Sweet potatoes broke my heart

CattOfTheGarage
CattOfTheGarage Posts: 2,745 Member
edited November 13 in Health and Weight Loss
I thought they were low in calories. Everyone talks about them like they're low in calories, but they're just the same as regular potatoes. I spent time learning to like them cos I thought they would save me calories, but they were lying to me the whole time.

But I've added another vegetable to my repertoire, so that's something. They're very nice baked.

Anyone else been disillusioned by the fashion foods of the moment? I thought I was too wordly-wise to fall victim to "superfood" marketing, but apparently not. Every day's a school day.
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Replies

  • crzycatlady1
    crzycatlady1 Posts: 1,930 Member
    edited December 2016
    Ha, yes they taste great but are calorie dense. Especially when you sprinkle cinnamon sugar on them and then dip them in regular ranch like I do lol.
  • VintageFeline
    VintageFeline Posts: 6,771 Member
    I am not, generally, a big nut eater and have only since losing weight become a (smooth) nut butter fan. Saddest day ever when I weighed it and realised I'd been had all along in thinking it was a great "diet friendly" food. I still eat it but I just never stopped to consider the calories before.

    I never really thought about sweet potato! Do they have fewer carbs perhaps and that's where they get their reputation? I don't eat much of either type of potato (no reason, just 'cos).
  • Hornsby
    Hornsby Posts: 10,322 Member
    I've never seen or heard it implied that they were low calorie.

    That being said I think of potatoes and sweet potatoes as low calorie.
  • Unknown
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  • Sabine_Stroehm
    Sabine_Stroehm Posts: 19,263 Member
    CattOfTheGarage wrote: »
    They are definitely a fashion food here in the UK, it's all sweet potato mash and sweet potato fries everywhere you look. They don't grow here easily so they've never been a traditional food, they're a bit "exotic" and seem to have got themselves a bit of a health halo. Maybe if we baked them with marshmallows we'd see them differently...
    For me that's more yams than sweet potatoes, but close enough.
  • amusedmonkey
    amusedmonkey Posts: 10,330 Member
    Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »
    All potatoes are low in calories, really. Sweet potatoes have a lower glycemic index and glycemic load than regular potatoes, which is, in part why I choose them. I also think they taste MUCH better. I don't know that I'd consider a good ole sweet potato "fashion food" though.
    Enjoy your root vegetables.

    You need to hang out with Paleo folk more often :wink:

    Speaking of glycemic index, you may find this interesting:
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25514303

    The low glycemic index diet did not show better results than the high glycemic diet, and in the case of high carb it also decreased insulin sensitivity. Not what you would expect, but only reinforces the idea that making choices based on a single construct may not yield the expected results because the diet needs to be seen as a whole.

    I don't like sweet potatoes and I don't think regular potatoes are that high in calories for how satiating they are, so I personally did not fall for the hype, but I thought they were lower in calories too which would explain why dieting people pick them over regular potatoes. Interesting!
  • crzycatlady1
    crzycatlady1 Posts: 1,930 Member
    edited December 2016
    diannethegeek wrote: »
    It was logging sweet potatoes by weight the first time that broke my heart. Let's just say that MFP and I have very different ideas about what qualifies as a "medium" sweet potato.

    Yeah, the ones I eat are usually large-I can easily clock in 500 calories with the potato and the things I eat with it. Not bad for a lunch, but I don't eat them as a side. If someone is eating a smaller one with no toppings then they're pretty low calorie, but I don't like them plain.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited December 2016
    Hornsby wrote: »
    I've never seen or heard it implied that they were low calorie.

    That being said I think of potatoes and sweet potatoes as low calorie.

    This, or medium calorie, I guess, with non-starchy veg being low calorie. (I also don't really think of them as being "vegetables," although of course they are, since when I was growing up they weren't the vegetable course, but the starch course.) Anyway, I like them and potatoes both and eat both, and see no nutritional reason to prefer one or the other (plus I think variety is nutritionally a positive thing).

    I guess I was a little disappointed in quinoa since people made it sound like it had tons of protein and it doesn't, it isn't that different from other similar foods. Tastes pretty good, though. I at one point expected whole grains to have fewer calories than white, and they don't (often more), although I usually go with whole grains. Parsnips had more calories than I expected.

    Can't really think of anything I was hugely surprised by, though. I was somewhat positively surprised by shrimp and other shellfish.
  • CattOfTheGarage
    CattOfTheGarage Posts: 2,745 Member
    edited December 2016
    I mean, it's all good, I'm not going to stop eating them any more than I'm going to stop eating regular potatoes. They just aren't the calorie hack I thought they were.

    I suspect they may be even better than normal potatoes when baked and topped with haggis. I have yet to try that, though.
  • CattOfTheGarage
    CattOfTheGarage Posts: 2,745 Member
    Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »
    CattOfTheGarage wrote: »
    They are definitely a fashion food here in the UK, it's all sweet potato mash and sweet potato fries everywhere you look. They don't grow here easily so they've never been a traditional food, they're a bit "exotic" and seem to have got themselves a bit of a health halo. Maybe if we baked them with marshmallows we'd see them differently...
    For me that's more yams than sweet potatoes, but close enough.

    According to all the food blogs, podcasts etc, "candied yams" is a misnomer, they're actually sweet potatoes. True yams are not related.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    http://www.thekitchn.com/whats-the-difference-between-yams-and-sweet-potatoes-word-of-mouth-211176
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    CattOfTheGarage wrote: »
    Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »
    CattOfTheGarage wrote: »
    They are definitely a fashion food here in the UK, it's all sweet potato mash and sweet potato fries everywhere you look. They don't grow here easily so they've never been a traditional food, they're a bit "exotic" and seem to have got themselves a bit of a health halo. Maybe if we baked them with marshmallows we'd see them differently...
    For me that's more yams than sweet potatoes, but close enough.

    According to all the food blogs, podcasts etc, "candied yams" is a misnomer, they're actually sweet potatoes. True yams are not related.

    And generally not that available in the US. For some reason in some parts of the country sweet potatoes (or certain varieties of sweet potatoes) get called yams.
  • JaydedMiss
    JaydedMiss Posts: 4,286 Member
    edited December 2016
    I often have a big ole plate of potatoes/sweet potatoes, Can have a big plate piled pretty high and have it be 400-500 calories. Hardly high calorie. I personally can never even finish my plate xD
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    CattOfTheGarage wrote: »
    Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »
    CattOfTheGarage wrote: »
    They are definitely a fashion food here in the UK, it's all sweet potato mash and sweet potato fries everywhere you look. They don't grow here easily so they've never been a traditional food, they're a bit "exotic" and seem to have got themselves a bit of a health halo. Maybe if we baked them with marshmallows we'd see them differently...
    For me that's more yams than sweet potatoes, but close enough.

    According to all the food blogs, podcasts etc, "candied yams" is a misnomer, they're actually sweet potatoes. True yams are not related.

    And generally not that available in the US. For some reason in some parts of the country sweet potatoes (or certain varieties of sweet potatoes) get called yams.

    From my link...
    Here's an interesting little history lesson to explain why there's so much confusion. As we mentioned above, there are two types of sweet potatoes — "firm" and "soft." The firm variety was the first to be produced in the U.S., so when "soft" sweet potatoes began to be produced commercially, there was a need to differentiate it from its firm counterpart.

    Since the "soft" sweet potatoes slightly resembled true yams, they picked up the name and became what you see labeled as "yams" in most U.S. grocery stores.
  • Sabine_Stroehm
    Sabine_Stroehm Posts: 19,263 Member
    edited December 2016
    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »
    All potatoes are low in calories, really. Sweet potatoes have a lower glycemic index and glycemic load than regular potatoes, which is, in part why I choose them. I also think they taste MUCH better. I don't know that I'd consider a good ole sweet potato "fashion food" though.
    Enjoy your root vegetables.

    You need to hang out with Paleo folk more often :wink:

    Speaking of glycemic index, you may find this interesting:
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25514303

    The low glycemic index diet did not show better results than the high glycemic diet, and in the case of high carb it also decreased insulin sensitivity. Not what you would expect, but only reinforces the idea that making choices based on a single construct may not yield the expected results because the diet needs to be seen as a whole.

    I don't like sweet potatoes and I don't think regular potatoes are that high in calories for how satiating they are, so I personally did not fall for the hype, but I thought they were lower in calories too which would explain why dieting people pick them over regular potatoes. Interesting!

    Thanks for the link. I've read that, and yes, I agree, the GI is but one piece of information.
    Sweet potatoes have slightly more fiber, and a lower GI and GL. All of which (together) helps me in making decisions
  • coffeethencardio
    coffeethencardio Posts: 27 Member
    I eat them daily usually for lunch but then I eat a whole foods plantbased diet with no animal products or oils. So yummy! I eat them baked and totally plain though. So no added calories from the junk that most people add to them. I loved them before they were "trendy". ;)
  • JaydedMiss
    JaydedMiss Posts: 4,286 Member
    coffeethencardio wrote: »
    I eat them daily usually for lunch but then I eat a whole foods plantbased diet with no animal products or oils. So yummy! I eat them baked and totally plain though. So no added calories from the junk that most people add to them. I loved them before they were "trendy". ;)

    I slice them up and bake them as potato discs, so yummy! Add a little garlic powder sometimes, yum
  • CattOfTheGarage
    CattOfTheGarage Posts: 2,745 Member
    Normal potatoes are very high in vitamin C. And other things which escape me at the moment. And their skins go crispier when you bake them.

    I believe you have yellow-fleshed sweet potatoes in the states. We don't get those, only the orange ones. And I can get the purple ones at the Chinese supermarket, which are lovely - a bit denser and less sweet, and such a gorgeous colour, which stays when you cook them (unlike regular purple potatoes, which turn white when you cook them :( )
  • cbelc2
    cbelc2 Posts: 762 Member
    Try winter squash. It's actually low in calories and bakes up nicely.
  • Evamutt
    Evamutt Posts: 2,753 Member
    I have a potato or two almost every day, fills me up
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