Potatoes get a bad rap – they don’t deserve it

Is the association between potatoes and bad health outcomes a result of how people eat potatoes (often, fried, or with salt and plenty of sour cream)? Or is it because potato eating is part of a dietary or lifestyle pattern that could include, say, cheeseburgers, and it’s the pattern, not the potatoes, that does the damage? Or is the data unreliable? We don’t really know.

“Potatoes have calories,” says Nestle. But she’s not giving them up, and she doesn’t think we have to, either.

When you move on from population data to research in which people are fed potatoes in a lab, the picture changes a bit. The knock on potatoes is that the quick spike in blood sugar and subsequent insu- lin response leave people hungry, but when you feed people potatoes and then ask them how full they are a couple hours later, and track what they eat at the next meal, potatoes seem to be quite satiating.

In 1995, Australian researchers gave 240 calories’ worth of food to subjects. They tracked how hungry the subjects got and developed a satiety index (using white bread as a benchmark, with a score of 100). The hands-down winner, with a satiety index of 323, was potatoes. In second place was fish (225), and oatmeal took third (209).

It’s an imperfect study, as it tracks hunger for only two hours, and few additional studies have compared satiety of potatoes versus satiety of other foods.

Generally, there is enough disagreement over whether the speed of insulin response correlates with satiety that we shouldn’t be so hard on the potato.

A food is more than its contribution to blood sugar, and potatoes have other qualities (fibre, water, resistant starch) that could contribute to satiety.

Compare potatoes with green vegetables, and you get more calories and less nutrition. But compare potatoes with whole grains, and you find surprising similarities – and even that potatoes are more nutritious.

Compare 100 calories of baked potato to 100 calories of oatmeal, and you find a bit less protein (3g vs 4g), a bit more starch (18g vs 16) and a similar mineral profile (potatoes have more potassium, but oats have more selenium).

But potatoes beat oats in just about every vitamin, as well as fibre. Okay, so maybe potatoes should have a place at the table (although both frying and sour cream clearly have to be deployed with care).

And how about vitamins and minerals?

The potato still scores more wins than losses on nutrients. It yields about half the calcium and vitamin C of broccoli and none of the vitamin A, but it has three times the iron, phosphorus and potassium.

So let’s hear it for the potato. – Washington Post

Spuds may not be as unhealthy as we are led to believe, says the writer.