Potatoes, but make them sweet!

Sweet potatoes aren't just for Thanksgiving, but they're packed with nutrients that make them worth eating all year. A root vegetable that can be you can savour in several forms can make your winters a lot better. Sweet potatoes are believed to be grown in Peru in as early as 750 B.C., even though Native Americans produced them when Columbus arrived in America in 1492. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes.

Some health benefits of Sweet Potato are- 

Vitamins C and A are abundant in them

A roasted sweet potato delivers approximately half of your daily vitamin C requirements. The same serving also provides 400% (!) of your necessary daily vitamin A consumption. Both minerals are essential for immunological function, particularly critical during the cold and flu season. Vitamin A is also necessary for good skin, eyesight, and organ function.

Also read | Lung Health: Consider these lifestyle changes

It may have anti-cancer properties

Sweet potatoes include several antioxidants that may help protect against some malignancies. In test-tube experiments, anthocyanins, a group of antioxidants present in purple sweet potatoes, have been demonstrated to delay the growth of cancer cells from the bladder, colon, stomach, and breast.

Similarly, rats fed purple sweet potato diets had decreased rates of early-stage colon cancer, suggesting that the anthocyanins in the potatoes may be protective.

They have anti-inflammatory properties

Uncontrolled, low-grade inflammation has long been known to increase the risk of nearly every chronic illness, including obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Sweet potatoes have natural anti-inflammatory chemicals that have been found to reduce inflammation at the cellular level: Purple sweet potato extract ingestion has been proven to lessen inflammation in brain and nerve tissue in animal studies.

They could aid with weight loss

Resistant starch, a filling, fibre-like component that your body doesn't digest and absorb, makes up around 12% of the starch in sweet potatoes. According to one study, replacing just 5.4 per cent of total carbohydrate intake with resistant starch increased fat burning by 20 to 30 per cent after a meal. In addition, resistant starch causes the body to produce more satiety-inducing hormones.

Sweet potatoes can assist in stress management

Sweet potatoes have a high magnesium content, essential for regular body function. One of the crucial magnesium benefits is that it aids in the reduction of tension and anxiety. According to studies, a rise in magnesium shortage in modern diets has resulted in a considerable increase in the number of cases of depression documented globally. Magnesium deficiency, for example, has been shown in specific controlled trials to enhance depression in women suffering premenstrual symptoms.

Sweet potatoes are simple to incorporate into your diet

• They can be baked, boiled, roasted, fried, steamed, or pan-cooked, and they can be eaten with or without the skin.
• They go well with various flavours and may be used in both savoury and sweet dishes because of their natural sweetness.
• Sweet potato chips can be baked or fried after peeling and thinly sliced.
• Sweet potato fries can be baked or fried after peeling and cut into wedges or matchsticks.
• Sweet potato toast is made by slicing sweet potatoes into thin slices, toasting them, then topping them with nut butter or avocado.
• Peeled, boiling sweet potatoes are mashed with milk and salt.
• Baked sweet potatoes: Baked whole till fork-tender in the oven.
• Sweet potato hash is made by peeling, dicing, and cooking sweet potatoes in a skillet with onion.
• Spiralized sweet potatoes are spiralized sweet potatoes that have been cut into spirals, sautéed, then topped with a sauce.
• Sweet potato puree adds moisture to baked dishes without adding fat.