A banana a day doesn’t cut it

Posted by admin

September 13, 2012

Thumbing through the nutrition journals published this month, a story caught my eye. Lost among the public debate around eggs and organic foods, a study published in the September edition of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that only 2% of the U.S. population is meeting its needs for potassium. Two percent! Why does this matter? Well, first, we can assume that, if our U.S. counterparts are so very far from meeting their needs, it’s unlikely that those of us north of the border are doing better. But that aside, while we spend an endless amount of energy discussing reducing sodium, very little seems to be said about the importance of getting more of this important mineral into our diets.

A FAILING GRADE

The new study is based on data taken from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Study (NHANES), which tracked the diets of adult Americans every two years from 2003 to 2008. In this study, researchers broke down subjects’ diets according to both sodium and potassium. In the case of the former, various groups, including the American Heart Association, recommend an upper intake level of 2,300 mg per day (about the equivalent of one teaspoon of table salt), with an ideal intake of less than 1,500 mg per day.

Health

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