Sweet potatoes

 

Sweet potatoes is a dicotyledonous plant that belongs to the bindweed or morning glory family, Convolvulaceae. Its large, starchy, sweet-tasting, tuberous roots are a root vegetable.

Contents

• Uses
• Benefits
• Cautions
• Interactions
• Other names
• References

Uses

• In South America, the juice of red sweet potatoes is combined with lime juice to make a dye for cloth. By varying the proportions of the juices, every shade from pink to black can be obtained.
• Purple sweet potato color is used as food coloring.
• Culinary uses, sweet potato leaves and shoots are a good source of vitamins A, C, and B₂(riboflavin), and according to research done by A. Khachatryan, are an excellent source of lutein.

Benefits

• Sweet potatoes also contain high amounts of fiber and potassium. They have more grams of natural sugars than regular potato but more overall nutrients with fewer calories.
• It can be helpful to include some fat in your sweet potato-containing meals if you want to enjoy the full beta-carotene benefits of this root vegetable. Recent research has shown that a minimum of 3-5 grams of fat per meal significantly increases our uptake of beta-carotene from sweet potatoes.
• Some nutritional benefits from sweet potatoes simply may be easier to achieve if you use steaming or boiling as your cooking method. Recent studies show excellent preservation of sweet potato anthocyanins with steaming, and several studies comparing boiling to roasting have shown better blood sugar effects (including the achievement of a lower glycemic index, or GI value) with boiling.

Cautions

• Beta-blockers, a type of medication most commonly prescribed for heart disease, can cause potassium levels to increase in the blood. High potassium foods should be consumed in moderation when taking beta-blockers.
• Consuming too much potassium can be harmful to those whose kidneys are not fully functional. If the kidneys are unable to remove excess potassium from the blood, it can be fatal.

Interactions

• Unknown, please consult a nutritionist.

Other names

• Ipomoea batatas

References

Source: Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_potato#Culinary_uses

WhFoods, http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=64