What Happens when you start eating Sweet Potatoes everyday
Despite the shared name, sweet potatoes are only distantly related to the potatoes used to make French fries or potato chips. Non-sweet potatoes (including red, white, and Yukon gold varieties) are part of the edible nightshade family. Other members include tomatoes, tomatillos, eggplants, peppers, pimentos, and Goji berries.
Sweet potatoes are root tubers. Other root tubers include beets, carrots, parsnips, celeriac, and turnips. Root tubers store water and energy, like starch and other carbohydrates, underground. They are native to Central and South America. We have fossil evidence that sweet potatoes were growing in the Americas 35 million years ago. But very recently, scientists discovered 57-million-year-old leaf fossils in India that appear to be ancient morning glory leaves. This could beat the American claim as the point of origin of the sweet potato family by about 22 million years.Yams are related to 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 characteristic tapered ends with smoother skin.There are actually two types of sweet potatoes in most mainstream produce sections: firm and soft. Grocers needed a way to differentiate between the two types. The soft kind, which includes the Garnet and Jewel varieties, resemble yams. This is how they picked up the false name.Garnet, Jewel, and Beauregard sweet potatoes have reddiWhite sweet potatoes are crumbly, with white flesh and golden brown skin.sh-orange skin and deep orange flesh. These are often the ones masquerading as yams at mainstream grocery stores. Okinawan sweet potatoes are also known as purple sweet potatoes because of their high anthocyanin content. Anthocyanins are the pigments that give red, blue, and violet plant foods their beautiful colors. Anthocyanins are also what give Okinawan potatoes 150% more antioxidant power than blueberries.Despite their name, Okinawan potatoes are actually native to the Americas. They were brought over to Japan sometime in the 16th century, where they grow well and have become a staple in Japanese dishes. In North America, you will most likely find true purple sweet potatoes in an Asian supermarket.Sweet potatoes are very hardy vegetables. They’re able to grow at many altitudes, in many climates, and under compromised soil conditionsSweet potatoes are high in fiber, vitamin C, potassium, pantothenic acid (vitamin B5), niacin (vitamin B3), vitamin B6, manganese, magnesium, and copper.
They get their orange color from beta-carotene, which is a pigment and antioxidant. Sweet potatoes also contain a modest but helpful amount of protein — around four grams per cup when cooked.An estimated 250,000 to 500,000 children become blind every year due to a lack of this critical nutrient. Half of these children die within a year of losing their sight.Sweet potatoes contain several nutrients that have been linked to improved eye health and vision. Some of the most powerful are the carotenoids. They include alpha-carotene, beta-carotene, lutein, and zeaxanthin.
Beta-carotene, when taken as a supplement in isolation from the other carotenoids, can cause imbalances. But when eaten in foods, where it is always accompanied by, and in balance with, an entire suite of carotenoids, it’s been shown to have powerful anti-cancer and vision-enhancing properties.