The highest-potassium foods are mostly plants: dried apricots, lentils, acorn squash, prunes, raisins, potatoes and beans all beat a banana, which is the food everyone names and which ranks well down the list. Higher potassium intake is associated with lower blood pressure, but the evidence is considerably stronger for the whole eating pattern than for potassium acting on its own, and honest sources say so.
This question is having a moment for an indirect reason. On September 5, 2026, The New York Times ran Paula Span's piece on three drugs older adults may be overusing, one of which is daily aspirin taken for primary prevention of heart attack and stroke. Guidelines turned against that practice years ago for people over 60 to 70 without prior cardiac events, yet more than a third of people over 70 still take it. An internist quoted in the reporting points out that for lowering cardiovascular risk, blood pressure control and cholesterol management are better strategies than aspirin. Which raises the obvious follow-up question about food.
How much potassium you actually need, and how far short most people fall
There is no Recommended Dietary Allowance for potassium. The National Academies set Adequate Intakes instead, and they did not set a Tolerable Upper Intake Level, because in people with normal kidney function the kidneys simply excrete the excess.
| Group | Adequate Intake | Actual average intake from food | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Women 19 and older | 2,600 mg/day | 2,320 mg/day | About 280 mg short |
| Men 19 and older | 3,400 mg/day | 3,016 mg/day | About 384 mg short |
| Girls 2 to 19 | 2,300 mg/day | 1,888 mg/day | About 412 mg short |
One number causes constant confusion. The Daily Value used on Nutrition Facts labels is 4,700 mg, which is higher than any age group's Adequate Intake. That is why a food can supply a genuinely useful amount of potassium and still show a modest percentage on the label. Potassium is one of the nutrients federal dietary guidance has flagged as a nutrient of public health concern precisely because intakes are consistently below target.
The foods with the most potassium
From the United States Department of Agriculture's food composition data, as compiled by the National Institutes of Health. Percentages are against the 4,700 mg Daily Value.
| Food | Potassium per serving | Percent DV |
|---|---|---|
| Apricots, dried, 1/2 cup | 755 mg | 16% |
| Lentils, cooked, 1 cup | 731 mg | 16% |
| Acorn squash, mashed, 1 cup | 644 mg | 14% |
| Prunes, dried, 1/2 cup | 635 mg | 14% |
| Raisins, 1/2 cup | 618 mg | 13% |
| Potato, baked, flesh only, 1 medium | 610 mg | 13% |
| Kidney beans, canned, 1 cup | 607 mg | 13% |
| Orange juice, 1 cup | 496 mg | 11% |
| Banana, 1 medium | 422 mg | 9% |
| Spinach, raw, 2 cups | 334 mg | 7% |
| Tomato, raw, 1 medium | 292 mg | 6% |
| Broccoli, cooked, chopped, 1/2 cup | 229 mg | 5% |
The pattern is worth naming because it is the actual takeaway. Potassium is not concentrated in one hero food. It is spread thinly across beans, tubers, squash, dried fruit and vegetables, which means you reach the target by eating a lot of plants across the day rather than by finding the right single item. This is also why the banana reputation is misleading: at 422 mg it is a perfectly good food and a mediocre way to hit 2,600 mg.
What the evidence on blood pressure actually shows
This is where most pages overclaim, so here is the state of it, including the studies that did not find what the story wants.
| Evidence | What it found |
|---|---|
| DASH eating pattern | Lowers systolic blood pressure by an average of 5.5 mmHg and diastolic by 3.0 mmHg. The pattern provides about three times the potassium of an average American diet. |
| 2017 meta-analysis, 25 randomized trials, 1,163 people with hypertension | Potassium supplementation reduced systolic pressure by 4.48 mmHg and diastolic by 2.96 mmHg. |
| Meta-analysis of 15 randomized trials, 917 people not on blood pressure medication | Significant reductions in both measures, largest in those with hypertension: 6.8 mmHg systolic and 4.6 mmHg diastolic. |
| Cochrane review of the six highest-quality trials | Reductions were not statistically significant. |
| Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality systematic review, 2018 | Concluded that associations between dietary potassium intake and lower blood pressure in adults were inconsistent across observational studies, with no evidence of an association between potassium intake and risk of developing hypertension. |
Two things follow from reading that table honestly. First, there is a real and repeatedly measured effect, but it is modest, it is largest in people who already have high blood pressure, and the highest-quality subset of trials does not confirm it. Second, and this is the caveat that gets left out most often: the DASH pattern also raises magnesium and calcium intake, so potassium's independent contribution cannot be determined from it. That is the National Institutes of Health's own wording, not a critic's.
The practical reading is that the eating pattern is the intervention. Potassium is a marker of a diet built on plants, and the diet is what the trials tested.
What the FDA actually allows a food label to say
There is an authorized answer to this question, and almost no article about potassium mentions it. Since October 31, 2000, the Food and Drug Administration has permitted foods meeting a defined set of conditions to carry one specific claim, and it has to appear exactly as written, with no paraphrasing:
"Diets containing foods that are good sources of potassium and low in sodium may reduce the risk of high blood pressure and stroke."
How it got there matters, because it changes how much weight the sentence carries. This is not an FDA research finding. It came through the Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act of 1997, which lets a manufacturer notify the agency of a claim based on an authoritative statement from a United States government scientific body or the National Academy of Sciences. Tropicana Products submitted this one in July 2000, citing the National Academy of Sciences report Diet and Health. FDA chose not to prohibit or modify it, and under that law the agency's silence is what made the claim usable.
A food has to meet all five of the following conditions, measured per reference amount customarily consumed, which is the standardized serving size FDA sets for each food category rather than the serving a manufacturer picks.
| Condition | Threshold per reference amount |
|---|---|
| Good source of potassium | At least 350 mg |
| Low sodium | 140 mg or less |
| Low fat | 3 g or less total fat |
| Low saturated fat | 1 g or less, and no more than 15 percent of calories from saturated fat |
| Low cholesterol | 20 mg or less |
Two details in that table are worth pausing on. The 350 mg threshold was set when the Daily Value for potassium was 3,500 mg, so it represented 10 percent of it. The Daily Value is now 4,700 mg, but the notification's figure is still 350 mg. And the conditions are not only about potassium: a food loaded with saturated fat cannot carry the claim no matter how much potassium it contains. The claim is about an eating pattern, not a single nutrient, and its own eligibility rules say so.
The most useful line, though, sits in the National Academy of Sciences statement the claim was built on. Alongside the finding on potassium and stroke, it states that potassium supplements are "neither necessary nor recommended for the general population." The authoritative statement underpinning the only potassium health claim on American food labels points at food.
Sodium is the other half, and it is not optional
Potassium and sodium work against each other. Low potassium intake raises the risk of high blood pressure especially when sodium intake is high, and higher potassium appears to help partly by increasing how much sodium you excrete in urine. Insufficient potassium is also associated with greater salt sensitivity, meaning your blood pressure responds more sharply to sodium than it otherwise would. Raising potassium while leaving a high sodium intake untouched addresses one side of a two-sided problem.
Who should not increase potassium
This section is short and it matters more than everything above it.
In people with normal kidney function, high dietary potassium poses no known risk. But in people whose kidneys cannot excrete potassium normally, even intakes below the Adequate Intake can cause hyperkalemia, which can cause muscle weakness, heart palpitations and cardiac arrhythmias. The groups affected are people with chronic kidney disease, people taking ACE inhibitors or potassium-sparing diuretics, and people with type 1 diabetes, congestive heart failure, adrenal insufficiency or liver disease.
Salt substitutes deserve their own warning. Most replace sodium chloride with potassium chloride and contain between roughly 440 mg and 2,800 mg of potassium per teaspoon, which is a supplement-scale dose arriving in a shaker. Anyone in the groups above should talk to a clinician before using one.
If you are in any of those categories, this page is not for you and a registered dietitian is.
Where SaladPower sits on this one
An 8 oz pouch contains 727 mg of potassium, which is 15 percent of the Daily Value, and 90 mg of sodium with no added fat. Fifteen percent puts it in the range the Food and Drug Administration defines as a good source, and set against the table above it is more potassium than a medium banana, a cup of orange juice or the flesh of a baked potato.
What that does not mean: SaladPower is not a treatment for blood pressure, and nothing on this page should be read that way. The trials that produced the millimetre-of-mercury figures above tested whole dietary patterns and potassium supplements at doses well above one pouch. For completeness, since this page has now set out the eligibility conditions above: a pouch contains 727 mg of potassium, 90 mg of sodium, 0 g of total fat, 0 g of saturated fat and no cholesterol. We do not carry the FDA claim on our packaging or on this page, because whether a particular product is eligible to bear it is a labeling determination rather than an arithmetic one. What a pouch does is make the underlying pattern easier to sustain by delivering 2x the USDA daily recommended vegetable intake without cooking. That is a convenience argument, not a clinical one.
Related reading: how many vegetables you actually need a day, and what to eat in perimenopause and menopause, where cardiovascular risk changes and this becomes more relevant.
Frequently asked questions
How much potassium should I eat per day?
The Adequate Intake is 2,600 mg per day for women 19 and older and 3,400 mg for men. There is no Tolerable Upper Intake Level, because healthy kidneys excrete the excess. Note that the 4,700 mg Daily Value printed on labels is a separate and higher figure, so label percentages understate how close a food gets you to the Adequate Intake.
What food has the most potassium?
Among common foods, dried apricots at 755 mg per half cup and cooked lentils at 731 mg per cup lead the list, followed by acorn squash, prunes, raisins, baked potato and canned kidney beans, all between 600 and 650 mg per serving. Bananas, at 422 mg, are well down the list despite their reputation.
Does potassium lower blood pressure?
Higher potassium intake is associated with lower blood pressure, and several meta-analyses of randomized trials found reductions of roughly 4 to 7 mmHg systolic, with the largest effects in people who already have hypertension. But a Cochrane review of the highest-quality trials found the reductions were not statistically significant, and a 2018 federal review called the observational evidence inconsistent. The effect of the whole dietary pattern is better established than the effect of potassium alone.
Can you have too much potassium from food?
Not if your kidneys work normally, which is why no upper limit has been set. If you have chronic kidney disease, or take ACE inhibitors or potassium-sparing diuretics, or have type 1 diabetes, heart failure, adrenal insufficiency or liver disease, then even ordinary intakes can push potassium too high. Those groups should get individual guidance rather than following general advice.
Are potassium supplements better than food?
For most people there is no reason to reach for one. Food delivers potassium alongside fiber, magnesium and other nutrients that the blood pressure trials could not disentangle from potassium itself, and dietary potassium carries no upper limit for people with healthy kidneys while concentrated supplements and potassium-based salt substitutes do carry risk for people who cannot excrete it.
Sources
- Span P. "3 Common Drugs Older Adults May Be Overusing." The New York Times, September 5, 2026. Read the original article
- National Institutes of Health, Office of Dietary Supplements. Potassium: Fact Sheet for Health Professionals. Adequate Intakes, average intakes from NHANES 2013-2014, food composition table, the hypertension and stroke evidence review including the DASH, meta-analysis, Cochrane and AHRQ findings, and the medication and kidney cautions. Read September 10, 2026.
- National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Dietary Reference Intakes for Sodium and Potassium. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press; 2019. Source of the Adequate Intake values.
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Health Claim Notification for Potassium Containing Foods. Docket No. 00Q-1582, published October 31, 2000, content current as of March 28, 2024. Source of the authorized claim wording, the five eligibility conditions and the National Academy of Sciences statements behind them. Read September 10, 2026.
- National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. DASH Eating Plan.
- SaladPower Nutrition Facts panel, per 8 oz pouch.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
