Sweet Potato Nutrients
Vitamin B1 |Vitamin B3 | Vitamin B5 | Vitamin B6 | Vitamin C | Vitamin E | Beta-carotene | Biotin | Folate | Calcium | Iodine | Iron | Magnesium | Manganese | Phosphorus | Potassium | Selenium | Zinc | Fibre | Protein | Complex Carbohydrates
How can sweet potatoes help you:
• Good for the Blood
• Good for the Heart
• Good for the Skin
• Improves Digestive Functions
• Boosts Immunity
There’s huge nutritional value to be found in Sweet Potatoes.
The lovely sweet potato can not only add color and taste to meals and juices, but also big amounts of valuable nutrients. It’s so good in juicer recipes… The beautiful orange on its flesh comes from their high concentration of Beta-Carotene. We’ve talked about this on the Carrot article. Beta-Carotene is essential to keep eyesight healthy.
This happens because this nutrient is converted into Vitamin A in the body. Vitamin is fundamental for vision, reproduction, bone growth and also for maintaining the inner walls of the respiratory and digestive tracts healthy.
Another great thing about sweet potatoes is that they are actually low in fat. You could have thought otherwise, but they’re actually low in fat and high in potassium, which is essential in keeping the fluid balance in the blood. Even more surprising is the fact that it contains blood sugar regulating properties, and is in fact considered to be a useful food for diabetics.
Another interesting and healthy fact is that, in comparison to other vegetables’ nutritional value, sweet potato is the one ranking highest. In this study, done in 1992 by the “Center for Science in the Public Interest”, the following nutritional values were considered: Fibre, Complex Carbohydrates, Proteins, Vitamins A and C, Iron and Calcium.
To know more about the properties of the sweet potato, or any other healing foods, refer as we do to the book The Top 100 Healing Foods: 100 Foods to Relieve Common Ailments and Enhance Health and Vitality (The Top 100 Recipes Series). We use it all the time and it’s available on Amazon 🙂
It has been brought to our attention on our Facebook page that sweet potatoes contain oxalic acid, which prevents iron absorption. So even though it is safe to eat it regularly, you also should keep this in consideration. It wouldn’t be a good idea to juice or eat sweet potatoes on a daily basis! But they still are a great source of antioxidants, vitamin C and other nutrients!
Since now we know that sweet potatoes hinder the absorption of iron, there are foods that do the opposite. Eating foods rich in citric acid (oranges, strawberry, broccoli…) will help the absorption of iron that occurs naturally in foods such as swiss chard. Spinach contains iron but it also contains oxalic acid. We’ve found conflicting info online on this subject, so more research will be needed to form a definite opinion on our part!