High Potassium Foods

Lamb is another of the high potassium foods. As with all meats the ratio of potassium to sodium does not get as high as in some of the plant based foods, but exceeds the desirable 3 to 1 ratio. The amount of potassium in a single 3 oz serving is usually more than 200 mg, the amount often used as a cutoff for a high potassium food. Nonetheless, some of the other characteristics of lamb would indicate that it should be only a small part of your diet. It has a large percentage of calories from fat, and a large percentage of its fat calories are from saturated fat.

Potassium In Fat

As pointed out in the beef table post, fat has much less potassium and will reduce the potassium in a cut of meat. In addition to providing little potassium, it provides the “bad” fat – saturated fat.

Some of the entries show separable lean and fat so they can be compared to the lean only. The lean only cut is always preferable from the potassium aspect. But because of the detrimental aspect of the fat, even if the potassium were higher, the lean only is preferred, and the fat should be avoided. There is no reason to eat the fat unless you are truly starving (as in famine, not as in “I haven't eaten for 4 hours, I'm starving”).

Most cuts of lamb give between 200 and a little over 300 mg of potassium in 3 oz. The lean only cut that gives 5% by weight of fat gives 35% of its calories from fat. The lean and fat cut of rib gives 70% of its calories from fat.

The Table

In the table, “separable lean and fat” means the visible fat on the edge of the cut was included in the cut that was measured.

The weights for the potassium and sodium are milligrams. The potassium and sodium values given are for 100 grams (about 3 1/2 oz) of food.

As usual, K is potassium, and Na is sodium.

Except for the potassium to sodium ratio (which we calculated), the source of data is: USDA National Nutrient Database Standard Reference – Release 22.