Potassium

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.

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!

Sweet Potato Collard Soup and a Rainy Day Playlist

Today is a cozy day at the RIC; people doing work and Perspectives homework in the dining room on a rainy, grey day.  I started some soup from a bunch of ingredients that needed to be used and listened to my current favorite playlist of songs by my "friends" while it cooked.

Sweet Potato Collard Soup

2 tsp. unsalted butter
2 Tbsp. oil
1 medium onion, diced
3 Tbsp. ginger, minced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 Tbsp. ground cumin
1 Tbsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
1 Tbsp. smoked paprika
8 c. peeled, cubed sweet potatoes
12 c. water
1/2 Tbsp. salt
1 Tbsp. oil
1 lb. fresh collards, chopped (or  frozen, thawed and drained)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 Tbsp. ground fennel
1 1/4 c. brown rice, cooked
3 bratwurst, raw

Heat butter and oil in bottom of medium soup pot.  Add onion, ginger, and garlic.  Cook, stirring frequently, until golden-brown.  You may need to add a little water to keep them from sticking.  Add cumin, cinnamon, pepper, and paprika and sauté for 2 minutes, again adding water if needed.  Add sweet potatoes, water, and salt.  Bring to a boil, then simmer, covered, until potatoes are soft, about 25-30 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat the remaining Tbsp. oil in a large skillet; add collards.  Saute until they start to soften.  Add salt and fennel, and water, if needed, so that there is a thin layer (1/4 inch) on bottom of skillet.  Add bratwurst to pan; cover and cook five minutes.  Flip bratwurst and cook another five minutes.

Mash sweet potatoes slightly using a masher, whisk (what I used), or immersion blender.  Set bratwurst aside and add collard mixture and brown rice to sweet potatoes.  Rinse the frying pan, then use it to brown the bratwurst on two sides.  Remove from heat and allow bratwurst to set for five minutes before cutting into small pieces.  Add to soup.

Makes twelve 1 1/3 c. servings.  One serving contains 227 Calories, 1 c. vegetables, 1/2 oz. protein, 1 tsp. oils, 37 empty Calories, 3 g. saturated fat, and 680 mg. sodium, according to Supertracker.


If I hadn't had the bratwurst and cooked brown rice on hand, I would have added 3/4 c. red lentils, 1/2 c. uncooked brown rice and an extra cup or two of water to the sweet potatoes at the beginning, cooking until rice is soft before mashing the potatoes and adding the collards.

Granola Recipe

This is the lower-fat granola recipe that I use.  The higher-fat granolas made with lots of oil and sugar have a more tender crunch to them; this one is a little crisper.  It is still not low fat, but at least it has a much more reasonable amount of calories than a lot of homemade granolas do.

A serving is 1/2 cup and is 241 Calories*.  If you keep track of the balance of your diet (I use https://www.supertracker.usda.gov/) it provides 1 oz. of whole grains, 1/4 c. fruit, 1/2 oz. protein, and 1 tsp. oils (from the nuts).  It actually provides those things even if you don't keep track of what you eat.


Granola

8 c. Old Fashioned Oats
2 c. Raw Nuts/Seeds (for this batch, I used 1/2 c. slivered almonds, 1 c. (minus 1 Tbsp) sunflower seeds, 1 Tbsp. sesame seeds, and 1/2 c. pumpkin seeds)
1 1/2 Tbsp. Cinnamon
1 Tbsp. Ground Ginger
1 1/2 c. Brown Sugar
1/2 c. Water
1 Tbsp. Vanilla
2 c. Dried Fruit (I used 1/2 c. golden raisins, 1/2 c. dried cherries, and 1 c. chopped dates)

Preheat oven to 275 degrees.
Mix together the oats, nuts/seeds, and spices.

Heat together brown sugar and water in small saucepan over medium-high until sugar dissolves.  Cool slightly, stir in vanilla, then pour over oat mixture.  Mix well until the sugar mixture evenly coats everything.
Spread onto sheet pans (it will probably take 2-3 cookie sheets) in a thin layer.

Put in oven and bake for 15 minutes.  Stir well.  Bake another 15 minutes.  Stir well again.  Repeat until granola has been baked for 1 hour and is slightly browned and crunchy.

It's hard to tell from these pictures, but the uncooked granola looks darker brown and wet.  Finished granola is golden and evenly dry/crispy/crumbly.  If in doubt over whether it is done, remove a small amount from the pan and allow it to cool, then taste it.  If it's still too chewy, put it in the oven a little longer.

 Add dried fruits; stir.

Allow granola to cool completely, then put in an airtight container for storage.  Some people like to put it in the refrigerator, but mine has never gone bad on me yet.

Now, eat! 

I don't particularly like cereal, but I'm trying to get more dairy into my life.  Here is how I like cereal when I do eat it: pour a few shredded wheat biscuits into a bowl, then a little granola, then a little raisin bran, and then top it off with some cheerios and milk.


*The recipe I used to use was the Crunchy Granola recipe in the More with Less cookbook.  Per half-cup serving, that granola had 333 Calories, 1 oz. whole grains, 1 1/2 oz. protein, and a whopping 3 tsp. oils.