Sweet potatoes are one of the oldest vegetables known to be consumed by humans and research dates this vegetable back to prehistoric times.

The sweet potato is native to Central America and was bought to Europe by Christopher Columbus in 1492.  By the 16^th century they were introduced to the Philippines, Africa, India and also to the US. 

Sweet potatoes belong to the Convolvulaceae or morning glory plant family and are different from yams, which they are often confused, which is a root vegetable belonging to the Dioscoreae family.

There are about 400 different varieties of sweet potato and the skin and flesh can vary in colour with some white, yellow, orange, deep purple and pink varieties.  The most common being the yellow-orange variety which is slightly longer than an ordinary potato and tapered at the ends.

Sweet potatoes are packed full of nutrients with excellent sources of beta-carotene, vitamin C, manganese, vitamin B6, potassium and iron. They are also a good source of dietary fibre. The orange colour is due to the beta-carotene content which gives the sweet potato valuable anti-oxidant properties.  The body can produce vitamin A from beta-carotene and it is though that the beta-carotene from sweet potatoes is more easily used by the body than that from dark, leafy vegetables.

The purple sweet potato has been found to have the high antioxidant activity of all the sweet potatoes and in one study the antioxidant activity (anthocyanins coming from the purple colour) was over three times higher than that of blueberries.

Try to buy organic sweet potatoes so that if you are just having them as a steamed vegetable, you do not have to peel because as with most fruit and vegetables most of the goodness is in the skin and with sweet potatoes the antioxidant activity is three times higher in the skin than in the flesh.

 

This entry was posted on Monday, December 1st, 2008 at 12:10 am and is filed under Ingredient Spotlights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.