Sweet Potato: Properties and Tips

• As with the potato, the variety of sweet potatoes is immense with small differences in taste, size or texture, although the most striking is the different color of the flesh inside. Orange sweet potatoes are the most popular, but we can also find more yellowish, almost white, and even lilac varieties. As it is native to America, it grows in tropical climates, the cold does not help it grow. In American countries it is distinguished between white meat and red meat. The red meat is very rich in provitamin A or beta-carotene. White, on the other hand, does not consist of these vitamins but is very abundant in starch. It contains 70% water. Sweet potato is a low calorie food, it contains about 115 kcal. per 100 grams, and if cooked using healthy cooking methods, it is ideal for any type of food, even in weight loss or fat loss diets, as well as for people with diabetes, as long as it is done in a moderate consumption. When sweet potatoes are cooked at low temperature (about 57-70- C approx.), Starch is converted to maltose and dextrins. Maltose is a sugar composed of two molecules of glucose that sweetens a third of what table sugar does, from 75 ° C starch degradation ceases. That is why if the sweet potato is cooked at low temperature, it is sweeter. The glyceride index of the sweet potato is higher than the potato.