These potassium-packed foods will help you meet your daily quota:

• 1 cup canned white beans: 1,189 milligrams
• 1 cup cooked spinach: 839 milligrams
• Medium sweet potato, cooked: 694 milligrams
• 1 cup fat-free yogurt: 579 milligrams
• 1 cup orange juice: 496 milligrams
• 1 cup cooked broccoli: 457 milligrams
• 1 cup cantaloupe: 431 milligrams

Bonus nutrients: Beans supply magnesium and fiber. Sweet potato, broccoli, and cantaloupe can boost fiber and carotenoids; yogurt contains calcium.

Who May Need Even More Nutrients?

Women of Childbearing Age

If there's a chance you'll become pregnant, two nutrients are particularly important.

Folic Acid

Folic acid is the synthetic form of the B vitamin folate. Once you conceive, folic acid (and folate, the natural form) help protect your baby against neural-tube defects (and possibly cleft lip and/or palate) during the first 30 days.

Getting the recommended 400 micrograms of folic acid every day from supplements or foods along with a diet rich in folate-filled foods is critical for women who may become pregnant. Folate is important throughout the remainder of pregnancy, too. It's involved in cell production and guards against a certain type of anemia. 

The body absorbs folic acid with twice the efficiency of food folate, which explains the recommendation for the man-made variety. Even so, folate-rich foods are important, too.

Fortified foods include:

• 1 ounce ready-to-eat breakfast cereals: 100-400 micrograms folic acid
• 1 cup cooked enriched spaghetti: 80 micrograms folic acid
• 2 slices enriched bread: 34 micrograms folic acid

Folate-filled foods include:

• 1 cup cooked lentils: 358 micrograms folate
• 1 cup cooked spinach: 263 micrograms folate
• 1 cup cooked broccoli: 168 micrograms folate
• 1 cup orange juice: 110 micrograms folate

Iron

Iron is responsible for transporting oxygen to cells and tissues throughout the body. It's important for women to consume adequate iron before pregnancypregnancy as well as during.

"Pregnancy is a drag on iron stores and may cause iron-deficiency anemiaanemia in mom," Wright says.

To avoid health problems, experts say women should include foods rich in heme-iron, the highly absorbable form found in animal foods, and include iron-rich plant foods or iron-fortified foods along with vitamin C. Vitamin C enhances the absorption of non-heme iron. The ideal amount is about 18 milligrams of iron daily for women ages 19 to 50. Pregnant women should get 27 milligrams a day.

Heme-iron sources:

• 3 ounces cooked beef: 3 milligrams
• 3 ounces cooked turkey: 2 milligrams
• 3 ounces cooked light meat chicken: 1 milligram

Non-heme iron sources:

• 3/4 cup Whole Grain Total cereal: 22 milligrams
• 1 cup fortified instant oatmeal: 10 milligrams
• 1 cup cooked soybeans: 8 milligrams
• 1 cup boiled kidney beans: 5 milligrams

Older Adults, People with Dark Skin, and Those Who Avoid the Sun