Seven reasons why potatoes are good for you

I have never been able to understand just where and "why" the hate fan mail for potato began. After all they have been around since 500 BC (their remains have been found in ancient ruins in Peru and Chile), are absolutely delicious, and, it may surprise you, but they are a "healthy" bite too.

Read on to know why I dig them so much, and why you should too.

First, they are supremely versatile. Can be served at any time of the day — breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks; can be oven baked, micro-baked, roasted, boiled, steamed, or fried, and can be fixed any which way you want — stand alone, added with any veggies (even meat), curried or dry… there are thousands of popular "aloo" recipes floating about. In fact they pair well with just about any other ingredient. Don't fancy broccoli? Make broccoli and potato cheesy soup. Deed done! Similarly, karela (bitter gourd) peddled with spicy potatoes somehow makes the combination work. Papeta par eeda, a Parsi dish of potatoes and eggs is another yummy case in point.

With potatoes, really, "the food" is not the "devil"! How you cook them — a healthy low calorie recipe or sinfully fried — is what matters. Plus much of the bad rap they get is actually due to the combinations that we whip up, which make the dish high in calories and fat. Add butter and we add up 100 calories per tablespoon, with every ounce of cheese we add even more (about 120 calories)… Whereas sour cream at 20 calories or cream cheese at 50 calories per tablespoon are better bets for sure. Ideally, just don't load potatoes down with fats like butter, melted cheese and bacon bits… or deep fry them. And if you do, don't blame the potato please.

Thirdly, potato may be the quintessential carb — a four-letter word in some dieting circles (in fact it is the first food that goes out of the window when the urge to diet strikes…) but the truth is that it is actually a great choice. One medium potato (150 gm) clocks in just 116 calories and is a terrific way to stock up on fiber (3 gm), which delivers satisfaction (with taste).

Potatoes are actually great for your heart too. They are high in magnesium and potassium — a powerful pair that together helps lower blood pressure. Plus the ratio of potassium (more) to sodium (less) in potatoes is just right too. To cash this benefit the trick here is to try and use sodium-free alternatives to spice up your spuds. Another good news is that scientists have identified potent blood pressure lowering compounds called kukoamines in potatoes, other known good sources of which are a Chinese herb and goji berry. Guess which is easier for us to plate?

And this will surprise you but the antioxidant count (the ORAC value) for potatoes is fairly high, which means they help keep the free radical damage (origin for most lifestyle disorders) down in the body. In fact some reports suggest that phytochemicals in potatoes rival the amounts found in broccoli. Who would have thought!

That's not all! Potatoes also have a lot of vitamin C and B6 — both essential nutrients, and some phosphorous too, a key bone health mineral. So, no, this humble food is not just "all starch" as you thought, it is in fact loaded — with healthy nutrients.

Finally the two big negatives thrown at potatoes - that they are high in Glycemic Index (GI) and full of too much starch - don't hold much water too. The GI of potato, some new reports say, has been ranked wrong. Food scientists feel that it cannot be generalised and varies from variety to variety (there are some 100 types out there), and it also depends on how the potatoes are eaten. Apparently potatoes consumed cold (boiled and cooled) have a lower GI because the digestibility of starch decreases with cooling (potato salad thus gets a thumbs up). In any case, dependence on GI as a health tool is also under a cloud now (more about it in another post). And, apparently, potato is a damn good source of resistant starch, which again research has proved is a big boon for our gut health (more about it soon too).

So the bottom line is that you "can" eat that potato without guilt, because as it pans out, it is quite good for you. Tasty news. Right!