Today, August 19, 2013, is National Potato Day. Click HERE for potato recipes. What is your favorite way to eat a potato? I like au gratin.
Fried, baked, roasted, mashed, shredded, souped, au gratin and in salads. When I was a kid I even ate them raw too. My favorite food.
Not me. I don't eat butter, sour cream or cheese and I still love potatoes. Try baking one of the gold variety, they are so smooth and creamy you don't need that other stuff. Maybe a bit of salt. That other stuff is what makes them bad for you, alone they are nutritious.
I for certain try to avoid any type of "white" potato -- too starchy.... There is a better choice---- AND it is called --- Sweet potato or Yam. -- much more healthy and actually needs nothing on it ! I love Sweet Potato Pie ! -- similar to Pumpkin --only better ! From Wikipedia Besides simple starches, sweet potatoes are rich in complex carbohydrates, dietary fiber, beta-carotene (a provitamin A carotenoid), vitamin C,[dubious – discuss] vitamin B6, manganese and potassium- Pink, yellow and green varieties are also high in beta-carotene.[citation needed] In 1992, the Center for Science in the Public Interest compared the nutritional value of sweet potatoes to other vegetables. Considering fiber content, complex carbohydrates, protein, vitamins A and C, iron, and calcium, the sweet potato ranked highest in nutritional value. According to these criteria, sweet potatoes earned 184 points, 100 points over the next on the list, the common potato. Sweet potato varieties with dark orange flesh have more beta carotene than those with light-colored flesh, and their increased cultivation is being encouraged in Africa, where vitamin A deficiency is a serious health problem. A 2012 study of 10,000 households in Uganda found that 50% of children who ate normal sweet potatoes suffered from vitamin A deficiency compared with only 10% of those on the high beta carotene variety
Yams are good but taste nothing like potatoes; the comparison is apples and oranges. The idea that starch is bad is outdated. Starch is healthy, unless it's processed.
Diabetics are cautioned to avoid white potatoes but are encouraged to eat sweet potatoes. But we keep using yams and sweet potatoes interchangeably but there is a difference and this from a cooking site helps: Sweet Potatoes Popular in the American South, these yellow or orange tubers are elongated with ends that taper to a point and are of two dominant types. The paler-skinned sweet potato has a thin, light yellow skin with pale yellow flesh which is not sweet and has a dry, crumbly texture similar to a white baking potato. The darker-skinned variety (which is most often called "yam" in error) has a thicker, dark orange to reddish skin with a vivid orange, sweet flesh and a moist texture. Current popular sweet potato varieties include Goldrush, Georgia Red, Centennial, Puerto Rico, New Jersey, and Velvet. Yams The true yam is the tuber of a tropical vine (Dioscorea batatas) and is not even distantly related to the sweet potato. Slowly becoming more common in US markets, the yam is a popular vegetable in Latin American and Caribbean markets, with over 150 varieties available worldwide. Generally sweeter than than the sweet potato, this tuber can grow over seven feet in length. The word yam comes from African words njam, nyami, or djambi, meaning "to eat," and was first recorded in America in 1676. The yam tuber has a brown or black skin which resembles the bark of a tree and off-white, purple or red flesh, depending on the variety. They are at home growing in tropical climates, primarily in South America, Africa, and the Caribbean.
Trends and Truth in Taters If a food really is a causative factor in a disease, then as we consume more of the food (as an individual or as a nation) we should see the disease rates go up accordingly. In addition, when we remove or lessen the consumption of the food, we should see disease rates (as an individual or as a nation) go down. However, this is not the case for potatoes and diabetes. Let’s take a closer look: Total Potato Consumption per person per year: 1970: 122 pounds 1996: 145 pounds 2008: 117 pounds Prevalence of Diabetes (% of population): 1970: 2.00% 1996: 2.89% 2008: 6.29%