The Problem with Packaged Products

Nemo

I use a salad topper packaged product that contains pumpkin seeds, cranberries, and sunflower seeds. The nutrition label does not list micronutrients like potassium that are present in the seeds, so when adding this item to my Food Diary, no potassium value is added. I'm trying to increase daily potassium to the 3,500 to 4,700 units daily goal, but have found it is hard, even with a balanced diet to get much over 50% of the recommended amount. The alternative is to add each ingredient in the package separately--sunflower and pumpkin seeds, cranberries to get the micronutrient values Even so, it's tough to reach the goal amount. Any suggestions?

Karen_Cronometer

Hi Nemo,

This is an issue with brand name products - manufacturers are not required to analyze the nutrient content of their products and typically only report the nutrition information required by law on the nutrition label. For that reason, we recommend searching for the closest generic alternative in the Common Foods tab when adding foods to your diary. This will limit your search results to our most comprehensive nutrient databases to get you the most nutrition information. For more tips on getting the most nutrition information check out this blog: https://cronometer.com/blog/6-tips-getting-nutrition-data/

Here are a few threads where users have been discussing potassium requirements that you might find interesting:
https://forums.cronometer.com/discussion/1278/how-are-we-all-still-alive
https://forums.cronometer.com/discussion/1573/rda-levels-vs-who-vs-nutrient-balance-potassium-calcium

Best,