K factor of 4 to 1

Been reading a book by Julian Whitaker, Reversing Hypertension  (2000).  One of the things that Julian suggests is that the levels of salt and potassium aren’t as important as keeping them in a  4 to 1 balance that is  4 times as much potassium as sodium.   If you eat any processed foods at all, it not hard to get up to 3000  milligrams of sodium per day —  which means  one need 12000 milligrams of potassium.  A banana is  about 400 milligrams of potassium,  so one have to eat 30 banana’s to balance the potassium — which is probably not a wise idea.   Meat runs about 100 milligrams per oz, so one could eat 120 oz of  meat (that lot of meat!)  or vegetables go about 300 milligrams per 1/2 cup, so 20 cups of vegetables ( I like them but not that much)      Hopefully, you are see from the math that only practical way to keep to a 4 to one ratio, is to cut back salt to something more reasonable like 1000 milligrams per day.   Potassium supplements might seem like a possibility but they don’t come with all the other micro nutrients and aren’t very satisfying.   There is one food Dulse, that comes at 8000 milligrams of potassium per 1/2 cup.  Unfortunately I haven’t noticed it in my locality, but some areas near the ocean it is a great deal.   I have eaten it years ago, and I like Dulse – it comes with a nice salty taste, even if the amount of salt in it is relatively low. Some other foods high in potassium are dark chocolate, tomatoes, and pumpkin (including the seeds).   Lastly, one can occasionally use a potassium salt, they taste good and aren’t too bad.  The studies I’ve read on the effect of potassium salts in the diet are inconclusive.

Another of Julian ideas is to reduce weight, particularly apple shape with the big midsection.  One key to losing weight is to cut down on sugar, all forms, and to moderate heavy fats, and replace them with lighter healthier oils, like olive oil.   Following Julian lead, I’ve been thinking that sugar shouldn’t exceed, 10% of your daily calorie intake, so, if one is eating 3000 calories a day, sugar shouldn’t exceed 300 of those calories.  This way one can still have that occasional sweet, or ice cream or soda but keep amount of sugar in the diet low.  Now it also true that one can eat bread and other starches, and these convert to sugars fairly easily in the body.  I’m thinking here that carbohydrates shouldn’t be more than 50% of the calories in the diet — and lower is probably better.   So in recap calories in the diet should come something like ( 10% sugar, 45% charbohydrates, 30% protein, 10% fat , 5% vegetables).   My personal view is that too many calories aren’t good no matter what you eat, but a good selection of food should satisfy one without giving you too many calories.  As someone once said to me, hard to get fat eating celery!   The trouble with high protein is that often comes with high fat, and protein is also hard on the kidneys.  On the other side protein does provide your body with amino acids so some protein is great, particularly plant protein, and it avoids something called insulin resistance.    A way to improve the diet is to through in some oil, like olive oil,  as you increase the oil, you can drop the carbohydrates fraction without feeling starving.  I read some study somewhere that showed, that higher fat diet isn’t necessarily bad for one, if you keeping your calories low, that if you burning off all the fat you eat.  I think there is some truth in this,  if you live in cold climate, and burn calories to keep warm but don’t overdose on calories your body will break them up and burn them very well indeed.   There have been studies on persons that eat enormous amounts of fats, but don’t have clogged arteries or  heart disease, or insulin resistance, or any of that stuff.   What is bad however, is overeating with high fat content.  If you are going to eat fat, eat less calories that you would normally, make your body burn them off.