Have you heard of the new book “Eat your Vitamins” by Mascha Davis?  Both my Mom and I  recently got a copy and we have had so much fun learning about vitamins and minerals…how they work and what foods have large amounts.  The book mentions that most folks don’t get enough potassium on a daily basis.

 

 

According to the book, signs of deficiency can include constipation, tiredness, elevated blood pressure, increased urination, high blood sugar, and irregular heartbeat.

The book says “Adequate Intake Levels” of 3400mg for men and 2600mg for women (who don’t have kidney problems)  however a quick Google search says 4700mg is recommended as the RDA.  So 2600 mgs. sounds like it is a minium.

Anyway I spent a week diligently keeping track of my daily potassium intake and discovered I had to really change what I normally ate to get to the Adequate Intake Level.  Now that I am a few weeks into being aware of potassium rich foods I have discovered that a nice spinach salad for lunch that has an assortment of potassium rich vegetables, nuts (or a few dried apricots)  for snacks,  and a yam or potato or squash at dinner gets me to a good potassium intake.  WHEW!

The first week I packed on a few pounds as I experimented adding high potassium foods like canteloupe.  My body can’t handle carbs!  So I got out my index cards to chart HIGH CARB   HIGH POTASSIUM:

When you Google “potassium amounts”….there are so many different numbers for the same food source!  I decided to consider the numbers I wrote down as “ball park”.  I try to eat less than 100 mg of carbs especially since I gained a few pounds and decided to choose only ONE of the above daily.

It has been fun to keep track of my numbers and after a week it made sense to settle on a spinach salad with some of the high potassium veggies everyday to make it easy to get a head start to the potassium goal and fill in with high potassium that have low carbs for snacks.

If my schedule makes it impossible to get my adequate potassium level, I drink one of these Bolthouse Farms 100% Carrot juice.  The bottle contains 1090mgs of potassium!

I love this vintage image I purchased at 123rf many years ago.  I used to make greeting cards with her image asking the question “Where did I leave my tiara?”  I thought it would be a fun image to demonstrate someone suffering from low potassium.

The backside is a list of High Potassium Foods that have 250 mg. or more per serving. Feel free to print as many greeting cards as you want.  I hope everyone is getting their daily potassium!

 

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