Gluten the Enemy

What Is the Nutritional Value of Sweet Potato?

By Steve D Wright 

The sweet potato is an incredibly popular vegetable that features on it's own, and as part of other dishes in restaurants and homes all over the world. Have you ever wondered about what the nutritional value of sweet potatoes are though, I mean just how good for you are they? This article is going to explain to you in simple terms all of the sweet potato nutrition facts, that highlight just why this is spud is such a common choice for the dinner table.

Nutritional data

I am going to start off by putting all of the nutritional information surrounding the sweet potato in black and white for you, before going on to explain what it all really means. Statistics don't necessarily mean the same thing to everybody.

The following sweet potato nutriton facts are based on one potato without the skin, weighing 151 grams.

Vitamins 

Vitamin A - 23,769 IU
Vitamin B1 (Thiamin) - 0.1 milligrams
Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin) - 0.1 milligrams
Vitamin B3 (Niacin) - 0.8 milligrams
Vitamin B5 (Pantothenic acid) - 0.9 milligrams
Vitamin B6 - 0.2 milligrams
Vitamin B9 (Folate) - 9.1 micrograms
Vitamin B12 - 0.0 micrograms
Vitamin C - 19.3 milligrams
Vitamin E - 1.4 milligrams
Vitamin K - 3.2 micrograms
Choline - 16.3 milligrams

Minerals 

Calcium - 40.8 milligrams
Copper - 0.1 milligrams
Iron - 1.1 milligrams
Magnesium - 27.2 milligrams
Manganese - 0.4 milligrams
Phosphorus - 48.3 milligrams
Potassium - 347 milligrams
Selenium - 0.3 micrograms
Sodium - 40.8 milligrams
Zinc - 0.3 milligrams

Other Nutrients

Protein - 2.1 g
Cholesterol - 0.0 milligrams
Dietary Fiber - 3.8 g
Carbohydrates - 26.8 g
Water - 121 g
Total fats - 0.2 g
Sugars - 8.7 g

So what do all of these nutritional statistics actually mean, which are positive, and which are negative?

The positive nutritional values of sweet potato

Let's begin with the good news, as there is much more of this to talk about. The sweet potato is a natural food and therefore it is something that is loaded with vitamins and minerals. Some to a higher degree than others of course, but overall making a notable contribution to a great many of these that your diet requires on a regular basis.

Dietary fiber - Fiber is a fundamental part of the human diet, and the 3.8 grams you can get from just one boiled potato is 15% of the total you need in a whole day.

Vitamin A - They are simply an enormous source of vitamin A, a nutrient important to your health for various reasons such as the functionality of your eyes. You can get over four times the amount of vitamin A that you need in a day through just one sweet potato!

Vitamin C - Vitamin C is renowned for helping your immune system stay healthy, but it has many other roles in the body too. You can get around a third of the total vitamin C needed in a day with a single sweet spud.

Potassium - One of the most essential minerals that your body must have in order to perform a variety of processes. Potassium gives you energy, helps your muscles and regulates both your blood pressure and nervous system. A boiled sweet potato can provide you with 10% of the total potassium your need in a day.

Manganese - Another mineral that this vegetable is rich in is manganese. In fact 0.4 milligrams is 20% of your body's daily requirement.

Being a natural plant food, the sweet potato contains no cholesterol, a low amount of sodium, and an incredibly low amount of fat. It is a great source of carbohydrates, which is where it's calories come from, and also contains a moderate amount of sugar.

Calories in sweet potato

Something that may border on the positive and negative is the number of calories in a sweet potato, which for the example used on this page is 115. This may sound a lot for one potato, and it is 6 per cent of the total calories the average adult male should be consuming in a day, but when you look at all of the nutritional benefits this is a no brainer. The sweet potato offers too much in it's nutritional goodness to overlook, for the sake of cutting out a few extra carbs and calories.

Summary

You are going to be hard pushed to find any reason to leave something as healthy as the sweet potato out of your diet. It is a versatile food that tastes delicious on it's own as well as complimenting many main meals, and even being made into dishes such as the ever popular potato pie.

If you can overlook the calorie content, which really is not exactly all that bad, you will be greeted by a wealth of positives when it comes to what they can do for you.

I hope that this has been a sound explanation for all of those people looking to find out the answer to the common question, 'what is the nutritional value of sweet potato?'. With bases covered you can do your health nothing but good by eating them.

Steve Wright is an internet writer and nutritional expert. With various websites to his name including the popular http://www.calories-in-foods.com/, Steve proudly uses Ezine articles as a method of sharing his work and knowledge with others.

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