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| Potato Harvest |
Who doesn't like potatoes? Raise your hands please. I have yet to meet someone who hates it. Potatoes are something of a comfort food for me, although I don't really eat it on a daily basis. But when I do, I practically gorge it. Many Filipino recipes incorporate potatoes and if you know me, I'm the first to dish out the potatoes from Menudo, Nilaga, Adobo and anything with potatoes.
Remember on one of my previous articles, I have mentioned that we have certain cravings for certain foods and that we should not dismiss that as plain gluttony. There is an underlying reason why our body craves certain foods. As for me and potatoes, I don't know if it's just my body telling me it is good for me or that I am simply going gaga over it. Whatever, I just love potatoes.
Small scale studies have shown promising results, based from my obsessive research on potatoes and the quest to disprove the bad rap it has earned. From the study, there is a correlation associated with microwaved purple potatoes and lowering of blood pressure. You can read the full articles from Science Daily and WebMD about this claim. Just a gist of the study, it is found out that the participants, even those taking medication for hypertension had significant decrease in both systolic and diastolic readings. I do hope they continue this study, using more test subjects from different ethnicity as well as testing the various types of potatoes available and also the other cooking or preparation methods as I am not sold out with microwaved dishes but more of that on another article. Also, I have not set eyes on purple potatoes yet and didn't know they exist before today. With those other variables, that would probably make this initial study more conclusive.
From my research, I have also gathered that potatoes are actually packed with a lot of nutrients, contrary to the reputation that it is basically just all starch and fattening carbohydrates. But even those do not deter a potato fiend like me hehehe. And now, I have perfectly good excuses for not scrapping it from my diet. These articles will shed some light to that resolve:
- Health Benefits of Potato from Organic Facts
- Health Benefits of Potatoes
- Potatoes
- Nutrition Facts of Boiled Potatoes
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| Potato, cheese and Speck |
So, are potatoes good or bad for our health? About.com says it's all in the way we prepare potatoes. I got to say that it is consistent with most sites I've read that potato chips and French fried potatoes are bad as well as those other things added that renders an otherwise healthy food into an unhealthy one. Think of heavy dressings, sour cream, oil used to fry , and all those good tasting but nasty stuff. I suppose I'll have no problem ditching the chips and the greasy fries.
My verdict? For a hypertensive person like me, potatoes are good for my health, what with all those anti-oxidants such as flavonoids and ample amount of potassium, not to mention Vitamin C and B6 and a lot of other beneficial nutrients. It's just that I need to learn how to prepare it best, preserving as much of those nutrients to get the maximum benefits and skipping the bad additives.
Care for a bowl of potato soup? Yum!
Care for a bowl of potato soup? Yum!
