report shows low potassium!

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princessbessica
princessbessica Posts: 25 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I've been looking at my reports, and it shows I'm getting way less potassium than I should be, but I've googled potassium rich foods and I'm eating some of them.

For example on the 6th June I had 243g of salmon and 109g of mushrooms, but my reports for that day still show really low potassium intake.

Am I reading the tables wrong - or is MFP wrong?

I've opened my food diary if you want to check (it may look odd that I've filled in tomorrow's food diary already, but I'm going out on a picnic tomorrow and have all my food weighed out in advance, so I know what I'm going to be eating.

Thanks in advance for any ideas.

Replies

  • xSimpleTwistx
    xSimpleTwistx Posts: 1 Member
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    Hi.
    Is there a reason why you are concerned about this? Have you had a blood test which has returned showing you as deficient? I'm pretty sure that you'll never meet every single recommended daily intake level.
    Try not to worry about it too much. If you want to try and increase this though, tomatoes and bananas are great sources. :smile:
  • vismal
    vismal Posts: 2,463 Member
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    A lot of times when people enter foods into the MFP database they are lazy and do not enter the vitamins and minerals. I try to add everything if I'm putting a product in the database but you'll see all the time that people usually will quit after inputting protein, carbs, fats, sugar, and calories for whatever reason. Check and make sure potassium shows up in the foods you add to your diary.
  • Branstin
    Branstin Posts: 2,320 Member
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    As stated above, the MFP database isn't always accurate. Pay close attention to all of the nutrients before adding to your diary. There is an option to edit incorrect data or add your own entries.
  • AmyRhubarb
    AmyRhubarb Posts: 6,890 Member
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    Potassium isn't required on food labels, so often isn't included. And as others said, even if it is, people don't always enter it when they add something to the database.

    Look for items that don't have the asterisk next to them, they generally are more accurate and include all nutritional info, including potassium. So for say a russet potato, search "potatoes", and then look for the entry that says "Potatoes - Russet, flesh and skin, baked" (if that is indeed what you're eating), and choose the portion - another nice thing about these entries is they have grams included in the drop down menu, so if you have a food scale, you can be more accurate with your logging. If you weighed your potato before cooking then add "raw" to your original search and you'll find an entry for that as well.

    It takes a little hunting around to find the complete entries, but most are in there. I've found that for most produce, use a plural like peaches, potatoes, tomatoes, etc. Some things that have varieties, like squash or melons require a search for those particular words, and then you find the entry for "Melon - honeydew" or whatever.

    Anyway - we're all likely getting more potassium than we think, just because it's not labeled.
  • CipherZero
    CipherZero Posts: 1,418 Member
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    If you need to track potassium, point your browser to the USDA's SR 26 database online (http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods) - I've used this to help my mother-in-law track hers.
  • princessbessica
    princessbessica Posts: 25 Member
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    Thanks all - I think that's what it must be (especially to have a low figure on a day that I was eating food supposed to be rich in potassium).

    I'll double check all my entries from now on.

    Thank you for taking the time to reply - much appreciated :-)

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