Can Sweet Potato Lower Your Blood Pressure?
Sweet potato not only reduces your blood pressure but also reduces your blood sugar. It is a low calorie highly nutritional plant food.
There are numerous ways in which you can enjoy the tasty sweet potatoes as well as improve your health.
Sweet potatoes contain many nutrients and they offer anti-inflammatory, antioxidants and disease fighting compounds to offer multiple health benefits.
There are about 400 different varieties of sweet potatoes around the world to choose from. Eat your local variety.
Although sweet potatoes and potatoes are similar in many ways particularly in calories, carbohydrates and fiber content, yet they belong to different vegetable families.
Sweet potatoes are nutritionally healthy compared to regular potatoes.
Sweet potatoes are also confused sometimes with yams due to their similar looks.
Yams are also as nutritious as sweet potatoes but they belong to different food families.
Sweet potatoes are generally of the same size whereas yams can vary in size ranging from normal size potato to almost 5 feet long yams.
Sweet potatoes belong to the morning glory plant family and yams belong to the Dioscreae family.
Nutritional Values of Sweet Potatoes
Sweet potatoes are one of the best sources of vitamin A. 100 grams of sweet potato contains almost 283% of daily value. It also contains 4% Vitamin C and 10% Vitamin B6.
100 grams of sweet potato will just add 86 calories but will give you 6% of Carbohydrates and 12% of fibre plus 3% of protein of daily value.
Sweet potatoes also contain a variety of minerals ranging from sodium 2% potassium 9 % magnesium 6% calcium 3% and Iron 3% of daily value.
How Sweet Potatoes Lower Blood Pressure
Sweet potatoes contain two of the most important minerals that help lowering blood pressure these are potassium and magnesium.
The high fiber content of sweet potato also is heart healthy.
The potassium which helps to maintain Sodium Potassium ratio in the body is one of the key contributors to lowering the blood pressure of the people who consume more salt on a daily basis.
Our current lifestyle forces us all to eat more sodium in the form of either common salt or preservatives in various foods that we consume today. Due to our regular eating habits this increased sodium content in the blood absorbs water raising the blood volumes which increases blood pressure.
Potassium reduces the effect of sodium and let it pass through the Kidneys without getting into the blood stream. This way they blood pressure is controlled
Magnesium improves kidney functioning that also has a very positive impact on lowering the blood pressure.
In addition to this benefits of potassium and magnesium sweet potatoes also are anti inflammatory and possess antioxidants capabilities which improve overall health.
How to Eat Sweet Potatoes
You can eat sweet potatoes in a number of different ways to enjoy the taste as well as get health benefits.
When you peel the skin of sweet potato the sweet potato deteriorates rapidly as the starch converts to sugar particularly in a refrigerated environment.
So never put sweet potatoes in the fridge.
The best way to eat potato sweet potato is to bake it. You can apply butter on it and consume it while it is warm.
Interestingly the moderately added fat to sweet potato does not increase calories and fat is also absorbed well.
Some of the nutrients are lost in boiling the potatoes, so make sure that most of the time you eat sweet potato in the baked form which is the best. Occasionally you can steam sweet potatoes.
You can add baked sweet potato in salads or smoothies or just enjoy the baked sweat potatoes alone.