I have 4 more vegetables for you as potassium food sources. They are –
- Lettuce
- Endives
- Lambs quarters
- Radishes
9. Lettuce comes in various types, and you will find that some supermarkets and markets are now catering for the different palates.
If you have high blood pressure and want to regulate your potassium levels with high potassium foods, then go for the dark leafy green types. If it helps, the RDA for potassium is 3.5 grams a day.
If you’ve searched through numerous lists on foods containing potassium, you will probably have noticed that lettuce normally ranks in the moderate to low potassium food sources, but rarely if ever in the high potassium foods. Very misleading!
Yes, the potassium in Iceberg lettuce is very low at 87 mgs, but loose leaf lettuce and even better, Romaine lettuce, are both high potassium foods; Romaine lettuce weighing in at 162mgs of potassium in 1 cup.
High blood pressure sufferers on potassium wasting diuretics must find the majority of lists, vague sources of information, and useless if they are trying to boost their potassium levels.
World’s Healthiest Foods.com listed Romaine lettuce as a quality source of potassium. It ranks in my categories as a “very good” vegetable. All in all, most salad vegetables are coming up trumps. Good news for the dieters! Bad news for my husband because I have a good excuse now for dishing it up.
10. Endives is the next addition to my list of potassium food sources. It is a pale green, almost white salad vegetable of the Chicory family.
Endives are grown specially to have this creamy pale look by keeping the plant from rising above the soil surface, blocking sunlight. This also dilutes the strong bitter taste, a characteristic of wild endives, and retains a mildly bitter taste that stimulates appetite. In addition to the high potassium levels (100 mg = small endive), endives help regulate high blood pressure with the beta-carotene (pro-vitamin A) antioxidant properties, which makes up for the lack of vitamin C due to the restricted sunlight, and they act as a mild diuretic.
So, there is no need for you to “be in the dark” about endives. Make sure to add them to your list of potassium food sources on your next visit to the market.
11. Lambs quarters, also known as pigweed, goosefoot, fat hen, or dung weed, is one of our free potassium food sources.
Some of our weeds are high potassium foods and lambs quarters is categorized as a weed. Probably you have pulled it up at sometime while weeding, a mistake if you have vegetables in your garden. Lambs quarters are a help for potatoes, cucumbers, melons and corn, as well as some flowers.
If you don’t have a garden, then you will spot it in fields and by the roadside. It’s lower, larger leaves are shaped like a goosefoot or diamond shape with a waxy surface, and the smaller leaves have a powdery look underneath. The stems are squarish in shape with rouge colored stripes.
You can cook the young leaves like spinach. In fact, they taste similar to spinach, another one of our rich potassium food sources. You can also add them to salads, but beware that you really do have lambs quarters and not some other toxic weed. They also have a measure of toxicity, so do not eat too much of the stuff. Like any other vegetable, you will save most of its precious minerals and vitamins if you steam cook.
12. Radishes are one of my favorite, foods containing potassium. They add crispness and color to any salad along with a mild peppery taste.
Like our other potassium food sources, radishes are high in potassium. (134 mg = ½ cup, sliced) You can cook radishes too, and compliment them with basil or dill. I like to eat them with cheese, or in my salads, but I never knew they could be cooked and served up hot.
If you want to choose good radishes, feel for firmness. If they can be squeezed then the flesh will be pithy.
Our list will continue to grow as foods containing potassium are in abundant. To continue adding new foods to your list, keep posted! Just click on the orange button on the home page navigation bar and watch out for any updates on additional potassium food sources.
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