Potatoes VS sweet potatoes, a big competition for weight loss! The winner is...

Sweet potatoes or potatoes, which one do you prefer? Chinese people are crazy about losing weight. They think eating white rice makes them fat. They believe that replacing rice completely or partially with sweet potatoes or potatoes can help reduce starch intake and achieve the goal of losing weight faster. However, as both are staple foods, sweet potatoes and potatoes, one from China and the other from the West, and whose English names are very similar, which one is better at reducing weight? Let’s take a look at the nutritionist’s insightful analysis.

Does eating starch really make you fat? Choosing the right food and portion size is key

Before we compare the weight-loss abilities of sweet potatoes and potatoes, we should first think about "Does eating starch really make you fat?" Jiang Shifeng, a nutritionist at Daqian General Hospital, said that carbohydrates (sugars) are one of the three important nutrients for the human body. Compared to proteins and lipids, carbohydrates are indeed most completely oxidized in the human body and have the characteristic of fast energy supply. Eating too much of them can easily make you fat.

Carbohydrates can be divided into "monosaccharides", "disaccharides", "oligosaccharides" and "polysaccharides" based on the number of sugar molecules. Starch is a polysaccharide, which is composed of thousands of sugar molecules linked together. Carbohydrates with fewer sugar molecules and simpler structural branches are digested and absorbed faster. As blood sugar rises rapidly, insulin must be secreted frequently to convert blood sugar into glycogen or stored as fat. Therefore, when the human body cannot lack carbohydrates, it is particularly important to choose foods that are "less likely to make you fat."

Generally speaking, the more starchy polysaccharide foods you choose that are high in dietary fiber and retain their original appearance, the less likely the sugars they contain will be absorbed immediately. As long as people consume the same amount of starch, replacing refined white rice and flour products with foods such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, brown rice, red beans and wheat can indeed help them lose weight. But, if we compare sweet potatoes and potatoes, which have been very popular in recent years, which one do you think is better for helping you lose weight?

The East vs. West showdown! Sweet potatoes or potatoes, which one is better for weight loss?

Nutritionist Jiang Shifeng referred to the data from the Taiwan Food Nutrition Database and conducted the following analysis on the weight-loss effect of potatoes and sweet potatoes:

1. Calories: At the same weight of 100 grams, sweet potatoes have 121 calories, which is higher than potatoes at 77 calories. Further analysis shows that the main difference lies in the total carbohydrate content, with sweet potatoes having 27.8 grams more than potatoes at 15.8 grams. In addition, potatoes have a water content of about 80%, while sweet potatoes have a water content of about 70%.

2. Dietary fiber: On average, every 100 grams of sweet potato contains 2.5 grams of dietary fiber, which is nearly twice as much as the 1.3 grams of potato. In terms of GI value, sweet potato is 55, while potato is as high as 90, indicating that potato is not as good as sweet potato in affecting blood sugar fluctuations and satiety in the body.

3. Other nutrients: The trace nutrients contained in sweet potatoes, such as calcium, vitamin A, B vitamins, folic acid, etc., are higher than those in potatoes.

Summary: Although sweet potatoes have higher calorie density and sugar content than potatoes at the same weight and volume, if we only consider the principles of calorie and low-sugar diet (50-150 grams/day), or very low-sugar ketogenic diet (less than 50 grams/day), potatoes are more suitable for weight loss. However, taking into account dietary fiber, GI value and other nutritional values, nutritionist Jiang Shifeng believes that sweet potatoes have simple and strong strength, enough to reverse the situation and win the weight loss PK, making them more suitable for healthy weight loss than potatoes.

If you cook sweet potatoes and potatoes the wrong way, be careful that their weight-reducing effect will turn from positive to negative

Although replacing rice with potatoes or sweet potatoes can reduce starch intake and thus help with weight loss, nutritionist Jiang Shifeng also reminds people to pay more attention to the cooking method when consuming potatoes and sweet potatoes. If too much seasoning or oil is added when cooking, it will not help with weight loss!

Take potatoes as an example. Since they have no taste by themselves, they are difficult to swallow without seasoning. Therefore, many people will add ingredients to make them more delicious during the cooking process. For example, they add butter to baked potatoes or fry them directly with oil, add a lot of salad dressing when eating them as salads, add a lot of cheese sauce, ham, tuna and other sauces to fried French fries, potato cakes or potato chips after baking. Little do people know that these high-fat, high-salt, and high-sugar cooking methods can easily ruin one’s weight loss efforts.

As for sweet potatoes, which are slightly better at reducing weight, although they are sweet in nature and delicious without seasoning whether baked, steamed or boiled, many people generally choose to eat sweet potato soup, candied sweet potato, etc., which are seasoned with sugar, or sweet potato cubes and sweet potato slices that are fried at high temperature. This will greatly increase the calorie intake, and may make you fat instead of thin in the long run.

In this regard, nutritionist Jiang Shifeng recommends that those who want to lose weight should treat sweet potatoes and potatoes as white rice, and cook them in simple ways such as boiling in soup, steaming or baking. They should not be seasoned themselves, and when ingesting them, they can be balanced with other types of seasoned foods, such as meat and vegetables, to reduce unnecessary intake of oil, sugar and salt.