Potassium Can Improve Your Life & Lower Your Risk of Disease—Here’s How
Dr Livingood
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Did you know that only 2% of people get the recommended daily value of potassium? Potassium is a vital nutrient that’s needed by all of the tissue in your body. Our ancestors had 3 times more potassium in our diets than we have now.
If you are experiencing, or have experienced any of the following, it could be due to a potassium deficiency:
Constipation
Heart Palpitations
Fatigue
Muscle Problems
Numbness & Tingling
Gut Issues
Potassium Benefits
Potassium helps maintain your body’s proper fluid levels, and it’s constantly battling sodium inside your body to do so. Sodium often wins that fight and dehydrates you because there’s a ton of sodium in the processed foods we eat today.
But salt isn’t necessarily the problem—you just need to take in enough potassium to balance it out. The recommended daily intake of potassium is 4,700 milligrams per day. To encourage a healthy balance, we need to eat less than 2,300 milligrams of salt. I suggest a 5:1 ratio for eating potassium and salt.
Potassium helps with the following:
Contraction of Muscles
Balance of Fluid
Nerve Conduction
Supports blood pressure, osteoporosis risk, stroke risk, and the possibility of kidney stones.
How to Get More Potassium in Your Diet
So how do we get more potassium in our diets?
Here are some delicious-tasting foods that you can eat in order to increase your daily potassium intake:
Cucumber – You can soak these in vinegar in the fridge and/or use a natural sweetener to make them taste even better. I eat at least one cucumber every single day, and I’ve made a video discussing all of its benefits
Broccoli – Broccoli is a superfood when it comes to potassium. I have another video that covers broccoli’s many health benefits.
Spinach – Cooking spinach and broccoli actually releases more potassium, so gently cooking it is a good idea.
Melon – Honeydew or cantaloupe are hydrating and have a lot of potassium. I recommend eating them by themselves in the morning so you can burn off the fructose that comes with them.
Sweet Potatoes – Chop these up and throw them in a toaster oven with a side of ketchup for a delicious snack. I don’t recommend these if you’re cutting back on sugar and fat.
Mushrooms – Chop these up and put them in a salad, dip them in dressing, or put them on beef for a good boost of potassium.
Grapefruit – You shouldn’t have grapefruit if you’re on certain heart medications, but they’re a great source of potassium.
Oranges – Oranges are another great source of potassium.
Potassium benefits our bodies in many vital ways, and there are so many forgotten superfoods right here that can load you up with it.
Magnesium and potassium are like buddies. If you want to learn more about magnesium, another super mineral that works well with potassium, check out my video here.
