how to do you eat enough potassium

Here i googled it for you http://www.healthaliciousness.com/articles/food-sources-of-potassium.php

Potatoes and beans! I eat those almost daily. Nearly every food has potassium in it, although, at least in the US, potassium is not required to be labeled on products, so it's hard to track, and our food diaries are not necessarily counting all of our potassium intake because of this (you probably see a lot of "zeros"--that's why--not labelled, doesn't mean there's none).

I wouldn't sweat it. Unless you've got a medical need to up your potassium intake (if your doctor has never said, than likely you don't), don't even worry about it.

Be aware that most foods on MFP don't list potassium at all, and food labels (at least in USA) aren't required to list it.

I love potatoes, so I have no problems with potassium, but if you don't want to eat bananas (sugar is a useless number by the way, don't pay attention to it) you can always sprinkle your foods with herbs that are very rich in potassium, like parsley (a tablespoon of dried parsley has about 60 mg), coriander, basil, celery flakes.. etc. Also, a cup of instant coffee has 70 mg. Some baked goods also have potassium (cream of tartar is the richest food substance in potassium)

The above may not sound like much, but it was just to show you that you are probably consuming more potassium than you think and all these add up, so I wouldn't worry too much.

3dogsrunning wrote: »

Potassium is not required to be listed on food labels. Plus, a lot of entries on MFP are user entered items. There is a good chance you are getting more potassium than you think.

^^^This. People post panicky things on the forums all the time about how MFP says they're not getting enough potassium, and 90% of the time it's that users are choosing database entries with missing potassium info.

Reality check:

Step 1: Look at the nutritional data for the food.
Step 2: Is the Potassium "zero" or "N/A"? Then it's wrong. All food has /some/ potassium in it. Did you know a cup of black coffee has like half the potassium of a banana? A cup of freakin' black coffee!

You'll definitely find that in general, fresh whole foods have more potassium in them than processed foods, but not really enough to even worry about.

The best advice I can give you is that especially when you are logging fresh fruits, vegetables, and even lean meats and a lot of dairy, if you take the time to find and use the MFP-created entries (no asterisk next to the name), you'll get a potassium count. Every entry with an asterisk next to it was created by a user, and users don't have access to potassium info a lot of the time, so it's blank.

Not much you can do about packaged foods though except generally check the database entry to make sure it makes sense. If potassium is blank, it's gonna be blank.

^^^^ I track my potassium and I have an open food diary (I was low in potassuim a couple years ago. When I tracked it I was only getting 500 to 700. I have learned ways to up it.. so take a peak.

If my day is short on potassium, I will drink the low sodium V8 juice. 8oz has 900 potassium and only 140 sodium, 50 calories.

Mushrooms, tomato's very high in calcium too.