Abstract
Among the patients of chronic renal failure undergoing dialysis, hyper or hypo potassemia are often found. Treatment of these cases by changing their meals to low or high potassium diets respectively was considered.
As the first step, potassium contents in various foods and potassium variation before and after the cooking of them were determined by flame photometry. The results obtained are as follows :
1) The potassium contents of 70 foods were measured. Thirteen of these were vegetables and their seasonal variations were considered. It was found that, in general, the potassium contents in the foods were the highest at the time when they were in season.
2) By cooking potassium loss was decreased by the use of a microwave oven and by chopping vegetables into small pieces in order to reduce the cooking time.
3) Menus for a little high and low potassium meals were made and the potassium contents before and after cooking were measured. The loss of potassium after cooking in a little high potassium meal was 8.5%, and was 26.1% in the low potassium menu. In both cases the main source of potassium was vegetables, and potassium dissolution was observed in vegetables.
