Goin’ Bananas For Potassium

Potassium… what the heck is it and why exactly do we need it??  I know, bananas have a lot of it (I think)… but so what, right?  Well, let’s explore exactly why it’s so important and where we can get lots of it!

According to The University of Maryland: “Potassium is a very important mineral for the proper function of all cells, tissues, and organs in the human body. It is also an electrolyte, a substance that conducts electricity in the body, along with sodium, chloride, calcium, and magnesium. Potassium is crucial to heart function and plays a key role in skeletal and smooth muscle contraction, making it important for normal digestive and muscular function.”  Sounds pretty essential right?!  Potassium is also shown to lower blood pressure.

Here are two quick banana tips from @DrCraigBrown, one of the coolers docs on Twitter:

1. Eating 1-2 banana/s a day increases immunity

2. As for green versus yellow, consider this: Yellow skin banana with dark spots on it is 8x more effective in enhancing the property of white blood cells than Green skin, so the riper the banana the better the anti-cancer quality

Fascinating!  And great to know since we tend to use the ripen, mushier ones in our smoothies (another great way to ‘Go Bananas’) and our baked treats (like my d’lish blueberry-banana muffins.)

If you are eating a diet chock full of fruits and veggies you are probably getting plenty of potassium, but if you are not sure, you may wanna grab a few bananas for the road. Heck, they’re cheap and sold everywhere these days. If bananas aren’t your thing, consider adding a few of my favorite potassium rich foods to your diet: tomatoes (cooked and uncooked), beet greens, beans, lentils, raisins and potatoes.

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