Do you get enough potassium?

[RabidChinchilla]

Just that really.

I was reading the vitamin D thread and it occurred to me that a fair few of the symptoms people were listing could also be caused by potassium deficiency. Studies in the US showed that only 5% of the population get the minimum recommended level and it’s also hard to take as a supplement as the pills are generally weak due to how easy it is to overdose on it compared to other minerals etc.

Apologies, it was actually only 2% of the population that were getting enough in the studies.

I had low potassium levels one time in hospital. I was offered a suppliment, but I asked about how many bananas i would have to eat a day and it was only three. So I went for that instead. The doctors were quite happy for me to do that.

I hate the way bananas became demonised on SW, WW and other diet plans.

I normally eat a lot of spinach, but had been unwell for some time and it had affected my appetite.

I’m allergic to Bananas but we eat a lot of sweet potatoes, butternut squash, cannellini beans and spinach so potassium levels are fine.

I'm not saying that you have to eat bananas, but when i was in WW, a banana was a no-no, but a fun size mars bar was ok.

I eat a lot of mushrooms, surprisingly I get 50% of my daily potassium from them.

I worked it out to be 7-8 bananas if that was your main source. Bananas have about 450mg and rda is 3500, although I’ve read that about 4700 is better.