We have been writing about the high potassium foods my wife used to reverse her osteoporosis. The past two posts included the items in her typical breakfast and lunch. Today we discuss the food items in her typical dinner.
As with lunch and breakfast, the vegetables and fruits are the natural foods. They are not canned or even frozen. Canned foods are very likely to be high in sodium. If you use canned or frozen vegetables or fruit be sure they are low or no sodium. The goal of a high potassium diet is to have a 3 to 1 or better ratio of potassium to sodium. The potassium goal for a day is about 4700 mg or more, and the sodium amount is less than 1500 mg.
Dietary Considerations
There are more considerations in a diet than just the potassium and sodium. But many of the other considerations do not have strong evidence about the effect of the food component. The effect of potassium and sodium is so strong that the Institute of Medicine has recommended the values quoted in the previous paragraph at this link.
Another recommendation that has strong evidence is to limit the amount of saturated fat you take in daily. It would be very difficult to avoid all saturated fat, but it should be kept to a minimum. Preferably it should supply less than 10% of your total daily calories. Although there are some studies claiming that there is no harm in getting a lot of saturated fat, there is so much evidence to the contrary that these claims are highly doubtful.
Since most of the dietary saturated fat comes from animal sources, my wife gets most of her animal protein from sources low in saturated fat, and limits the amount of animal products eaten. Her main sources of animal protein are yogurt, eggs, poultry and fish. These all can supply animal protein with little saturated fat.
Today's dinner includes chicken, which has 154 mg of potassium and 44 mg of sodium. The saturated fat content is low. It is important that the meat is not injected with sodium. Many cuts of meat are injected with sodium to allow longer shelf life, even if frozen. Check the chicken you buy for the amount of sodium.
What The Tables Show
The first table below shows the milligrams of potassium and sodium, and the calories that she gets in the dinner. Included in the second table is her after-dinner snack of strawberries and nuts, as well as the dried fruit and nuts she has in the mid-afternoon.
The main source of potassium at dinner comes from the vegetables and fruit at dinner. The spices used for seasoning add a fair amount also. The afternoon and evening snacks add a lot of potassium in the nuts and dried fruit.
The photo does not include the coffee, nuts, and strawberries she eats after the meal. It also does not include the coffee, dried fruit and nuts she has as a mid-afternoon snack.
Dinner Recipe
Broccoli, steamed 2/3 cup
Onion 1 slice, chopped
Garlic clove 1 clove, chopped
Baked potato 1/2 medium size potato, chopped
Sweet pepper 1 pepper, sliced
Tomato 1 tomato, sliced
Chicken, roasted 1 tender
Olive oil 1 tbsp
Turmeric 1 tsp
Paprika 1 tsp
After Dinner Snack
Coffee 1 cup
Strawberries 3 large strawberries
Walnuts 1/2 oz
Almonds 1/2 oz
Mid-afternoon Snack
Dried fruit 3 pieces
Cashews 1/2 oz
Macadamia nuts 1/2 oz
Dinner
[table id=20 /]
Snacks
[table id=21 /]
Other Food Tables
The tables we have included for these meals are to show how easily you can achieve the goals in the Institute of Medicine's guidelines. The key is to be aware of the potassium and sodium values of different foods. The food tables on this site should allow you to plan meals with a wide variety of foods to achieve the same type of results with other high potassium foods. A list of the food tables and other posts is here, or you can click on the List of Posts tab at the top of the page.
[table id=20 /]
[table id=21 /]
