I had no choice but to entitle a post "Potassi-yum." No choice.
This post goes through a day in the life of proper sodium and potassium consumption. It was a day that both Zach and I had off, so we got to eat all of our healthy meals together.
Not pictured: the banana I had before Zach woke up, the green tea latte of which I had half in the morning and half in the afternoon, the tea with milk I had before lunch, the nutella-orange bostock we got after our walk to Pistacia Vera, the 14 walnut halves and 1 Tbsp. of raisins I had after we got back from the gym, or the snacks we had at a farewell open house for Zach's brother and his wife....but those were indeed counted toward my potassium/sodium (and fruit, and dairy, and total Calorie....) goals.
We started out the day with coffee on the porch.
It was a sunny but chilly day, but blankets helped. I didn't realize how cold it was until, after eating, I took a sip of my coffee and it was so cold it hurt my teeth.
This is what we ate:
It was a hash of caramelized onion and garlic, white potatoes, white beans, and lightly-sauteed spinach With parsley. Fried egg(s) on top and yogurt on the side.
Another view:
We should eat all of our meals outside; the pictures turn out much better.
After breakfast was when we took our walk to Pistacia Vera (two-ish miles away). It was very crowded, so we walked quite a few blocks to an espresso bar/chocolatier. When we were about a block away, we decided to go back to Pistacia Vera again, where we had espresso and our bostock, which was, to be honest, my least-favorite thing we have had from there.
I guess bostocks are pictured after all, just so that you know what they are. I sure didn't know what a bostock was. The one we had was brioche (possibly soaked in something alcoholic) with a layer of nutella on top, covered with what seemed to be an eggy-sugary-almondy goop, then baked/broiled. Apparently there is also a soccer player somewhere named Bostock, because when I google-imaged the word, most of the pictures were soccer related.
We walked home, and eventually had lunch. We had the acorn squash pictured first at the beginning of this post, and now a few more times:
It was baked, then stuffed with a mix of quinoa, white beans, fresh dill, diced green onions and red peppers, caramelized onions, golden raisins, and lemon juice
On the side was a salad of sliced mushrooms (the last of my huge mushroom haul...sad), red peppers, onion, dill, toasted walnuts, and lemon juice.
Lemon juice (and vinegar) goes a long was in adding flavor while not adding sodium. Chefs have been known to say that if you avoid processed foods, you can salt your food liberally and your sodium intake will be fine. This is not true. The recommended 2300 mg sodium/day is about one teaspoon. The average shake of a salt-shaker is 1/16th of a teaspoon.
Our afternoon was spent on about and hour or so at the open house and two or so hours at the gym. At home, we (I) cooked up supper:
Sauteed asparagus, mushrooms, and diced chicken with garlic, green onions, and more dill. Served over more quinoa (for Zach. I wasn't very hungry and I didn't want to waste stomach space on the less-potassiumy foods).
Avocado and lemon on the side, along with apple slices.
And that was our food for the day! Stay tuned for more potassium goodness.
I have done a few food experiments over the years, especially when I was in school studying various diets for my Medical Nutrition Therapy class. I would do them for two weeks so that I would be able to better advise patients who must follow those diets. I did vegetarian, I did vegan, I did gluten free, I did dairy free, I did allergen free, I did the DASH diet, I did low sodium, I did liquid (I only did that one for one week), I did diabetic (as in tracking my carbs, fats, and proteins), I did low residue (which, if you look at it, goes against everything you believe to be true), etc., etc.
I did NOT do pureed foods and thickened liquids. Gross.
Anyway, recently I have had two dietary goals: get enough dairy and fruit every day. Those are the areas I have the most trouble (I may have written this before, I can't remember). I know I have written about Supertracker. Supertracker has a feature where you can track how you've done on various things, viewing graphs that show the history of the physical activities you have logged, the various nutrients, etc.
This is my potassium log, from February 1 until now:
Ouch.
For those that don't know, potassium helps to balance excessive sodium in the bloodstream. It does other things, too, but this is a big focus for us Americans who tend to consume too much sodium.
Speaking of consuming too much sodium:
That green line is so very low on the sodium chart, and so very high on the potassium one. Sigh. Keep in mind that during the days that these charts represent, I was eating very healthfully: very few processed foods, very little added salt or condiments (other than hot sauce, and even that was limited), lots of fresh vegetables and fruits and legumes and all the things you should be eating. Even with all this, there were only 11 days (out of 52) where I properly limited my sodium, and 10 where I had enough potassium....and that includes the last four days where I hit both goals because I was really trying to.
So, as I was looking at my fancy graphs, I noticed my upsetting potassium and sodium trends and decided to have another of my two week food goal plan things. I am four days in, and so far I have met the goals every day.
But boy, this is the hardest one I've done yet.
It's not that there aren't a lot of foods that have potassium. There are, and those are foods that I typically eat several of on most days. It's just that you need so much potassium. 4,700 mg/day. To give you a little perspective, a banana--the food that everyone knows has potassium--has just around 422 mg, or 12% of your daily requirement. That's nothing.
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| Bananas are dumb. |
Thankfully, there are many foods that have much more potassium that bananas. Here are two good sources for reading about foods high in potassium.
http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20721159,00.html
http://www.healthaliciousness.com/articles/food-sources-of-potassium.php
For these four days now, I have been eating lots of spinach, mushrooms, sweet/regular potatoes, bananas, avocados, winter squash, dried apricots, white beans, etc. This is all well and good until I realized that my trends for vitamins C, D and E were suffering. Sigh. Just can't win. One thing that makes me very happy is that dairy contains a decent amount of potassium. Woohoo, two birds with one stone! :o)
My next several posts (or at least one) will be about potassium-y foods, what I have been eating, and maybe even a little more of this exciting information! Keep reading!
