Why Sweet Potatoes Dominate Their Distant Cousin Mr. Potato

Sweet potatoes or potatoes? There’s a lot of talk on the internet about what’s better for you. Perhaps the first thing to know is that they are not closely related. In fact, the potato belongs to the nightshade family, Solanaceae, which consists of other vegetables such as tomatoes, eggplants, and chili peppers to name a few.

That said, sweet potatoes or potatoes do belong same taxonomic order, the Solanales, which explains why they look alike and have comparable texture. Furthermore, potatoes and sweet potatoes have similar nutritional facts. Of course, there are many ways to slice and dice them, so for comparison sake, we’re going to compare 1 small baked sweet potato versus 1 small baked potato.

Baked Sweet Potato Baked Potato
1 small, with peel Serving Size 1 small, with peel
20 gr. Carbs 29 gr.
3% Calcium 2%
0 mg Cholesterol 0 mg
3.3 g Fiber 3.0 g
9% Iron 8%
0.002 g Monounsaturated Fat 1.404 g
0.065 g Polyunsaturated Fat 0.949 g
380 mg Potassium 742 mg
1.92 g Protein 3.47 g
0.030 g Saturated Fat 0.0605 g
0.030 g Saturated Fat 0.0605 g
219 mg Sodium 336 mg
5.27 g Sugar 1.63 g
229% Vitamin A 3%
23% Vitamin C 22%

The tale of the tape is that these foods match up evenly at first glance; however, for people with diabetes or prediabetes, you know you should take an in-depth look to help you stay in range. So, it must be pointed out that the sweet potato has more fiber and is packed with more than a days’ worth of Vitamin A. This vitamin is vital for diabetics as it helps your vision, immune system, and reproduction organs. Vitamin A also plays a pivotal role in making sure the heart, lungs, kidneys, and other organs work properly.[1]

Comparing foods with Dario is easy with our Carb Counting tool!

This alone leads us to say that sweet potatoes dominate regular potatoes.

But if that’s not enough and doesn’t convince you, another key factor in why you should give the sweet potato the nod is that it has a lower glycemic index (GI). In the past, we’ve examined the benefits of foods with a low glycemic index, but in short, the GI is a metric that shows how quickly or slowly sugar from foods is released into the blood stream. Foods that have a low GI help people regulate their blood sugars.

So next time you’re walking down the vegetable aisle in the supermarket, be sure to add in a few sweet potatoes and try them instead of regular potatoes.

And as an added bonus here’s a yummy recipe that uses some delicious sweet potatoes!

[1] https://ods.od.nih.gov/ factsheets/VitaminA-Consumer/

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