How to kick our bad potato habit

Poor potatoes.

Despite being a culinary pillar around which countless societies have evolved, the humble spud has faced many challenges in the past few decades, mostly due to our conflicting feeling about carbohydrates. The highcarb fad of the 1980s led to the low- carb boom of the ’90s and 2000s, and potatoes are still recovering from the hit.

But according to dietitian Beth Barnett- Boebel and food coach Jessica Pearson, who co- own Path Nutrition in Austin, potatoes aren’t the carb you should worry about today — as long as you’re not serving them covered in sour cream, cheese and bacon bits every night.

“It’s important to not villainize any one food group,” Barnett- Boebel says. “Fats, proteins and carbs are needed, and how much depends on your body and the amount of activity you do. Carbs can play a big role in supporting your activity.”

If you are active and need a higher carb intake, potatoes are a wiser choice than what Barnett- Boebel and Pearson call “floured product” — products ranging from tortillas and bread to pasta, even the gluten- free kind, that are made from some kind of powdered ingredient.

To process wheat, rice, almonds or even potatoes into a flour and then make another product to cook again leads to reduced nutrients that must then be reintroduced. Our bodies thrive when f uelled by whole foods, and potatoes fall into that category, even though they’ve been maligned in the past, Barnett-Boebel says.

Potatoes are naturally low in calories ( about 170 calories for a medium, skinon potato) and packed with vitamin C, potassium, vitamin B6, manganese and dietary fibre. But how you cook them greatly affects their nutritional quality, Barnett-Boebel says.

Frying potatoes is never a good idea if you’re on a calorie- or fat-restricted diet because they soak up oils. And Barnett- Boebel says overbrowning them in a pan or in the oven can cause inflammation in your body because of what are called advanced glycation end products produced with the high heat.

Barnett- Boebel says this also happens when you char protein, and i nflammation in the body can worsen health issues like cardiovascular disease, diabetes and certain cancers.

Beware overcooking the potatoes, no matter how you prepare them. White potatoes are higher on the glycemic index than sweet potatoes, and the softer they are — including those pillowy mashed potatoes you love — the less fibre they have and the quicker they will cause your blood sugar to spike. That’s hard on the body, even if you don’t have diabetes.

One final thing to keep in mind, Barnett-Boebel says, is that potato skins are where the nutrients and fibre are most dense, so don’t peel potatoes before cooking.