potassium question

bananas, mushrooms, potatoes, avacados, salmon and spinach are some foods with a good amount of potassium.

do not supplement potassium without the supervision of your GP.

Double check the database entries on your foods. Potassium isn't always listed on labels, or left off when people enter foods, so you might be getting more than you think you are.

This! Tons of entries are missing the potassium value.

This! Tons of entries are missing the potassium value.

Exactly! For example, canned beans, according to the lable, have no potassium, but beans actually have LOTS. Supplements (at least in the USA) have very little potassium, so don't waste money on them. Eat veggies. Drink coffee. Relax.

I have been doing this for 3 weeks or so now and I noticed the one thing I am always low on is potassium , Any one else having the same results . I eat bananas ect ... but it looks like the number is unreachable staying under my calorie count ,, Most multi vitamains don't have much either and even the potassium pills on the market only have 100mg per pill ,,

so for now I guess im just gonna be low on potassium

I have this problem too. I think I am going to need to plan in advance and get foods that are high in potassium. That is my goal for the next month. I have only been eating like 1,500 or something and that is not enough.

So, how do you know you are low on potassium?

I used to struggle with my potassium levels in my diary. One thing that helped was making sure that for generic items like fruit, vegetables, meat etc, I only use the entries that were not user-added, so the ones that don't have an asterisk next to them in the database. They were added from the USDA database, and have the levels of potassium on them, whereas a lot of user-added data does not. Like others have said, it's a value often not included on the labels of processed food. In fact, here in the UK, you rarely see potassium on food labels. So, you are very likely getting more than you think.

As for increasing the levels that I actually consume, I find that eating more vegetables helped a lot. Potatoes are a fantastic source, but you get some potassium in most fruit and vegetables. Just as an example, I got about 3,800 mg yesterday (according to my diary, probably more from stuff that isn't labelled). It mostly came from coffee, tea, homemade vegetable soup, tomatoes, beetroot, mushrooms, salmon, broccoli, cauliflower, red wine, Greek yoghurt, oats and strawberries.

To find more foods that you like that are high in potassium, this is a handy tool: http://nutritiondata.self.com/tools/nutrient-search You can search per 100 g serving, or per 200 calorie serving.