Potassium

[Non]

Potassium seems to be one of the hardest nutrients to get for me. All the foods that have it too, must be eaten it seems in very high quantities just to satisfy the RDA.

Hardly any concentrated sources I've seen of potassium.

[Living Food]

Seaweed. Without a doubt the highest source there is. 100 grams of dulse (I think - it's one of the popular seaweeds) has over 8 grams (8000 milligrams) of potassium - which exceeds the RDA. Kelp has something like 5000 milligrams in 100 grams.

Greens and especially green sprouts are also great sources. And then there's the way-overrated bananas if that's you're thing - just mentioning that so that no one else says I overlooked it. Most fruits have some, some more then others, and nuts and seeds also have small quantities. Nothing beats seaweed, though, not even close.

[lafsalot]

How was your low potassium levels established? Are you having symptoms that are usually associated with it, such as leg cramps/muscle spasms and weakness?

If you are eating a well balanced raw diet, keeping well hydrated, and are not on any medications (IE diuretics) that would deplete it, you really shouldn't be having any problems.

Not sure what the RDA for potassium is, but one banana alone provides 400mg, and 1/2 cup of raisins has 553 mg.

[Non]

Wow really SEAWEED OMG!!!

It was right in front of me! BUt it's expensive too....

well.. I calculate it with nutritiondata.com what I eat. I dont think I have enough. 1-2 lbs of green a day is not enough for me. Beet greens seems to provide a bit, but i cna't eat them. nor tomatoes. nor 10 bananas.

Potassium as a vegan.. all my life was the hardest mineral for me to find. and now I've found it. seaweed. thanks.

now as for zinc.. this is another one I need more of.

[Non]

How was your low potassium levels established? Are you having symptoms that are usually associated with it, such as leg cramps/muscle spasms and weakness?

If you are eating a well balanced raw diet, keeping well hydrated, and are not on any medications (IE diuretics) that would deplete it, you really shouldn't be having any problems.

Not sure what the RDA for potassium is, but one banana alone provides 400mg, and 1/2 cup of raisins has 553 mg.

As I said, just punched it in the RDA. Im not a fan of fruit though. Raisins yea do have a lot. Very high in sugar though...

even so. Bananas, are more. And for get the RDA.. I would need like... 10.

Yea.. potassium is pretty high in fruits. but I would need more than I'd like to consume to reach the RDA. And the greens just aren't cutting it for me.

[MysticTree]

If we are eating a raw diet then there is every chance that we don't need such high levels as the RDAs suggest. Who is it anyway who says a certain amount is the amount we should have? How do they work it out?

Zinc ... Robh mentioned yesterday that wild rice (soaked) is a source of zinc and I think it's in certain nuts.

[Non]

hm. it seems seaweed is not the best choice. Only Dulse and Kelp also, but has a lot of iodine but hmm... I read somewhere that the japanese can regularly get up to 12-15 mg of iodine a day. That's close to 100g of kelp! That's a lot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Non]

If we are eating a raw diet then there is every chance that we don't need such high levels as the RDAs suggest. Who is it anyway who says a certain amount is the amount we should have? How do they work it out?

Zinc ... Robh mentioned yesterday that wild rice (soaked) is a source of zinc and I think it's in certain nuts.\

wild rice isn't raw.

Also... I believe we should at least be getting RDA.

But if you think we absorb these vitamins more if they're raw then hm... that might be something to think about.

[MysticTree]

Is it not? Blast! What a shame; how come?

I don't know if it's about absorbing them more or just that raw food may damage them less than cooking does. Or a combination. Or indeed neither since I have no evidence to back up what I'm pondering.

[Non]

a shame that I seem to be allergic to bananas too. I get asthma everytime I eat one.

[MysticTree]

best not to eat any! I don't like bananas much but include them due to their low cost.

[walnutty]

wild rice isn't raw.


Why does it sprout then?

[MysticTree]

Why does it sprout then?
I have seen temps of 90 degrees F mentioned when it comes to wild rice but nothing saying higher temps are used ... as yet. I think it's raw enough for me. I don't eat it all that often; it's so expensive.

[Turnip]

Sunflower seeds have zinc and I've read that pumpkin seeds have the highest levels of zinc in a non-meat food :-)

[Raw Angel Mom]

In season, go for the pumpkin. You can make raw pumpkin noddle and even juice it.

http://cjking.hubpages.com/hub/Health-Benefits-of-Pumpkin

Other wise here are some food rich in potassium (only pick the plant food, there is a link to find the content of potassium). Notice, the herbs, the dates, apricot and nuts

http://www.healthaliciousness.com/nutritionfacts/nutrition-comparison.php?o=9421&t=9421&h=102&s=100&e=24.00&r=100

[Living Food]

Pumpkin seeds do have a lot of zinc, but also very high levels of phytic acid. Poppy seeds have amazing levels of zinc. Chlorella has a lot, too.


hm. it seems seaweed is not the best choice. Only Dulse and Kelp also, but has a lot of iodine but hmm... I read somewhere that the japanese can regularly get up to 12-15 mg of iodine a day. That's close to 100g of kelp! That's a lot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You lost me here; are you saying that kelp + dulse have to much iodine for your liking, or that seaweed doesn't have enough potassium (or something else)? You didn't make it very clear in your post.

By the way, the RDAs are pretty much all inaccurate, but potassium is a nutrient that you can't really get too much off. You'd need to eat around 200,000 bananas before you reached LD 50 (the dose that will kill half of the people that take it). Sure, you can eat less then that and still have kidney damage, but we're talking insane amounts of potassium.

Still, it shouldn't be that hard to get enough - the reason that humans (and most animals) can be "addicted" to salt so easily is because in our natural state we have an abundance of potassium in fresh fruits + vegetables, and very little sodium in comparison.


But if you think we absorb these vitamins more if they're raw then hm... that might be something to think about.

Depends. You absorb nutrients almost 100% when juiced, and better raw then cooked if you're talking about fairly easy-to-digest foods. Tough fibrous vegetables sometimes are very difficult to get nutrients out of the cell walls when you eat them raw if they're not juiced (or blended, although that destroys some nutrients too, like cooking).

But not only do you absorb more nutrients when the food is uncooked (assuming it's something that we can easily digest), you absorb far more nutrients when your digestion is working at peak efficiency and your toxic load is decreased, and you don't need as many nutrients if you're not polluting your body with toxic cooked food. Raw food helps nutrient deficiencies in far more ways then just one.

[MysticTree]

Pumpkin seeds do have a lot of zinc, but also very high levels of phytic acid. Poppy seeds have amazing levels of zinc. Chlorella has a lot, too.



You lost me here; are you saying that kelp + dulse have to much iodine for your liking, or that seaweed doesn't have enough potassium (or something else)? You didn't make it very clear in your post.

By the way, the RDAs are pretty much all inaccurate, but potassium is a nutrient that you can't really get too much off. You'd need to eat around 200,000 bananas before you reached LD 50 (the dose that will kill half of the people that take it). Sure, you can eat less then that and still have kidney damage, but we're talking insane amounts of potassium.

Still, it shouldn't be that hard to get enough - the reason that humans (and most animals) can be "addicted" to salt so easily is because in our natural state we have an abundance of potassium in fresh fruits + vegetables, and very little sodium in comparison.



Depends. You absorb nutrients almost 100% when juiced, and better raw then cooked if you're talking about fairly easy-to-digest foods. Tough fibrous vegetables sometimes are very difficult to get nutrients out of the cell walls when you eat them raw if they're not juiced (or blended, although that destroys some nutrients too, like cooking).

But not only do you absorb more nutrients when the food is uncooked (assuming it's something that we can easily digest), you absorb far more nutrients when your digestion is working at peak efficiency and your toxic load is decreased, and you don't need as many nutrients if you're not polluting your body with toxic cooked food. Raw food helps nutrient deficiencies in far more ways then just one.

and what that means is that the RDA is lower for raw foods because RDA is worked out for cooked foods I imagine and if the RDA has to allow for not getting all the nutrient that is in the food then it is artificially high for raw foodists ... unless it is worked out on the raw food value but then cooking ensues in which case those on SAD diet should try to get higher levels than RDA ... depends how it is worked out I suppose.

[Living Food]

The RDA has nothing to do with our needs anyway, don't worry about it. Just like the food pyramid, it has more to do with certain "interests" then with the actual requirements of the human body, if you get my drift.

[Non]

Pumpkin seeds do have a lot of zinc, but also very high levels of phytic acid. Poppy seeds have amazing levels of zinc. Chlorella has a lot, too.



You lost me here; are you saying that kelp + dulse have to much iodine for your liking, or that seaweed doesn't have enough potassium (or something else)? You didn't make it very clear in your post.

By the way, the RDAs are pretty much all inaccurate, but potassium is a nutrient that you can't really get too much off. You'd need to eat around 200,000 bananas before you reached LD 50 (the dose that will kill half of the people that take it). Sure, you can eat less then that and still have kidney damage, but we're talking insane amounts of potassium.

Still, it shouldn't be that hard to get enough - the reason that humans (and most animals) can be "addicted" to salt so easily is because in our natural state we have an abundance of potassium in fresh fruits + vegetables, and very little sodium in comparison.



Depends. You absorb nutrients almost 100% when juiced, and better raw then cooked if you're talking about fairly easy-to-digest foods. Tough fibrous vegetables sometimes are very difficult to get nutrients out of the cell walls when you eat them raw if they're not juiced (or blended, although that destroys some nutrients too, like cooking).

But not only do you absorb more nutrients when the food is uncooked (assuming it's something that we can easily digest), you absorb far more nutrients when your digestion is working at peak efficiency and your toxic load is decreased, and you don't need as many nutrients if you're not polluting your body with toxic cooked food. Raw food helps nutrient deficiencies in far more ways then just one.

Yea I think potassium is really important. I dont know why I just think it is. I thought maybe it was an intuition.

anyways.. I was saying that seaweed doesn't have enough potassium. For example, in nutritiondata.com it shows laver, wakame and kelp having low levels of potassium. But I also know that nutritiondata.com is not always right and it really depends on where you get your food. For example.. kelp are ND.com shows very low levels of potassium for help, but the kelp I get from the store very clearly shows kelp having a lot.. 22% for one serving.

As for the iodine.. yea I was just thinking outloud there.. I had always tried to be careful with kelp because it has lots of iodine. I also had a hard time finding estimates of how much iodine kelp really has per G. I mean I've calculated it before with percentages but I forgot. I found somewhere online though that said kelp has about 16g of iodine in 100g of it. I thought , hey maybe kelp isn't all that concentrated of iodine if the Japanese regularly have 12-15g of iodine a day, according to some figures I've seen on an article about iodine.

So I can have close to 100g of kelp and still be ok. As for dulse.. it has a lot of potassium. I should really look into making that a regular part of my diet. It's just quite expensive though... and seaweed tastes blah if I dont use it in some kind of recipe like with sesame oil, vinegar and garlic.

Recently I dont have the money for the sesame oil,and I dont really agree with consuming oils in the first place unless it comes from sprouted seeds. Sometimes I make a paste of sesame seeds and eat it with that and lemon juice. Other than that, since I don't have sesame oil around anymore I just chew on a piece of kelp everyday.

Thanks for the info on potassium sources though. I will be looking forward to getting more potassium.
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I want to give thanks to everyone else who contributed to this thread. I appreciate your replies and the helpful information.

Regards

[MysticTree]

I don't worry about rda quotas. I try not to worry about anything much.