Sweet Potatoes and Their Health Benefits

Sweet potatoes are not just for making sweet potato pie for holiday dinners. Sweet potatoes are good to eat year round with meals to help get a healthy dose of that potent beta-carotene antioxidant that can help protect the body from free radical cells.

Appearance, Texture and Flavor of Sweet Potatoes

Sweet potatoes are tuberous roots that are deep orange in color with thin skins similar to potatoes. Sweet potatoes are large and long in size weighing about ½ pound to a pound. When you first harvest a sweet potatoes from the ground they are hard in texture, but when you bake sweet potatoes in the oven, or steam them in a pan they become soft, tender and fluffy with a sweet starchy taste to them. Now most sweet potatoes are orange in color, but they can come in other colors as well such as yellow, white and purple.

Facts about Sweet Potatoes

Sweet potatoes were originally found growing in South American and Central America where the weather was warm and tropical. Now, you can find sweet potatoes growing all over the world in places like North America, China, Australia and Africa where the weather is warm and tropical with plenty of rain.

Now, sweet potatoes grow best in deep rich moist well-drained soil that is slightly sandy. The sweet potatoes since they are roots grow under ground and have long ground like vines above ground that sometimes blossom with purple and white colored flowered that have a sweet soft scent to them. Some people who love creating flower gardens use sweet potato plants in their flowerbeds because of the beautiful vines and flowers these plants can produce. However, if the sweet potato plants do not get plenty of watering and weeding the beautiful flowers will not even develop.

Sweet potatoes are typically ready to be harvested 4 to 5 months after they have been planted depending on the weather conditions. If the weather is too hot and drought, or too cold with frost these plants may not even develop and grow properly. However, if the weather is warm with plenty of rain the sweet potato plants with produce beautiful sweet potatoes that can be harvested by pulling up on the vines gently until the sweet potatoes pop out of the ground. In some cases, a shovel might be needed to help gently dig the sweet potatoes out of the ground. Once the sweet potatoes are harvested, they must be washed well and laid out to dry in a cool dry spot for a while until they are ready to be used for cooking.

Nutrients in Sweet Potatoes

• Antioxidants
  
• Vitamins C, A, B and E
  
• Potassium
  
• Iron
  
• Copper
  
• Protein
  
• Manganese
  
• Sodium
  
• Calcium
  
• Fiber

Health Benefits of Sweet Potatoes

Eating sweet potatoes with a meal can help provide the body with the nutrients it needs to help support the immune system, cardiovascular system, nervous system and respiratory system. When these systems are working properly in our bodies our hearts, lungs and nerves stay healthy and strong.

Having a baked sweet potato for a light healthy lunch with some seasoning can help prevent and treat digestive issues like constipation, colon and stomach cancers, inflammatory bowel disease and even the case of the runs. When these types of digestive issues are prevented and treated properly the body can help heal other common health issues in the body you might have such as hemorrhoids, anal fissures and fistulas.

I eat sweet potatoes regularly mashed up with a bit of organic butter and honey to help relieve the inflammation in my body that causes my asthma attacks and body aches. In addition, I find sweet potatoes help keep me fuller longer and blood sugar levels stable due to all the fiber they contain.

Eating sweet potatoes often can even help treat and prevent all kinds of cancers like breast, prostate, skin, lung, brain and eye cancers. It is best to eat organic deep orange sweet potatoes in order to get the best cancer prevention possible. Many sweet potatoes are sprayed with chemicals to keep bugs and diseases away, which can actually cause cancers if you decided to eat non-organic sweet potatoes instead.

Adding sweet potatoes to your diet can even help protect your eyes from developing cataracts and night blindness. I know I use to have a hard time seeing a nighttime, but I firmly believe adding sweet potatoes to my diet has improved my nighttime vision greatly.

Other reasons to consider adding sweet potatoes as a side dish at mealtime would be they help prevent heart attacks, high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes, aging, inflammatory diseases, arthritis, bone diseases and chronic fatigue syndrome.

Precautions When Eating Sweet Potatoes

Sweet potatoes are not known to cause any side effects at all. So, go ahead and eat them to help keep your body healthy and well nourished with the nutrients it needs to be strong and lean.