The last high potassium foods post was a table of ready to eat cereals and their potassium content. All had excellent ratios of potassium to sodium, but most did not have a good amount of potassium in a serving. Because the weight of cereal eaten in a serving was so low (especially with the puffed cereals), little potassium was found in a serving. The few exceptions were homemade granola, Kashi Golean, Kellogg All Bran and Toasted Wheat Germ.
The problem with the homemade granola in the table is that the USDA did not say how it was made. There are a variety of recipes for homemade granola. The potassium will vary depending on how much dried fruit and nuts are added. If you are going to make the granola yourself, the more dried fruit and nuts you add, the greater the amount of potassium in the granola.
Also if you are going to make the granola, it adds time to your breakfast. The point of ready to eat cereals is to save the time that would be spent cooking. Making your own granola can take from 5 to over 60 minutes, depending on the recipe. The quickest way is to toast the oats for 5 minutes, but then it is not really granola. It is toasted oats to which you have added cinnamon, honey, fruit, nuts or whatever your particular recipe calls for – a quick and tasty breakfast, nonetheless.
If you decide to eat ready to eat cereal, because either you like it or because of time constraints, you can add nuts and dried fruit and get the improved potassium content of those additions, no matter what the cereal. This is the easiest and quickest way to use ready to eat cereals to get your potassium. The cereals in the table are those with good potassium to sodium ratios and should be the ones used, to avoid excessive sodium.
Adding the fruit and nuts should take minimal time if you are eating the cereal because of time constraints. The potassium content of dried fruit and of nuts is given in two previously posted tables, high potassum dried fruit and high potassium foods nuts.
One of the best of the ready to eat cereals in addition to those mentioned above is Quaker Toasted Wheat Bran, which has over 400 mg of potassium if the serving size is 1/2 cup instead of the 1/4 cup used by the USDA. Adding dried fruit and nuts can give you over 1000 mg of potassium in your breakfast.
When you do not have really tight time constraints, you can use cooked cereal with added fruit and nuts to make a high potassium breakfast in 2 to 5 minutes cooking time.
