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A 15 minute interview with Bill Faloon and Michael Lustgarten
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Tag Archives: potassium
Michael Lustgarten on Calorie Restricting, Nutrient Tracking, and Blood Testing
Video of my presentation starts at 14:28, and lasts until 1:29:00+!
If you’re interested, please have a look at my book!
Think Your Diet Is Paleo? Not If Your Potassium Intake Is Less Than…
The stereotype about the Paleo diet is that it is meat heavy. How much meat Paleo era-eaters ate is debatable, but that they consumed large amounts of potassium rich, plant-based foods is not! When examining 159 Stone Age diets, the average daily potassium intake has been reported to be 400 meq/day (Sebastian et al. 2006), as shown below:
How much is 400 meq in milligrams (mg) of potassium? 1 meq = 39.1 mg of potassium, so to figure that out we multiply 400 *39.1, thereby yielding an average daily potassium intake of 15,640 mg/day! It’s important to note that this value is based on a 3000 calorie diet (Eaton et al. 1997). Dividing 15,640/3000 yields 5.21 mg potassium/calorie.
In contrast, as studied in 12,581 US adults, the average dietary potassium intake has been reported to be only ~2600 mg/day (Cogswell et al. 2012). Furthermore, only 1.4% of all subjects had potassium values greater than 4700 mg/day!
What’s my potassium intake? Shown below is my 7-day average intake from 8/29/2015-9/4/2015. The black rectangle in the lower right corner shows my average daily potassium intake to be 10,383 mg/day.
My average daily calorie intake during that week was 2193. In terms of mg potassium/calorie, my value is 4.73 (10,383/2193), which isn’t far from the reported average Paleo value. What’s yours?
For reference, shown below is a representative day during that week (Wednesday, September 2; 2251 calories) for what I ate.
If you’re interested, please have a look at my book!
References
Cogswell ME, Zhang Z, Carriquiry AL, Gunn JP, Kuklina EV, Saydah SH, Yang Q, Moshfegh AJ. Sodium and potassium intakes among US adults: NHANES 2003-2008. Am J Clin Nutr. 2012 Sep;96(3):647-57.
Eaton SB, Eaton SB 3rd, Konner MJ. Paleolithic nutrition revisited: A twelve-year retrospective on its nature and implications. Eur J Clin Nutr. 1997 Apr;51(4):207-16.
Sebastian A, Frassetto LA, Sellmeyer DE, Morris RC Jr. The evolution-informed optimal dietary potassium intake of human beings greatly exceeds current and recommended intakes. Semin Nephrol. 2006 Nov;26(6):447-53.
Broccoli vs Protein Bars
Do you eat protein bars and think that they’re a great protein source? Sure, they are. But is there a healthier way to get that protein into your diet?
In Table 1 I compared the macronutrient composition and, dietary fiber, sodium and potassium content of 2 popular protein bars, Met-Rx and Pure Protein with broccoli. That’s right, I said broccoli.
| Met-Rx | Pure Protein | Broccoli | |
| Size | 1 Bar (85g) | 1 Bar (78g) | 2 lbs (900g) |
| Calories | 310 | 300 | 306 |
| Protein | 32g | 31g | 25g |
| Fiber | 2g | 3g | 23g |
| Sodium | 200 mg | 190mg | 300mg |
| Potassium | 160 mg | 65mg | 2840mg |
One 3 oz. bar contains approximately 300 calories. In contrast, to get the same amount of calories, you can eat ~11x more food, 32 oz. (2 pounds) of broccoli!. One can make the counterargument that it’s difficult to eat 2 lbs. of broccoli. It’s not, and I eat a 2 pound broccoli meal 1-2x/week. What’s easier to do is eat a protein bar, not be full, and overeat! It’s much harder to overeat, in contrast, eating that much broccoli.
Next, eating that broccoli meal yields 8-11x more dietary fiber, for the same amount of calories. Dietary fiber feeds your gut bacteria, which may be involved in mechanisms underlying lifespan. Separately, broccoli’s potassium/sodum ratio is ~9.5, in comparison with less than 1 for both protein bars. An elevated potassium/sodium ratio is associated with reduced blood pressure (Zhang et al. 2013), which is a known risk factor for stroke and heart disease (Lawes et al. 2008).
Sure, it’s 2 lbs of broccoli, but are you really full after a 5-bite protein bar?
If you’re interested, please have a look at my book!
References:
Broccoli nutrition info from http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/show/2920?
Lawes CM, Vander Hoorn S, Ronders A; International Society of Hypertension (2008) Global burden of blood-pressure-related disease, 2001. Lancet 371: 1513- 1518.
Zhang Z, Cogswell ME, Gillespie C, Fang J, Loustalot F, Dai S, Carriquiry AL, Kuklina EV, Hong Y, Merritt R, Yang Q. Association between usual sodium and potassium intake and blood pressure and hypertension among U.S. adults: NHANES 2005-2010. PLoS One. 2013 Oct 10;8(10).
Michael Lustgarten 