Power your diet with sweet potatoes

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We could ban ritual acts that harm, or criminalise quackery that endangers lives. But as long as it does not harm anyone, we cannot allow the state to snatch from us the right to believe in irrational things

Antara Dev Sen [1]

How sweet is it for your health to eat sweet potatoes! Not only do they taste like desserts, but also provide some surprising health benefits to pride over. Many people think about sweet potatoes as being nothing more than plain old potatoes that can tweak our tastebuds.

Yet cutting-edge research on these curvaceous sweet elements reveal some unique nutritional benefits on offer.
Sweet potatoes are packed with nutrition. A 7-ounce (1 cup) serving of such potatoes contains 65 per cent of the Vitamin C, which is a minimum essential daily requirement. They are high in calcium, folate, potassium and beta-carotene. Beta-carotene is an antioxidant which converts to Vitamin A in the body, thereby lowering the possibility of night-blindness.
Sweet potatoes are naturally rich in antioxidants and also contain beneficial anti-inflammatory properties which have a positive effect on conditions like asthma and allergies. One little known fact is that they are on the list of beneficial foods for a diabetic diet. Though being naturally sweet on the taste buds, when consumed, sweet potatoes release their natural sugar in the form of glucose into the body at a much slower rate. Foods like these allow a diabetic patient to manage his blood sugar levels in a better fashion by preventing fast release and quick rise of glucose in the bloodstream. With high potassium content, sweet potatoes help assuaging muscle cramps which are often related to potassium deficiency. In stress-ridden times, the body reaches a state to use more potassium. Hence, consuming sweet potatoes can help protect one from the negative health-effects of tension. The high levels of Vitamin A and beta-carotene also mean that sweet potatoes are a skin super food. They help fight skin ageing.
While we recognise boiling and stir-frying as the only viable options for cooking a platter of sweet potatoes, I would rather suggest steaming of the same for maximum nutrition and flavour. So replace your usual baked potatoes with baked sweet potatoes. For that’s the key to access more fibre and vitamin A on your dietary chart.
The writer is a nutrition expert