Potassium-rich foods and meal ideas

Potassium is an essential nutrient you don't think about until you feel the effects of not having enough. That can be through diet or in my case, because of medication. For me, it shows in an awful pins and needles feeling in my feet, hands and face. Supplements aren't the best choice in my case so in the last few months, my family has been planning meals around my need for extra potassium. When we eat out, I make choices that will have more potassium.

Fortunately, that doesn't mean that I have to eat a ton of bananas. It does mean that I had to do a bit of research.
High Potassium Choices-
Bananas
These are the go-to, quick snack with potassium. One banana has nearly 25% of the US recommended daily allowance. But if you're like me, bananas are good but not all the time.

Lentils
One of my family's favorite meals is lentils*. That one is just perfect. It can be made in large quantity, freezes and reheats well, and everyone likes how it tastes. 1 cup of cooked (boiled) lentils has as almost as much potassium as a banana. They can also be used in a lot of chilis and soups easily just to up the potassium a bit.

Tomatoes
Tomatoes vary by how they are served of course, but a cup of tomato sauce has as much potassium as a banana as well. Knowing that about tomatoes is handy when we are going out to dinner. Spaghetti is a great choice!


Spinach
Yay for spinach on the list of high potassium foods. I actually strongly dislike most cooked spinach just as a side dish, but love spinach salads and like spinach as an ingredient. It can also be chopped fine and mixed into things like meatloaf easily. Popeye had the right of it.

Yogurt
I love yogurt, and I like yogurt with bananas sliced into it, or bananas dipped in low-fat yogurt.


Less potassium but still good sources:
Potatoes
Only just under half as much potassium as tomatoes, lentils or bananas, but also very widely available and easy to incorporate into meals. They are high carb and a starchy food but they are also a good source of Vitamin C. Potato chips, high fat and high carb are better for you than corn chips. I mentioned how much potassium they had to my optometry specialist, and he told me about a friend of his that went on a month long trek using chips as his primary source of energy and nutrition!

Cantaloupe 
Cantaloupe has more potassium than potatoes, but less than bananas. It's a nice, sweet treat and a favorite in my family.

Alaskan Fish!
Almost all fish is a good choice, but some specific types come in a bit higher, including salmon, halibut and cod which are 3 of my favorite locally sourced fish. Yum.

It's easy to remember those foods because they are some of my favorites.

*Lentils are great because they cook up so fast and can be used in place of beans in a lot of recipes. Sometimes I do season them for a turkey and lentil chili, but my family's favorite is when I cook them with sausage and a ton of cumin. This is TG's favorite lentil meal-


TG's Cumin and Reindeer Lentils

2 cups of dry lentils
4 cups of water
2 Tablespoons of cumin
1 onion minced
- Rinse  and pick over lentils and put all in large pan- bring to a boil, turn down heat and simmer for 20 minutes

Dice 1 reindeer summer sausage (optional- skip if you're a vegan)
Add 1 can of stewed tomatoes
1 tsp. granulated garlic
1/2 tsp. cayenne
1/2 tsp. black pepper
2 tsp. salt
2 cups of rinsed long grain rice
3 cups of water
summer sausage

Bring back to a boil, turn down heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Take off heat and fluff with a fork.

Serve with hot sauce, salt and pepper to taste.

She does occasionally add in other things because she likes lots of color. Peppers and other high acid foods should be added in halfway through the rice part after the lentils are cooked through. You may well prefer less cumin and spices, if you prefer things not as strongly spiced, start with half of the amounts.

Spoonflower 2 for 1 Fat Quarter Sale, spoons and other things

There are only 2 days left of Spoonflower's 2 for 1 fat quarter sale, and my dishtowel calender IS available now. I ordered my sample calendar in linen-cotton canvas and a fat quarter of that is 18x27 inches. It's opaque and heavy, and because of their printing methods has enough of an edge to just turn that over and hem it. The top will have a couple repeats of the border strip and can be turned into a casing for a dowel hanger. I'm deciding if I just want to turn and hem the edges or use a black bias tape to bind the edges.  I'll get a photo later of the fabric to post. We ordered a fat quarter of a Doctor Who print for TG and fat quarters of some of my designs which I plan to use for jewelry projects.


We watched a video together last night on spoon carving. I'll be reviewing it soon, it was fun watching it with my husband and son, and talking to them about spoon designs. They are of course more enthused about working with axes, adzes and knives than about spoons. I'm pretty happy to think that they will be making me spoons for my kitchen soon.

Yesterday was also my eye exam and the medication is working. My optic nerves are getting back to normal now. Yay!

It's really cold here! We went out this weekend for some local Halloween events. TG was a fantastic Sherlock Holmes. I forgot my camera, but Michael brought his so there will be pictures later. One of the things about her costume that was just great is that she couldn't find a double breasted overcoat at a thrift store she liked, so she used the military surplus one from her Wygie costume a few years ago and converted the mock double breast into a double breast by adding hand stitched button holes in red and shifting buttons. Her scarf was knitted by her, and we ordered a deerstalker hat from England as the purchased item to go with her costume. Dad of course trick or treated at the events we went to. 64 year old man or not, the man is not giving up a chance for candy! It was lots of fun.

Squirrels, spinal taps and shots - my life this week

This has been a really, really strange week so far, and it's only Wednesday.

Monday afternoon, I heard things crashing on my porch. My porch is an arctic entrance with a screen that's always locked if I'm home. 

I peeked out cautiously, and there's this little brown furry streak of Destruction and Doom knocking over the boxes from Amazon I've saved to mulch my garden with, the flower pots that we've taken in for the season, the box of work stuff that for some reason my husband has never brought into the house. Zip zip CRASH zip zip. It was trapped, it was angry, and it was *scary*. When I first saw it, all I saw was the little rodent face, which was freaky. Then it ZIPPED up the wall and I saw it's tail. I slammed the front door shut and locked it, like this thing was somehow going to open the door locked or not and called my husband.

"You have to come home as early as you can." 

CRASH!

"Why?"

"There's a SQUIRREL on the porch."

silence. 

"I don't want it coming in the house and someone has to let it out and it's not going to me."

"A squirrel?"

"Yes. A crazy squirrel. Possibly man eating. I'm not taking the risk. It's a Squirrel of Doom."

"Really? I didn't know we had squirrels in the neighborhood."

"Oh? You were talking about hearing them the other day, and we are surrounded by woods. So..."

"Oh, I forgot about that."

"Just get home when you can." *crash* 

Then in my best Dean Winchester imitation, I said "That was scary." which was apparently the funniest thing ever. 

By the time he got home, I realized that someone had to unlock the screen for him to get in, and the porch had been quiet for a while, so I slipped the door open, and used my cane to flip open the lock, then darted back in slamming the door shut.

So that night, while we were going to the store, he starts his iPod in the car. Playing Mississippi Squirrel Revival by Ray Stevens. 

Tuesday- My spinal tap is scheduled. Now, one thing I have to say about my neurologist, he's just radiates comfortable competence. He answers all my questions, which any good health provider should do. Some of my questions tend to be questions my doctors have never heard before so occasionally they have to do some research. Which he did right there on his iPhone on some super serious Doctor app and website or something. My husband was very amused that with a computer behind him, he did the look up on his iPhone.

Anyway, I was nervous, both for me, and for my husband. I wanted him there to make me feel better, but my 350 lb, 6'2" ex-cop, ex-EMT big tough husband has real problems watching me get blood drawn. So I was nervous about him too. The doctor and his nurse were amazing, calm and professional. 

If you're curious about spinal taps, AKA lumbar punctures from a completely non-professional personal point of view, the competence of my doctor was very relaxing. He had me pull down my skirt and pull up my shirt to show the area (I wore loose easy clothes to avoid the hospital gown fashion). He had me lay down in a fetal position, knees tight against chest, shoulders straight, on my side. Then raised the table. He covered my legs in a nice warm blanket and made it as comfortable as possible. Then cleaned the area well and draped it with a surgical drape. Then he injected a local anesthetic. The needle is put in low in the back between the lumbar bones. When the area was well numb, he inserted the needle for the spinal tap. It's a hollow needle, just under 1 mm in diameter. It was numb enough to just feel like some pressure. He took pressure readings and confirmed the diagnosis of intercranial hypertension. He also decided that since he was getting the spinal fluid anyway, he would have the lab run some tests on it to check for infections and other things. He doesn't think there are any, but hey, he was doing the spinal tap for other reasons, let's just be sure.

Bandaged it up and prescribed Motrin and lots of coffee. I can do that. Also prescribed something to lower the pressure in my head. As we were leaving, the doctor said "Thank you for being so brave." My husband replied "Thank you! I didn't pass out!" 

That evening, Dad called, apparently William had stepped on a clean nail at work and Dad wanted to know when his last tetanus shot was. We decided it had been long enough to justify a booster shot, so he went to the ER to get a booster and some antibiotics. He's fine and working today. His big disappointment was that by the time he got there, the cafeteria was closed. The hospital we go to has a killer cafeteria. Actually edible food. 

This morning, when I woke up, my left hand tingled. Then my right, then my lips and tongue. Then not my lips and tongue but both hands. So I went to the ER. Turns out an uncommon side effect of the drug I was prescribed is that it can lower your potassium levels. Which can cause the tingling. It's uncommon enough that the doctor who saw me did a consult to come up with that possible reason, then did some blood work to check. Apparently it usually works itself out after you've been taking the drug for a while, but for the next week, I need to take a potassium supplement.

The spot where I had the spinal tap has a nice, perfectly round bruise about 2 inches in diameter which is normal, but uncomfortable.

And as crazy as it's been, I'm so very grateful for my friends and family. Otherwise, I think I'd just stay in bed for the rest of the week.

Life lately- the eyes have it

Click on the image above for the larger version if you would like to print it out.

Last month, my glasses fell apart. A loose screw, easily replaced. But I knew that I need new glasses, and since my last exam had been a couple years ago, I needed an eye exam as well. It went normally enough, until they spotted something a little odd about my optic nerves.
It's most likely something easily fixed and not too dangerous, but because it can be a symptom of much more serious problems, I've been seeing a neurologist to rule out the major possibilities.
They started by booking me with an ophthalmology neurologist to get a closer look. He booked me for a CT scan as soon as possible. As soon as possible turned out to be within a couple of days, then another day to get the results analysed. That was to rule out brain tumors. It was a scary few days. My husband was super stressed, and my daughter was jumping every time the phone rang. Fortunately, the ct scan came back clean.


Today I had something called a Visually Evoked Response Test, or VER, also known as Visually Evoked Potential or VEP. That tests for specific damage to the optic nerve or for possible multiple sclerosis by measuring the path it takes for something you see to hit the back of your brain where it's interpreted (this is not exact, I have no technical training or medical training, it's how it was explained to me).  This test meant going to the hospital while very alert and awake. You have to go with clean hair and scalp with no product or conditioner that might interfere. The technician used a tape measure and placed 3 small marks on my scalp, one at the hair line, one on top of my head, and one on the back of my head. Then he attached small electrodes to my head. He had me cover one eye, then the other for the test. I sat in a comfy chair, and stared at a rectangle in the center of a screen while a checkerboard around it switched colors back and forth. I was told the test would take about an hour, but it actually only took about 20 minutes. Apparently the hour is because there are people who have real problems just focusing on that little square. He removed the electrodes and wiped off most of the conductive gel/cream. Still waiting for the results from that.


Truth is though, I'm not too worried. It's not that I'm discounting the possibility of MS, but those couple of days of waiting to see if I had brain tumors were so scary.

Next phase is another vision test, this one pretty straight forward and one I've done before. The field of vision test. They are also talking about a spinal tap soon.

Puts our money problems in perspective. The fact we are tight and needing to catch up on bills that accumulated while my husband was out of work is a really minor thing. We can deal with that. My family is just very grateful that I have good medical coverage. So many people don't, and if things were just a little different, we wouldn't. We are also grateful I don't have brain tumors.

I did order new glasses. I'll probably be writing about them later, they should arrive today or tomorrow.

The eye art included in this update is done by me in the last few days. It's just for fun, but if you really like it, I'll be happy to put it on a printable box.