
The Progress tab gives you a bird’s-eye view of how your week is going:
- How many days you hit your targets
- Your current logging streak
- Seven colored dots showing each day’s performance at a glance
Nutrient Trends (Pro)
Switch between your four main nutrients to see line charts of your intake over 7, 30, or 90 days. A horizontal line shows your daily limit — you want to stay below it. This is great for spotting patterns like “I always go over on sodium on weekends.”
AI Insights (Pro)
After you’ve been logging for about a week, the AI starts spotting patterns in your data. You’ll see personalized tips like:
- “Your sodium has been over your limit 5 out of the last 7 days — try cutting back on canned soups”
- “Great job keeping your potassium in check this week!”
- “Your phosphorus tends to spike at dinner — watch portion sizes on dairy”
Tap the refresh button anytime to get updated insights based on your latest data.
Generating a Doctor Report (Pro)
Before your next doctor or dietitian appointment, generate a PDF report of your dietary tracking:
- Go to Progress
- Tap Doctor’s Report
- Pick a time period (30, 90, or 180 days, or all your data)
- Share it via email, AirDrop, or any method on your device
The report shows your daily nutrient averages, how often you went over your limits, weight changes, your most-eaten foods, and a day-by-day breakdown. It’s produced in whatever language you have the app set to.
Your doctor will love having actual data instead of you trying to remember what you ate.
Apple Health (Pro, iOS)
What Syncs
- Weight syncs both ways — weights from your smart scale show up in KidneyPal, and weights you log in KidneyPal show up in Apple Health
- Water syncs both ways too
- Nutrients (sodium, potassium, phosphorus, protein, and any optional ones you’re tracking) get sent to Apple Health whenever you log meals
Setting It Up
Go to Settings > Apple Health, turn it on, and grant the permissions it asks for. You can pick and choose exactly which data types to share.
Once it’s set up, syncing happens automatically whenever you open the app or log something. You can also trigger a manual sync anytime from the Apple Health settings screen.
Streaks
Your streak counts how many days in a row you’ve logged at least one meal. It shows up as a flame icon on your diary screen.
Milestones — You’ll get a little celebration at 3, 7, 14, 30, 60, and 100 days.
Don’t break your streak! — If it’s 8:30 PM and you haven’t logged anything yet, you’ll get a gentle reminder (as long as you have notifications on). Your streak breaks if you miss more than one full day.
Your longest streak is saved separately, so even if your current one breaks, your record lives on.
Settings You Should Know About
Updating Your Kidney Status
If your condition changes or you get a new diagnosis, go to Settings > Kidney Status and update it. This automatically recalculates all your daily nutrient limits.
Setting Custom Nutrient Limits
If your doctor gave you specific limits that are different from the defaults for your stage, you can override them. Go to Settings and find the nutrient limits section. Your custom limits will always take priority.
Tracking Extra Nutrients (Pro)
Beyond the four main ones, Pro users can turn on tracking for Calories, Carbs (with sugar breakdown), Fat, and Magnesium. Toggle them on in Settings > Optional Nutrients and set your daily limits.
Theme and Units
- Theme — Light, Dark, or Auto (matches your phone)
- Volume — Milliliters or fluid ounces
- Weight — Kilograms or pounds
- Language — 13 languages available
Notifications
You can set up reminders for breakfast (9 AM), lunch (1:30 PM), and dinner (7 PM). There’s also a streak-at-risk reminder at 8:30 PM and celebration notifications for streak milestones. Toggle each one on or off in Settings > Notifications.
Common Questions
Is KidneyPal a replacement for my doctor or dietitian? No — it’s a tracking tool to help you stay on top of your diet between appointments. Always follow your healthcare team’s advice. If your doctor gives you different limits than what the app suggests, you can set custom limits in Settings.
How accurate are the meal scans? Photo scans give informed estimates — they’re great for knowing if a meal is generally safe or risky, but the exact milligram values are approximations. For precise numbers, use label scanning or barcode scanning on packaged foods, or enter values manually.
I don’t have kidney disease — can I still use the app? Absolutely. Choose “Prevention” or “No Diagnosis” during setup and you’ll get healthy adult guidelines. It’s useful for anyone watching their sodium or overall nutrient intake.
Why do my nutrients look high even though I haven’t eaten much? Check your fluids! A glass of juice or bowl of soup can add a lot of potassium or sodium. Also double-check that your CKD stage is set correctly — later stages have much lower limits.
The AI said my photo isn’t food — what do I do? This usually happens with blurry or dark photos. Try again with better lighting, or switch to Quick Log and describe your meal with voice or text instead.
Can I log meals from past days? Yes! Just navigate to that date using the arrows or calendar at the top of your diary and add entries as usual.
What happens to my data if I cancel Pro? Nothing — all your diary entries, meals, and recipes stay in your account. You just lose access to Pro features until you resubscribe.
Can I use my subscription on multiple devices? Yes. Sign in with the same account and it should sync. If it doesn’t, tap Restore Purchases in Settings.
How do I delete my account? Go to Settings > Delete Account. This permanently removes everything — your profile, all meals, diary entries, recipes, weight history, and photos. It cannot be undone.
Need More Help?
If you can’t find what you’re looking for here, reach out to us through Settings > Contact Support in the app. We’re happy to help!
KidneyPal is a dietary tracking tool, not a medical device. Always consult your nephrologist or registered dietitian for personalized nutrition advice.
Ready to Start Tracking?
Download KidneyPal and start managing your kidney diet with AI-powered meal scanning and personalized nutrient tracking.