Sweet Potato Prez

When we hear about the president of the United States and his likes and dislikes in the wide world of food, it’s almost always what his favorite junk food is or what his least favorite health food is. President Reagan was known for having a jones for jellybeans, while President Bush bristled at broccoli.  President Clinton had a fast food fixation, while President Eisenhower ogled over onions (I bet you didn’t know that one, did you?)

And while we’re still learning about the culinary tastes of our current president, we have it on pretty good authority (from the First Lady herself, on a recent episode of the Food Network’s Iron Chef America) that one of President Obama’s favorite vegetables is the sweet potato.

Great choice, Mr. President!  After all, the president should have the best, and sweet potatoes are one of the best things he could possibly eat.

Before we get into the specifics of why the sweet potato is such a swell choice for sustenance, let’s once and for all get the record straight on the difference between a yam and a sweet potato.  They’re the same thing—kind of.

Botanically, there is a difference between a yam and a sweet potato.  In Africa and Caribbean countries, for example, there are tropical root yams that are considered to be very bland.  These are “true” yams, but the “yams” you find in stores today are really sweet potatoes.

Confused?  Don’t be.  Just remember that true yams are indigenous to Africa (sweet potatoes are indigenous to Central America) and are more cylindrical and root-like in shape; everything else that claims to be a yam is really a sweet potato.

Now that we’ve cleared that up (I hope), let’s get to the meat and potatoes of why sweet potatoes are so doggone good for you.

For starters, they’re absolutely loaded with vitamin A.   A medium-sized potato has a whopping 262 percent of your daily recommended vitamin A intake, 15 percent of your recommended fiber, and nearly 30 percent of your daily recommended intake of vitamin C.

Secondly, despite their “sweet” moniker, sweet potatoes are dynamite for diabetics.  Studies show that diabetics who ate sweet potatoes on a regular basis had steadier blood sugar levels than diabetics who rarely ate them.  This is likely due to the fact that, unlike regular potatoes, sweet potatoes are low on the glycemic index, which means that they burn slowly.

There are lots of ways to eat sweet potatoes.  Rarely eaten raw, sweet potatoes are traditionally cooked one of two ways:  boiled or baked.  Once this is done, the possibilities are endless for how to serve them:  mashed, sliced julienne style and then baked as sweet potato “fries,” grilled over an open flame, or scooping out the flesh to be served up in a sweet potato pie for dessert.

How you eat them is up to you.  Just eat them.  I know you’ll love ‘em!

Sources
foodtimeline.org
whfoods.com
cals.ncsu.edu
fruitandveggieguru.com