Surprising Health Benefits of Sweet Potatoes

Posted on by Faiyaz Khan

Surprising Health Benefits of Sweet Potatoes

Sweet potato is a versatile veggie that's great for weight loss. Unlike the regular starchy potato, it's loaded with proteins, fiber, vitamins, and minerals. It can easily be used as a substitute for normal potatoes. This vegetable with a high satiety index is scientifically proven to assist weight loss.

Interchangeably some people use the words “sweet potato" and "yam". However, they're not related. Yams have a drier texture and a more starchy content than a sweet potato. Yams are associated with grasses and lilies and native to Africa and Asia. They’re usually cylindrical with black or brown, rough, bark-like skin, and white, purple, or red flesh. Sweet potatoes have characteristically tapered ends with smoother skin.

The sweet potato diet, because the name suggests, requires you to include sweet potatoes into your diet. It also includes other fat-burning foods – like yogurt and vegetables- and high-fiber foods.

Sweet Potato Nutrition

Sweet potatoes are high in fiber, vitamin C, potassium, pantothen (vitamin B5), niacin (vitamin B3), vitamin B6, manganese, magnesium, and copper.

They get their orange color from beta-carotene, which may be a pigment and antioxidant. Sweet potatoes also contain a modest but useful amount of the protein — around 4gm per cup when cooked.

Vitamins and Minerals

Just one sweet potato gives you 400% of the vitamin A you would like on a daily basis. This helps keep your eyes healthy also as your system, your body's defense against germs. It is also good for your genital systems and organs like your heart and kidneys.

Health Benefits of Sweet Potatoes

Boosts Immunity

Vitamin C may be an innate immunity booster. 100 grams of sweet potato contains about 2.4mg vitamin C. vitamin C is an antioxidant that scavenges the harmful free oxygen radicals, thereby boosting your immunity.

Support Digestive Health

Sweet potatoes are a superb source of fiber, especially once you eat the skin. Fiber is vital for your digestive health, preventing constipation and high diseases, like carcinoma.

One medium sweet potato having approx. 6gm of dietary fiber. They also contain resistant starch, a kind of starch that plays a task in feeding your body’s “good” bacteria.

Keep Your Heart Healthy

The high fiber content of sweet potatoes can lower LDL (bad) cholesterol levels, helping to stop disorder.

Sweet potatoes also are high in potassium, which works in balance with sodium in your body to take care of healthy vital signs.

They’re also high in copper, an important metal for creating red blood cells and keeping your heart healthy. Low levels of copper are linked to dangerously high homocysteine, pressure level, and LDL cholesterol levels.

Fuel Your Brain

Sweet potatoes also contain compounds that help your brain function at its best, including choline and manganese.

Choline is an important nutrient for brain growth and development, also because of the synthesis of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine that sends messages between cells.

Manganese is additionally important for brain health. It binds to neurotransmitters and helps move electrical impulses through your body faster. You’ll find 43% of your daily value of manganese in one cup of baked sweet potato.

The anthocyanins unique to purple sweet potatoes can also have memory-enhancing properties.

Reducing Inflammation

Sweet potatoes contain a nutrient called "choline" that helps with muscle movement, learning, and memory. It also supports the systema nervosum.

Antidiabetic and Anticancer Properties

Sweet potatoes are loaded with antioxidants that scavenge the harmful oxygen radicals and forestall DNA mutation. This, in turn, prevents neoplastic cell growth and proliferation. It’s also good for people with type 2 diabetes because it helps control blood sugar levels

Good for Eyesight and Skin

Sweet potatoes are rich sources of vitamin A (in the shape of beta-carotene). Vitamin A is vital for your bones, eyesight, and skin.

Help Ease Stress and Anxiety

Sweet potatoes may assist you to relax. They’re high in magnesium, which has been shown to play a task in calming the brain. Magnesium deficiency has been linked to depression, mood disturbances, and headaches.

Other good sources of magnesium include avocados, legumes, tofu, nuts, seeds, and leafy greens.

Macular degeneration. Large amounts of beta-carotene and vitamin A, which are in sweet potatoes, can lower your chances of getting this disease, which is that the most typical reason behind vision loss.

Obesity. Purple sweet potatoes may help lower inflammation in your body and keep fat cells from growing, which can assist you to reduce.

Help Boost Fertility                                    

Vitamin A is an important nutrient for healthy reproduction. And as we all know, sweet potatoes are an incredible source.

Sweet potatoes also offer an expensive supply of iron, which has also been shown to be important in supporting fertility.

Risks and Warnings

Sweet potatoes are high in carbohydrates. Some methods of cooking, like baking, roasting, and frying, will raise their glycemic index and cause your blood glucose to spike. If you've got type 2 diabetes, ask your doctor or a dietitian about the way to safely include this veggie in your meals.

Although very rare, some people have a severe allergy to sweet potatoes.

How to Choose and Store Sweet Potatoes

Next time you buy sweet potatoes, here are a couple of things to stay in mind.

When you pick one up, take a detailed consider its skin (no, you don’t need to pack your magnifying glass). It should all be mostly an equivalent color without visible signs of decay or cracking.

Give it a touch squeeze. You don’t want your sweet potato to be squishy anywhere, as this might indicate rotting.

When you get your sweet potatoes home, make them a pleasant place to rest during a basket on your countertop or pantry. You ought to keep them dry and funky (room temperature, not refrigerated).

Typically, you ought to use sweet potatoes within a couple of weeks of purchase.

Conclusion

Sweet potatoes are excellent sources of nutrition, and therefore the sweet potato diet can assist you to lose excess weight. Confirm you prepare it the right way, consume healthy foods, and exercise regularly. Get your diet plan verified by a registered dietitian and drink plenty of water to take care of hydration levels and reduce it during a healthy manner.