If you’re looking for a delicious and nutritious side dish to add to your meal, consider making sweet potato. They are a great source of vitamins, minerals, and fiber, and they’re incredibly versatile. From mashed to roasted to sweet potato fries, there are countless ways to enjoy this tasty root vegetable. Plus, sweet potato is full of flavor, and they make a great addition to any meal! In this post, we’ll discuss the health benefits, some tips on how to prepare them, and a few tasty recipes to try. So grab a sweet potato and get ready to explore the world of this delicious veggie!
Sweet Potato Nutrition Facts and Calories Chart
Sweet potatoes are a nutritional powerhouse. They are high in fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C, manganese, potassium, and iron. They also contain a wide array of antioxidants and phytonutrients that can help protect against many chronic diseases. Eating sweet potato can help improve digestion, reduce inflammation, boost immunity, and decrease the risk of certain cancers. Additionally, the high fiber content helps to keep blood sugar levels stable and can help control appetite. Nutritional value per 100 g Sweet Potatoes:
- Biotin: 0.2 μg
- Calcium: 34 mg
- Carbohydrates (Carbs): 17.99 g
- Chloride: 49 mg
- Cholesterol: 0 mg
- Choline: 10.5 mg
- Chromium: 0.5 μg
- Copper: 0.2 mg
- Dietary Fiber: 2.5 g
- Energy (Calories): 86 kcal
- Fat: 0.1 g
- Iodine: 2.7 μg
- Iron: 0.6 mg
- Magnesium: 25 mg
- Manganese: 0.2 mg
- Molybdenum: 3.9 μg
- Pantothenic Acid: 0.3 mg
- Phosphorus: 33 mg
- Potassium: 337 mg
- Protein: 1.6 g
- Saturated fat: 0.02 g
- Selenium: 0.2 μg
- Sodium: 16 mg
- Sugars: 4.19 g
- Vitamin A: 3771 IU
- Vitamin B1 (Thiamin): 0.1 mg
- Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin): 0.04 mg
- Vitamin B3 (Niacin): 0.7 mg
- Vitamin B5 (Pantothenic Acid): 0.3 mg
- Vitamin B6: 0.2 mg
- Vitamin B9 (Folate / Folic Acid): 16 μg
- Vitamin B12: 0 μg
- Vitamin C: 2.4 mg
- Vitamin D: 0 IU
- Vitamin E: 0.1 mg
- Vitamin K: 2.2 μg
- Water: 79 g
- Zinc: 0.2 mg
Sweet Potato in India
This widely-distributed, cultivated plant, originally of South and Central America. Yam and sweet potato are often confused. Both are edible tubers, but they are from different plant families. The tuber is of a dull, crimson-red outside and of a glistening white within. The purple sweet potato variety contained the highest amount of flavonoids and was especially rich in quercetin. Baked sweet potato is easy to digest, soothing food. Sweet potato cooked with dates, almonds and cinnamon are a delicious dish.
- Scientific Binomial: Ipomoea batatas
- Common English: Sweet Potato
- Ayurvedic: Mukhaaluka / Rataalu / Raktaalu / Raktapindaka / Raktakanda
- Unani: Shakarkand / Rataalu
- Sanskrit: Shabar kanda
- Hindi / Urdu: Shakrkand
- Bengali: Ranga-alu
- Marathi: Ratale
- Telugu: Genusu
- Tamil: Sarkaraivallikizangu / Sakkareivelleikulangu
- Gujarati
- Kannada: Sihigensu
- Malayalam: Madhurakkilannu
- Oriya
- Punjabi / Sindhi
- Assamese
- Kashmiri
- Konkani
- Manipuri
- Dogri
- Bhojpuri
Health Benefits
Sweet potatoes has more health benefits and nutritional values as compare to normal potato. It also calm the spirit, nourish the stomach and spleen, and tonify the heart. Leaves of the plant can be used as vegetable. In the Philippines, the root is cooked and eaten by the natives. It is planted by the Chinese around the edges of tanks and pools for the sake of its succulent leaves. It is largely cultivated in central China as a vegetable; it is eaten in the spring and somewhat resembles spinach in flavor.
- Sweet potatoes are also good for helping to remove any kind of foreign object accidentally swallowed by a small child or adult (such as safety pins, needles, coins, thumb-tacks and the like). By feeding the individual some boiled, baked or steamed sweet potato, it will help to coat the object and safely expel it from the body through the colon later on.
- During colds, flu and sore throat, try eating cooked sweet potatoes, which are rich in beta-carotene and help to strengthen mucous membranes. Also it is easy to when you need some nourishment but have no appetite. It also protect against carcinogens, induce protective enzyme activity, suppress cell-destroying free radicals and boosts immunity.
- Sweet potatoes are rich in starch content. During the storage a part of starch content is converted in to reducing sugars and subsequently into sucrose. Indian types with white flesh contain little or no carotene, while American types with pink flesh contain as high as 7 mg carotene in 100 g of sweet potato.
- Sweet potatoes are good source of fiber, vitamin A, Carotenoids (Carotenes), and Vitamin B5 (Pantothenic Acid), complex carbohydrates and high in beta carotene. It is a good food for eyes, arthritis. Sweet potato contain simple peptide substances called phytochelatins, that can bind heavy metals like cadmium, copper, mercury and lead, and thus participate in metal detoxification of body tissue.