Sweet potato: what kind of vegetable is it and what do you eat it with?

Useful properties of sweet potato

We say “red”, but we mean “vitamin A”. Sweet potatoes are a good source of this antioxidant. Therefore, it is recommended for everyone who wants to maintain visual acuity, improve the condition of their skin, and recover faster after their workouts. Vitamin A deficiency can manifest itself not only in the form of severe pathology of the nervous system and vision, but also as the most banal things - constant fatigue, decreased visual acuity in the evening, “sand” in the eyes, atonic sluggish pale skin... Of course, sweet potatoes are not a champion , but if you’re tired of chewing carrots, the blueberries haven’t grown yet, or you’re not old enough to eat them without sugar, a kilogram or two of sweet potatoes a week is the way out.

Sweet potatoes also contain vitamin C. However, it can also be found in regular potatoes. So those who are thrifty can alternate yams with potatoes, fortunately, it has been proven that neither one nor the other leads to weight gain on its own, if you are not prone to overeating, and count calories and macronutrients in principle.

Sweet potatoes contain a fairly good complex of minerals - iron, calcium, potassium, selenium, copper and even a little iodine. There are never enough minerals, at least when it comes to the substances that we are trying to absorb from food. The complex has a beneficial effect on water-salt balance. Another secret from the world of fitness: if you need to quickly get rid of swelling, invest in a kilo or two of white fish, sweet potatoes and asparagus. Bake all these difficult-to-prepare dishes in a bag of lemon juice, add a couple of avocados and limit your diet to just this for 2-3 days. You will get all the necessary nutritional supplements, with an adequate serving size, and the minerals in yams or sweet potatoes will help you establish a water-salt balance. This will not have such negative consequences for the muscles as following traditional buckwheat and rice diets, or fasting on green tea, and the visual effect will be the same.

Sweet potatoes are a component of a healthy, balanced diet, containing complex carbohydrates and dietary fiber. It helps to “cleanse” the intestines and helps maintain healthy digestion. It is less dense in carbohydrates than the same buckwheat and rice, therefore it is often used in diets when it is more important to maintain the full intake of proteins and fats, that is, in the menu for drying the body, as it is commonly called.

Sweet potatoes really help satisfy your sweet tooth. At first glance, it is very unusual to chew the same breast or fish with a sweet side dish, but if you eat pumpkin, or have ever baked a goose with apples, you probably know that this is not a bad sweetness, but rather a good one. So potatoes have saved more than one weight loss diet, no matter how strange it may sound.

Sweet potato is on the list of foods that you should eat to maintain healthy skin. It is believed that sources of complex carbohydrates and vitamin A simultaneously have a positive effect on the body’s own secretion of hyaluronic acid. Sweet potatoes can really improve your appearance. At the very least, its use allows you to somewhat delay the onset of that moment during drying when your face looks 5 years older. This is also true for those who prefer healthier diets - propagandists of the so-called Yuzurihara diet for youthful skin believe that it is in the consumption of sweet potatoes (and okra) that lies the secret of the residents of the village of the same name, who look 10 years younger than their passport age.

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• Pieces 0.7
• Glasses 0.8 cubes 1 glass - how much?
• Weight with waste 138.9 g Waste: peel (28% of weight). The calculations use the weight of only the edible part of the product.

Listed below are the nutrient standards that apply to the site.

The sweet potato is a tuber plant of the Convolvulaceae family, the edible tubers of which are also known as sweet potatoes. It has nothing in common with potatoes. And the Colorado potato beetle does not eat it.

Colombia and Peru are considered the homeland of sweet potatoes, where the plant began to be used more than 800 thousand years ago. Sweet potatoes have elongated cylindrical tubers, the weight of which varies from 200 grams to 3 kg. The pulp of the sweet potato is dense, juicy and elastic, cream, pink, yellow, orange or red. The taste of the pulp is slightly sweet, reminiscent of carrots, pumpkin or frozen potatoes.

Read also: Available in several colors

Sweet potatoes are divided into three types: dessert, fodder, and vegetable.

Calorie content of sweet potatoes (yams)

The calorie content of yams (sweet potatoes) is 61 kcal per 100 grams of product.

Composition and beneficial properties of sweet potato

Sweet potatoes contain dietary fiber, which is not digested in the stomach and is excreted from the body along with waste and toxins. Sweet potatoes contain: beta-carotene, vitamins A, C - a natural antioxidant necessary to give elasticity to collagen, as well as minerals calcium, iron, phosphorus, which strengthen the body's defenses.

Sweet potatoes contain a lot of starch, so they are recommended to be used as an enveloping agent for various diseases of the digestive tract. Sweet potatoes can also be consumed by people with diabetes, as it blocks the rapid entry of glucose into the blood.

People who play sports need to add root vegetables to their diet, as this product contains complex carbohydrates. Studies have shown that sweet potatoes help bodybuilders reduce muscle pain and spasms.

Harm of sweet potato

The consumption of sweet potatoes should be limited if you have a peptic ulcer, especially in the acute stage. In rare cases, individual intolerance to sweet potato may occur.

Selection and storage of sweet potatoes

When choosing sweet potatoes, you should visually assess the condition of the tuber, which should be dry, heavy and hard, without dark spots or signs of damage. Sweet potato tubers do not have eyes, so any growths or growths on the surface of the sweet potato should be a reason to refuse the purchase.

Dry sweet potato tubers are stored in a cool place without access to light for several months.

Sweet potatoes in cooking

Sweet potatoes differ from potatoes in many ways. Sweet potatoes are much healthier than regular potatoes, containing more carbohydrates, iron and potassium than regular potatoes (calorizator). Also, due to the presence of protein in the root vegetable, it can remain fresh for a long time.

Sweet potatoes are best consumed fresh, finely chopped or grated and added to a vegetable salad. Sweet potatoes are boiled, steamed, baked and fried, and pureed soups and souffles are prepared from them. The puree soup is very tasty.

If you are going to bake sweet potatoes, the white tubers work best for this purpose. Dark-colored tubers are best suited for frying and boiling.

Sweet potatoes can be replaced with several products in a given recipe. It is also recommended to replace sweet potatoes with carrots, raw or boiled. In vegetable salads and main courses, the best substitute for sweet root vegetables is regular boiled potatoes.

Sweet potatoes (yams) in cosmetology

Eating sweet potato improves skin condition. In home cosmetology, sweet potatoes are used to prepare medicinal masks for facial skin against acne, age spots and pimples.

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It is recommended for use by women over 50 years of age, as it contains phytoestrogens that normalize hormonal balance.

Sweet potatoes for weight loss

Sweet potatoes are recommended for use in diets because they contain starch, which is characterized by a low GI, which contributes to rapid and long-lasting satiety and decreased appetite. And the indigestible fiber contained in sweet potatoes helps cleanse the intestines of waste and toxins, as mentioned above.

Nutritionists have developed several diets that include sweet potatoes, and they are all designed for a different number of days.

For more information about sweet potatoes, watch the video “Sweet Potatoes” from the TV show “Live Healthy!”

Sweet potato is one of the few vegetables that can not only diversify the menu, but also provide the body with essential vitamins and microelements. Many people are interested in what the calorie content of sweet potato is and its nutritional value. Let's give answers to these questions.

Growing sweet potatoes

Why is finding sweet potatoes in Russia a quest worse than buying tilapia not grown in a garbage pit in Southern China? Yes, because growing sweet potatoes is somewhat more expensive in our conditions than in warmer climatic zones. The first sweet potato tubers came to our country not in the container bags of fitness models, but in the string bags of the first travelers to China and back. People learned about the beneficial properties of yams, they liked the taste, and they brought several tubers from China to the Far East.

And then there were years of torment and searching. You can't just stick a sweet potato in the ground in May and have it grow like a potato. Tubers should be germinated at home from February. Typically, each “potato” is planted in a separate glass with a mixture of turf, sand and black soil so that half of the tuber sticks out. It will be better if the glass can then be cut off with scissors so as not to damage the plant. The sweet potato planted in this way “lives” in the room until green sprouts begin to appear from the tubers.

Once the sprouts are ready, the sweet potatoes can be planted in the ground. Usually the event coincides with the planting of regular potatoes. Sweet potato tubers are buried in the ground to such a depth that the sprouts are completely above its surface. You should water carefully from the side, without flooding the sprouts themselves, so as not to cause rotting.

The sweet potatoes will grow for a season and will be harvested in the fall. What's the problem with sweet potatoes? It can be subject to attacks by parasites and various bacterial diseases. And it can simply freeze out if there is frost. Or rot if there is too much rain at the very beginning of its cultivation. In general, it is difficult to grow sweet potatoes in our conditions, but it is possible.

However, this is mainly done by agricultural enthusiasts. We don't have any large enterprises yet.

Sweet potatoes are no brother to potatoes

In appearance and taste, the vegetable is more like a pumpkin. Long creeping stems take root at the nodes. Tubers are formed from adventitious roots. Tuber weight up to 3.2 kg. Sweet potato varieties vary in flesh color, ranging from white to bright orange and purple.

Calorie content and chemical composition

Native to the subtropical regions of Colombia and Peru, it has a sweet taste. The content of simple carbohydrates in raw sweet potatoes is 2-2.5%. At the same time, the calorie content is only 84 kcal.

The absence of fat in the cells of sweet potatoes makes it a healthy dietary product. Sweet potatoes contain fat-soluble (A, K, E) and water-soluble (C, group B) vitamins.

Varieties of yellow and orange sweet potatoes can rival carrots in their vitamin A content. It is better to eat the vegetable raw, as a component of salads dressed with olive oil. In this case, beta-carotene is absorbed by the body.

The tubers contain essential microelements for humans:

Sweet potato leaves are a healthy and nutritious product. They are often used in salads.

Sweet potato tops contain a bitter milky juice. Before use, it must be soaked in salted water.

Types and properties

The duration of the vegetative period of sweet potato is 200-250 days. Therefore, this fodder and food crop is cultivated in countries with a tropical climate. The largest consumers and exporters of sweet potatoes are India, China and Indonesia.

The varietal diversity of sweet potatoes is quite large. According to the nature of use, varieties can be divided into three groups:

Fodder sweet potato has a low sugar content in the tubers. These varieties have light-colored flesh. During the cooking process, it becomes soft, so this sweet potato can be used for making soups instead of potatoes. Forage varieties are mainly grown to feed livestock. This vegetable grows well in the south and central Russia. The White Bouquet and Brazilian varieties can be grown in a summer cottage:

1. Buy seeds and plant them for seedlings in February.
2. Plant seedlings under film in April-May.
3. When to water and feed the plants in June-July.
4. Harvest before frost in September.

How to choose a sweet potato

In the harsh reality of the modern city, sweet potatoes can be found in the Auchan and Perekrestok chains, and even then, mainly from May to mid-summer. At this time, large tubers originally from Macedonia “come” to conquer the domestic consumer. How to choose the most delicious sweet potato? Many are sure that it is better to buy medium-sized tubers, without pronounced “hypertrophy”. A huge sweet potato, of course, looks impressive, but it is inconvenient to cook. You have to cut up the unfortunate potatoes almost with a meat knife, peeling them is also inconvenient, and you can’t cut them - you can only “chop”.

Some sources warn us that normal sweet potatoes are never big; the monstrous tubers were probably fed with something “like that.” In fact, everything is much simpler - someone forgot to remove it on time, and it became a little overgrown. Large sweet potato tubers look less like sweet cream and more like old pumpkin. That's the whole secret. If desired, by the way, a large tuber can also be baked in the oven, you just have to “cut” it with a sharp knife.

In general, “supermarket” sweet potatoes have one drawback - they cost from 200 rubles per kilogram. Want more sweet potatoes for less money? Search the Internet for farming and gardening enthusiasts in your area. During the harvest season, they will be happy to sell you sweet potatoes at more reasonable prices.

How to store sweet potatoes

Sweet potatoes are stored like other tuber crops. Ideally, we should have a pantry or a dry cellar, with a temperature above zero, but less than 10. And simple wooden boxes that should be placed on racks or stands so that the bottoms are also ventilated. The sweet potatoes are picked from the ground, carefully, trying not to damage the ornate tubers of the plant, and placed in boxes. There it can “live” for up to 3 months, and more if normal ventilation is provided.

If we live in a city apartment, we need to find a drier place for the sweet potatoes. If a bucket of potatoes germinates in a week, just left in the kitchen, then the sweet potatoes will deteriorate (wither and begin to partially rot) in 8 days. Many people store their strategic reserves of sweet potatoes in the “common chamber” of the refrigerator. This is also possible if you have a positive temperature there.

Dried sweet potatoes can be stored in paper bags for 2-3 months. It needs to be shaken periodically to prevent it from clumping.

How to cook sweet potatoes correctly

Severe athletes cook sweet potatoes one way. They wash it, cut it straight with the peel, and bake it in the oven at 180 degrees. Oil, salt and spices are optional. It’s not because they don’t know how to cook. Still, it is worth considering that the energy requirement of such an athlete is a good 1000 kcal higher than that of an ordinary person who goes to the gym 3 times a week. This means that on Sunday and Wednesday you need to prepare huge trays of food so that there is enough food until the next “kitchen day”. That’s why no one spends time peeling potatoes. It is enough to wash it well with a stiff brush and change the water in the sink several times.

Sweet potatoes, by the way, do not necessarily need to be peeled, and it is not always worth cutting them into transparent slices. The potatoes bake perfectly whole. It can also be boiled, steamed, stewed in a saucepan or slow cooker. And even bake in a bag in the microwave, although we periodically hear that this is how vitamins in vegetables are lost, and there is no benefit from microwave cooking.

Sweet potatoes take 10 minutes longer to cook than regular potatoes, but for those interested, the chips made from them turn out crispier. It's all about the magical dietary fiber.

There are also “wrong” recipes for cooking sweet potatoes. Unsporting humanity does the same with sweet potatoes as with regular ones - french fries with a ton of butter, soups with liters of heavy cream, and cupcakes with muffins (a heritage of American culture) with sugar and flour in the composition.

Vitamin and mineral composition

100 g of vegetable contain the following amount of vitamins:

• B1 (thiamine) - 0.15-0.2 mg;
• B2 (riboflavin) - 0.05 mg.
• B4 (choline) - 12.3 mg;
• B5 (pantothenic acid) - 0.8 mg;
• B6 (pyridoxine) - 0.209 mg;
• B9 (folic acid) - 11 mcg;
• C (ascorbic acid) - 23 mg;
• A (B-carotene) - 0.3 mg;
• E (tocopherol) - 0.26 mg.

Mineral elements per 100 g:

• potassium - 397 mg;
• sodium - 55 mg;
• manganese - 0.258 mg;
• calcium - 34 mg;
• magnesium - 28 mg;
• phosphorus - 49 mg;
• iron - 1 mg.

Read also: Geranium use in folk medicine

Sweet Potato Recipes

Chips

Take a kilo of sweet potato, rinse and chop with a very sharp knife into transparent petal slices. Place the product on a baking sheet and “dry” at a temperature of 100 degrees for 4 hours. Every hour, spray with a spray of olive oil, lemon juice and a drop of sea salt (optional, it will dry out anyway, but will be less like chips).

Baked sweet potato in foil

Wash a kilogram of potatoes, cut them, put 200 g of raw product in each foil envelope, sprinkle with olive oil, close the envelope, bake at 180 for an hour in a conventional oven.

Creamy sweet potato soup

2 oranges, 200 g chicken breast, 400 g sweet potato, and 400 g cauliflower, a glass of vegetable broth.

Cook the breast, potatoes, and cabbage in a regular double boiler. Grind everything together in a blender with vegetable broth. Add cloves, cinnamon, and a little basil and sea salt.

How to burn calories from 100 g of sweet potato

For example, to burn all the calories from 100 grams of sweet potato, you will need 7 minutes of running or 1 hour 22 minutes of sleep.

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Harm of sweet potato

Like any other vegetable, it can cause an allergic reaction. The issue of “harmful pesticides and herbicides in imported sweet potatoes” is controversial, and most believe that what is sold in stores can be eaten. The same goes for GMOs. Many GMO-phobes simply buy the smallest sweet potatoes, believing that they are “not like that.” Regarding carbohydrate phobia, everything also depends on the amount absorbed. If you weigh 60 kg and eat 2 kilos of sweet potatoes a day, it may be the culprit that your body fat is increasing rather than decreasing. But 600 grams of potatoes, even simple ones, will not do anything terrible to your diet. As always, it's all about the quantity and quality of the product.

The benefits of sweet potato

In the country that ranks first in the export and cultivation of this vegetable, sweet potato is called the fruit of longevity and is believed to be able to resist cancer cells. It is used as a vitamin and tonic for various diseases due to its high concentration of ascorbic acid. Sweet potatoes also strengthen the nervous system thanks to potassium, helping to cope with stress, neuroses and insomnia. Vitamin B6 strengthens the walls of blood vessels and restores their elasticity, carotene strengthens vision and helps with skin diseases, delicate fiber is recommended for people with digestive disorders.

In addition, the root vegetable reduces the level of bad cholesterol, activates the functioning of the kidneys and liver, strengthens the immune system, removes toxins from the body and normalizes metabolism.

The product is especially valuable for women during menopause, since tropical potato tubers are rich in female hormones.

Diabetics are not prohibited from consuming the sweet fruit, and it is even beneficial, because sweet potato does not cause a spike in blood sugar due to its low glycemic index.

Plant starch is widely used in medicine as an enveloping and emollient agent for diseases of the digestive system.