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High Potassium, Low Potassium and Salt Health? Potassium diets, whether low potassium (deficiency) or high potassium (excess) each share a vital role with sodium, to achieve balanced nutrition and optimum wellness. The missing |
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ingredient in one’s high potassium diet is a surprising ingredient that health doctors are quick to warn of and most patients completely eliminate from their diet: sodium, or more commonly, salt. Someone may have low potassium, might first instinctually convince themselves to find high potassium count foods and devour each as an integral part of their nutrition and overall wellness, just as they would seek out protein, magnesium, calcium, minerals or other vitamins if they felt their body had too little of one essential ingredient in their daily diet. |
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What about salt? Rarely does sodium (salt) enter the conversation, unless it is to completely eliminate it. The term, salt health, or sodium health, may even sound like an oxymoron to many, but ironically, salt is an essential component of a healthy body that optimally functions. Without it, your body would be off balance, an internal cellular function would have noticeable adverse effects. That said, it is not a license to eat bag after bag of deep fried potato chips, crackers, or drown your health food of choice under a blanket of sodium at the dinner table when eating. In fact, if you have found foods with a high potassium count, only part of your problem is solved. If your body on other the hand has low potassium, or you have experienced a sudden potassium loss (via vomiting, diarrhea, cold and flu, medication, etc.) odds are greater that you are already high in sodium. Perhaps, even dangerously so. Potassium and sodium/salt work with each other and are both necessary. An excess of one usually (there are rare exceptions depending on one’s diet) depletes the other. But, in North America, the sweeping majority have health issues that are a direct result of over-using sodium in their diet, in combination with eating excessive, unnatural, highly processed, “packaged” foods that are depleted of potassium. With modern advances in medicine, there has yet to be a predetermined suggestion of just how much potassium and salt (sodium) one should consume for living at their healthy best. But, a diet rich in living, or raw foods, while minimizing processed foods (or canned foods) with artificial flavors and ingredients, accommodates most, active and normal individuals. One’s age and current health condition will also be a determining factor about what is best for your salt health and achieving a balanced diet. Examples of high potassium foods that might be welcome in your diet are fish: halibut, trout, salmon, tuna and clams. Fruits, of course, are all natural, and depending on how mineral rich the soil was it grew in, good for you. Watermelon is known for its low potassium content, while dried apricots are on the high potassium side. Meat does have potassium in it too, but I'll refrain from listing it, simply because of my own personal health beliefs about such foods. Legumes, or more commonly known, beans, always tend to be potassium rich, and even something as surprising as, molasses. Fruits and vegetables, especially leafy greens and potatoes with the skin, are going to be smart, nutritional sources of potassium, when you need it. Finding low potassium foods is as easy as staying away from, perhaps not entirely, but minimizing the obvious: what I just mentioned. High potassium diets and low potassium diets both have their quirks, but get a professional opinion rather than coming to a conclusion based on your best educated guess; it could do more harm than good. |
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