Potassium? If you say eat a banana, I'll punch you

monharri

i take a potassium supplement recommended by my doc

Sixalicious

Most of my top choices have already been mentioned, but I didn't see soymilk or peanuts.

LilacDreamer

potatoes are a good choice. after my grandfather got diabetes, he was placed on a renal diet and any potatoes he had had to be soaked for a certain number of hours in order to remove the potassium.

Beezil

potatoes are a good choice. after my grandfather got diabetes, he was placed on a renal diet and any potatoes he had had to be soaked for a certain number of hours in order to remove the potassium.

This... I love potatoes, I boil them, then I can roast them or put them in a stir fry. Some other foods I've enjoyed with good potassium levels - fish, many kinds, I love fish! peanut butter, Kashi's original cereal and their vanilla instant hot cereal, milk, fat free Greek yogurt, lima beans, navy beans (I love making bean soup with navy beans and ham hocks with minced onion in the crockpot - yum!). But yeah, most foods have at least a small amount of potassium in them... which is why I started looking it up for everything so I could add it in and make sure I'm getting an adequate amount for the most part. Coffee also has a decent amount... but that's something I'm desperately trying to eliminate from my diet... lol

tinkermommc

apples, potatoes, milk, yogurt, raisins, oranges

Do not take a potassium suppliment without consulting your doctor. It could have serious reprocussions!

I wanted to quote this! And it's true! Too high potassium levels can shut down your organs and/or kill you. I was told this b/c I was on potassium supplements before. I wasn't getting enough of it, but I also couldn't have too much. Make sure you talk to your doctor first about supplements.

^ THIS When my dad was on chemo it lowered his potassium but potassium is so touchy to go over that they would only give him supplements in the office. So don't take a supplement.


And this...

While I am absolutely loving MFP, I do find that often potassium gets left off the nutritional information for food choices I am selecting out of the database. If you are incorporating the foods that the above posters listed, you are probably fairing better than you think. Good luck!

If you go to the database and look at Edamame for example. It has a big zero for potassium but it's one of the best food you can have. I don't track potassium on here for that reason. If you are really concerned, track your labels by hand one day to see. But unless you are having symptoms of hypokalemia, excessive cramping or numbness, low blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, etc, you're getting enough potassium in your diet.

maxonehiphop

I love bananas and have at least 1 a day but I just recently increased the # of potassium pills i take because I noticed I was always (supposedly) short on potassium. So...does anyone knows is it the potassium supplements that are a problem or potassium in general. I eat a ton of the stuff on these lists so I'm probably getting a lot more than I realize but I wanted to up it just in case...unless of course there is a legitimate reason not to.

fyreflies26

I noticed my potassium totals look low on MFP, so it's good to know that some of the foods on MFP might not be correctly including the potassium, and I think I will try hand calculating for a few days before I get too concerned.

As far as the dangers of a supplement, I don't think anything over the counter would have any bad side effects (unless you have renal disease) because they aren't allowed to contain more than 99mg in a dose. That's not much at all considering I've read RDA is 3500-4700mg/day, and prescription supplements are usually 600-750mg potassium chloride each.

One interesting fact I did read was that boiling foods tends to leech the potassium out of them. Good to know when it comes to potatoes!