Are Sweet Potatoes Good For Diabetics?

The task behind choosing the right choices of food for diabetics is always tricky. When most of the diets have a high carb value, the patient is left confused on what to eat and what not to eat. The same is the case with potatoes. While one tells you that eating potatoes within a certain restricted limited will not harm you, one another will tell you that you should completely stay away from potatoes. The fact being, they are tubers or thickened stems and are loaded with carbs. When it comes to sweet potatoes, it is the same advice you get again. With all this in mind, it is you who suffers at the end of the day. This article on the goodness/badness of sweet potatoes can widen your visibility towards the facts and figures of foods like sweet potatoes and after reading this you will be in a clear position to take the call, on which diet you want to be including and which ones you want to be restricting from.

First and foremost, you must know that sweet potatoes comprise of a totally different package of nutrients than what the potatoes do. While potatoes belong to the tuber family, sweet potatoes belong to the storage root type. With a totally different set of nutrients in it, as mentioned before, sweet potatoes are one of the highly recommended diets for diabetics as per the American Diabetes Association. Now that makes you wonderstruck, isn’t it? There is more to come, read on.

A small glance at the history of sweet potatoes

Though it is known to be originated from Latin America, sweet potatoes are produced in maximum quantities from the Asian continent. Following rice, wheat, potatoes, maize and cassava, sweet potatoes are the 6th most important crop to Asians, especially Indians.

What’s in the nutrient list for diabetes treatment?

We have been stressing that sweet potatoes contain a different nutrient package and is highly recommended for diabetic patients. But what’s so different and unique in it? Here you go – rich in both starch and fiber, the combination puts forth a different nature of carbs in sweet potatoes. This combination carb poses itself with high fiber content and a low glycemic index. A low glycemic index means it’s a treat or a feast to the diabetic people!! With a glycemic index of 44, which is exactly the half of what potatoes have, sweet potatoes are thus the ideal choices of food pick.

Oats Vs. sweet potatoes – which is the better treatment for diabetes?

Having said that sweet potatoes have a lot of fibers, you must now want to know if sweet potatoes are better than oats. Here’s the answer: yes.

But like how offers and deals come with a conditions apply, sweet potatoes also come with conditions apply for cooking methods. The one sentence reply is sweet potatoes are better than oatmeal when you have sweet potatoes with their skin.

The reason being, cooking methods greatly affect any tuber or storage root vegetable. If you prefer to peel the skin of potatoes or sweet potatoes and then mash it or add some form of sugar to it, you are directly increasing the glycemic index of the vegetable by multifold. So how do you go about cooking sweet potatoes?

• Do not boil or mash sweet potatoes
• Sauté them with their skin. You can use minimal oil for sautéing
• You can also roast sweet potatoes with oil without removing its skin

The other nutrients that you can find in sweet potatoes are Vitamin A, C, zinc and other micronutrients like potassium, magnesium, and iron. High contents of Vitamin B in sweet potatoes will help in managing diabetes effectively and thus will keep a tab on cardio vascular diseases too.

So, if you have been diagnosed with diabetes, you now know what the smart choice of food is. Eliminating foods without knowing the reason behind it will only keep you away from having your favorite foods. So think a minute, analyze and then conclude on your food choices.

At the same time, blindly believing that a high carb food will lower your sugar levels will only lead to destruction of blood vessels and cardio vascular related illnesses. It all comes to say that you must be very careful and factually right about your food choices. Your favorite foods could be an enemy or the best friend against diabetes. It is you who has to narrow down the choices – the cooking methods play a vital role in each food, so keep an eye on it as well.