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Potassium

shmoony
shmoony Posts: 237 Member
edited January 6 in Food and Nutrition
Does anyone else notice that often times the potassium numbers don't show up when you scan / manually enter a food into your diary. My potassium is low almost every day because of this, but I don't know exactly how low because not everything is recorded.

Replies

  • bcattoes
    bcattoes Posts: 17,299 Member
    Does anyone else notice that often times the potassium numbers don't show up when you scan / manually enter a food into your diary. My potassium is low almost every day because of this, but I don't know exactly how low because not everything is recorded.

    Yes, you really can't use the MFP database to track potassium. You can look up the amounts here, if you want:

    http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/
  • n0ob
    n0ob Posts: 2,390 Member
    get some "realer" numbers from nutritiondata.com. You probably eat more than you realize.
  • coolraul07
    coolraul07 Posts: 1,606 Member
    Potassium isn't required to be on food label, unlike cals, fat, vit A/C, etc. There potassium in all kinds of stuff and you won't know until you look it up manually... and you still might not find out. I started trying to get 3500mg/day then upped it to 4700mg/day to counteract sodium intake and I struggled to reach that # without drinking, like, a quart of low-sodium V-8 a day! I talked to my doc and he 'let me off the hook'. He said TRY for 3500mg/day, but if you don't make it, don't worry about it. I still track it, but don't act an @$$ over it like I did a couple months ago.
  • Chief_Rocka
    Chief_Rocka Posts: 4,710 Member
    Try Kazakhstan
  • n0ob
    n0ob Posts: 2,390 Member
    Do they have a lot of K40 or something?
  • MoreBean13
    MoreBean13 Posts: 8,701 Member
    If you look up the MFP 'official' entries- those with no preceding asterisk- the potassium info is included. Try those rather than member entries. There's official entries for almost all whole foods- at least the ones I eat.
  • hellraisedfire
    hellraisedfire Posts: 403 Member
    Potassium isn't required to be on food label, unlike cals, fat, vit A/C, etc. There potassium in all kinds of stuff and you won't know until you look it up manually... and you still might not find out. I started trying to get 3500mg/day then upped it to 4700mg/day to counteract sodium intake and I struggled to reach that # without drinking, like, a quart of low-sodium V-8 a day! I talked to my doc and he 'let me off the hook'. He said TRY for 3500mg/day, but if you don't make it, don't worry about it. I still track it, but don't act an @$$ over it like I did a couple months ago.

    This. Potassium isn't on all labels, which sucks, because it can really mess with you if you have too much/not enough.
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