This article is a transcribed edited summary of a video Bob and Brad recorded in April of 2022. For the original video go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PliNa8Ryp3s
Brad: We just did a video on potassium and how critical it is to stay healthy in regard to muscle contraction and nerve conductivity, and how it fits our motto of how to be healthy, fit, and pain-free. I was so excited about it, I wanted to go through and show some of the food groups that are high in potassium that Chris and I eat, and Bob too, and some things that you can eat as well to improve your life, health style, and heart in particular.
Chris: Absolutely.
Brad: Cut down on the salt and increase potassium, and you're going to have a healthier heart.
Chris: Exactly, there is a relationship, and when you eat a high diet in potassium or potassium-containing foods, it knocks down the sodium, so, it also helps with kidney stones.
Brad: Excellent, and one more point I want to go on before we hit the food is, if you want to try supplementing potassium, these are a much better source of potassium as opposed to taking pills or supplements.
Chris: Yeah, the FDA actually limits the amount of potassium that they will be able to put in each capsule. It's limited to 99 milligrams, so you'd have to eat several capsules to get what you're going to be getting from these types of foods.
Brad: Right, so that's 99 milligrams, versus hundreds from food.
Chris: Yes. And avoid a lot of stomach upset. So if you need to take supplements, let's say there's an allergy to certain things, definitely do it with your doctor's guidance. Don't just go willy-nilly and take it.
Brad: But if you're a healthy person, you can eat all the foods high in potassium you want and you're going to be nothing but healthy.
Chris: Correct. It's going to make a big difference.
Brad: Okay. Let's start with bananas. Everyone, it seems, knows about potassium in bananas, don't they?
Chris: Yep, bananas? Love them.
Brad: So typically you're going to eat them raw. I've got some information. 422 milligrams of potassium versus that 99 milligrams in a capsule. So there you go. Peel it, eat it, that's typically how most people eat it, except for banana bread.
Chris: There you go.
Brad: I don't know if it maintains the potassium when you bake it.
Chris: A lot of times, what I've read at least is cooking can vary things from about five to 10% for the most part. There are some nuances to that with the foods that you cook and eat too.
Brad: Typically the higher the heat the more the nutrient level may drop.
Chris: And boiling versus steaming makes a difference, too. Like corn, you know it's one of those things, that cooked corn is better than raw. I don't know if we'd do raw corn.
Brad: This is a beautiful example, cantaloupe. I don't know if this is a fruit or a vegetable.
Chris: Cantaloupe. Well, I would say it's got seeds, so I'm going to go fruit.
Brad: There we go. It has 427 milligrams of potassium from the source I got. You'll get different numbers for these sources, we know they're all high.
Chris: Your favorites.
Brad: My favorite foods. Yes, the avocado. I started to eat them a couple of years ago, and I usually have four to five per week. I just cut them open and eat them raw. You can make all kinds of things.
Chris: Guacamole, the best stuff ever.
Brad: Just keep the salt out of it, by the way. All right. The next one is a big hitter that I have not been familiar with, but Chris, you eat these on a regular basis.
Chris: Beets. I have them daily. So it's kind of interesting with the way potassium goes. There is less potassium in the root and more potassium in the leaves.
Brad: Do you just eat this raw?
Chris: It's pretty earthy. I actually usually blend them. So what I do is I take a beet every day. When I take them home, I cut off the leaves and I'll use them in a salad. The root I will actually peel and I throw it in the blender, straight up. No cooking.
Brad: All by itself?
Chris: I put it in there with an orange which also has a lot of potassium. I put it in there with kale, I put it in there with spinach, some pineapple, some raspberry, and some blueberries.
Brad: So you save the leaves, which have a higher level of potassium, so do not throw them away.
Chris: It makes a great salad. You can mix it in with other salad parts if you want. I use the leaf right on a burger myself.
Brad: Cool! And they look healthy.
Chris: They are, a good green color, they have red veins.
Brad: Make sure you wash it, particularly, in my mind, if it's not organic there may be some pesticides.
Chris: You want to wash them for about 30 seconds. You want to run running water over it for at least 30 seconds. Stores carry food detergents also that some people feel that they want to go to the Nth degree. But most studies suggest just running cool water for 30 seconds is sufficient.
Brad: So food detergent is like a soap made for cleaning food?
Chris: Yeah, I believe it's a surfactant type that's made specifically to take care of all the things that may be on there.
Brad: We don't have detailed information on that, but it is available. Look at this, dried apricot. Make sure you get the ones without sugar.
Chris: They're sweet naturally, I don't think you need it.
Brad: Figs. Now there's a rule of thumb that goes along with these, and what about the color?
Chris: Yeah, the rule of thumb if you're just looking for things with potassium, orange and yellow typically anything orange and yellow, like oranges, bananas, cantaloupe, apricot, sweet potato, which we're going to get to, are going to be higher in potassium naturally. You're not going to go wrong with the greens. Things that we didn't bring out today, kiwi, are actually more than a banana. Tomatoes are an excellent source of potassium. Potatoes are awesome. I'm Irish, so I love them.
Brad: So this potato, I understand there's more potassium in the skin area, so you don't want to peel it if you want to get high potassium.
Chris: Yeah, you want to do a baked potato if you can, because most of the nutrients in any potato, or sweet potato, are actually contained within the skin itself.
Brad: I eat sweet potatoes. I've read in some books, maybe sweet potatoes are a better option than regular potatoes. You can argue, there are people all over that will argue differently, and it's like politics and religion. I don't care about arguing about nutrition.
Chris: They're both good.
Brad: Okay, the next one. Now, this is interesting, they say white beans. I have some baby lima beans, which are white, great northern beans, I don't know if that's got anything to do with Wisconsin and Minnesota people? But anyway, Cannelloni beans.
Chris: White kidney beans.
Brad: White kidney beans. So those are a nice source when you're making soups. I think that's probably a staple for that, but I'm not a cook. If I can't make it easily, it's not a good one.
Chris: Yeah.
Brad: Now this one is very interesting. This is our number 10th one, prune juice. Very high in calcium and fiber. It's a great juice. This happens to be organic. I like to stick with organic personally if I can. It costs more, but I like the idea of fewer chemicals. Now what we are going to do, is we're going to grind this all up and we're going to condense it down in about 30 seconds with the Magic Bullet. This Magic Bullet is going to make something so high in potassium, we will not have to worry about eating anything for the rest of the day.
Brad: All right. Let's taste this and give out a grade. It's not bad.
Chris: Not that bad. It's pretty banana-ey.
Brad: I think we should make some more. I think the beans are ground up really well.
Chris: It's a winner.
Brad: A potassium party it is.
Chris: There we are. Thanks.
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