Amy Oshier
Are mashed potatoes healthy? What about boiled potatoes? I’m putting it out there: I love potatoes. But time and time again I’ve had to defend my relationship, explaining why we’re ‘best spuds’ to the low-carb crowd.
For some reason, we’ve been taught to think potatoes are baaaaad. A veritable waste of space in the stomach. Starchy. Junk food. Now all the naysayers may have to walk back their trash talk. New studies are throwing some good vibes on the humble potato.
Research from Edith Cowan University (ECU) may have you re-digesting the myths. Okay, it’s true that potatoes aren’t as healthy as our leafy greens, but the spud’s real sore spot stems from how they’re prepared. And how they’re served.
Here’s a breakdown of the ECU findings: after studying more than 54,000 dietary habits of various people, eating potatoes basically had a net neutral effect on the predisposition for developing Type 2 diabetes. Considering most Western diabetics likely eat a lot of fried potatoes or other processed versions, those findings are worth noting.
It may be that in Denmark they don’t prepare potatoes the way we do here in the United States. As far as I can tell, they boil them quite a lot. When you put fries and chips into one group and boiled potatoes into another group, the boiled ones didn’t show a higher risk of diabetes.
There’s more… the non-boiled spud eaters were more likely to be ‘meat and potato’ lovers, making it harder to determine the exclusive impact that potatoes made in developing Type 2 diabetes. Many of the respondents also admitted consuming more butter and soft drinks, which are known to hike diabetes risk.
So what’s the key takeaway? Avoiding Type 2 diabetes and other diet-related illnesses is less about the ingredients and more about how the ingredients are prepared. Leafy green vegetables and lean proteins are best for the body, but whole-food carbohydrates like potatoes and sweet potatoes shouldn’t be avoided out of fear. They help provide the body short-term energy in the form of elevated blood sugar, which is perfectly healthy as long as part of a balanced diet and regular exercise routine.
Don’t skip the potatoes, just don’t drown them in scalding hot seed or vegetable oils.
