WHY ARE SWEET POTATOES CONSIDERED A SUPERFOOD?
Believe it or not, sweet potatoes are the healthiest and cheapest vegetables to get your hands on! You get most nutritional value out of sweet potato for your money compared to any other veggie. Not only are they packed with nutrients but they also have cancer-fighting properties. It has been discovered that there is a unique protein in sweet potatoes. 80% of the protein has anti-cancer effects. Researchers tested sweet potato on patients with tongue cancer and symptoms began reducing within a few days. The reason they chose tongue cancer - usually as soon as proteins reach the stomach they begin digestion therefore they needed to test it on an area that could benefit from the protein before getting to the stomach. However, they found out that the unique protein did NOT begin breaking down when it touched the stomach. It was actually absorbed into the blood stream fully in tacked. This gave researchers motivation to try it on other types of cancer. Studies found that sweet potato protein slowed down the growth and reduced the spreading of colon cancer cells. A few things to know about choosing and preparing your sweet potatoes to get the full health benefits:
Intensity of the color on the outside of the sweet potato is directly connected to the nutritional value of the potato therefore the more orange the potato the better.
Boiling is the best way to retain antioxidants.
Boiling helps thin out the cell walls making nutrients more easily dispersed.
Boiling sweet potatoes reduces the glycemic index by half compared to baking which means less of a blood sugar spike.
The peel of the potato has 10 times the nutrients compared to the inside.
Baking can cause an 80% drop in the vitamin A levels – twice as much as boiling.
Although boiling is best – they are so healthy that you should prepare them in whatever way will lead you to eating them EXCEPT for deep-frying.
Deep frying foods can lead to the formation of acrylamide – which is a human carcinogen.
