5 Benefits of Sweet Potatoes Dietitians Wish More People Knew

There’s no veggie quite as versatile as the humble spud. Bake ’em, mash ’em, roast ’em or fry ’em—there are countless easy and delicious meals that prove potatoes can do just about anything. And if you think things don’t get better than russets and fingerlings, you’re in for a surprise the minute you take a bite of the true spud showstopper: the sweet potato. That’s right: The benefits of sweet potatoes go way beyond their bright color and sweet taste.

Even if you’re chock-full of food facts, there’s a good chance you don’t know the details of sweet potato nutrition. And they’re worth learning! In fact, getting info on the benefits of sweet potatoes straight from dietitians just might convince you to integrate the powerhouse veggies into your diet.

With that in mind, we reached out to two experts who know all about sweet potato nutrition: Natalie Rizzo, a registered dietitian and the founder of Greenletes, and Jessica Lehmann, a registered dietitian nutritionist and an associate teaching professor at Arizona State University. We asked them your most pressing question: Are sweet potatoes good for you? What nutrients do they provide? And how many should you really be eating?

Keep reading to find out why nutrition experts love sweet potatoes so much—and learn the most delicious ways to cook them!

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What are the benefits of sweet potatoes?

These spuds bring a lot to the table in the way of nutritional benefits. But we’ll forgive you for being hazy on the details—there’s no nutrition label on the skin, after all.

So why, exactly, are sweet potatoes so good for you? Below, you’ll find just a few of the perks that come with adding this food to your diet.

A healthier gut

Among the various sweet potato health benefits is a boost to gut health. That’s thanks to the vegetable’s impressive fiber stats. “One sweet potato has 15% of the daily value of fiber, making them good for gut health,” explains Rizzo. That fiber aids digestion and helps prevent constipation.

Blood sugar stability

As a complex carb, a sweet potato takes more time to digest than simple carbs (processed foods with little nutritional value), notes Lehmann. That means a sweet potato won’t raise your blood sugar levels as quickly, helping to keep your mood and energy levels steady.

Plus, adds Rizzo, slower digestion means sweet potatoes will keep you fuller for longer than other carbs do.

Reduced inflammation

Go ahead and add sweet potatoes to your anti-inflammatory grocery list. Just like blueberries, this tuber is high in antioxidants—specifically vitamin C, carotenoids and phenylpropanoids—that reduce inflammation in the body and protect against chronic diseases and certain types of cancer.

A healing boost

Sweet potatoes have been linked to improved vision (due to their beta carotene and vitamin A content), a better immune system (thanks to vitamin C and manganese) and strong bones (manganese again). In short, the vitamins and minerals in the veggie are just what you need to get and stay healthy.

Eating sweet potatoes regularly is even good for your skin. “Beta-carotene is an antioxidant, so it helps to reverse damage from the sun,” Lehmann explains. “It also improves wrinkling and sagging of the skin.”

Improved mental health

According to Lehmann, sweet potatoes are good for mental health because they’re high in vitamin B6, which we need in order to synthesize serotonin, a neurotransmitter that helps regulate mood.

Are sweet potatoes healthy?

The answer is a resounding yes! Here are all the good-for-you things found in these spuds.

Sweet potato nutrition facts

For one medium sweet potato, baked in the skin.

Are sweet potatoes a superfood?

Clearly, the benefits of sweet potatoes are impressive, but do they rise to superfood status? Lehmann says yes, explaining that sweet potatoes deserve the title because they’re so rich in nutrients, particularly fiber, potassium and vitamins A, B6 and C.

Rizzo agrees, adding that while there’s no official, science-backed definition of the term superfood, she considers almost all seasonal fruits and vegetables superfoods.

Do sweet potatoes help reduce belly fat?

If your goal is to lose weight in a healthy way, both experts see no need to cut sweet potatoes out of your diet. “One sweet potato only has a little over 100 calories,” says Rizzo, emphasizing that you get a lot of key nutrients for those calories. “People think they need to avoid carbs to lose weight, but that’s definitely not the case. Eating carbs from vegetables is part of a healthy weight-loss diet, and eating fiber is an integral part of losing weight.”

Plus, she adds, this food won’t leave you hungry for a second dinner soon after you eat. “Sweet potatoes are rich in fiber and complex carbohydrates, which help maintain a feeling of fullness,” Rizzo says.

What are the disadvantages of sweet potatoes?

The benefits of sweet potatoes are clear, but are there downsides? While there really are no disadvantages to eating sweet potatoes, Rizzo says that having one on its own as a meal doesn’t provide enough protein to be satiating.

• Combine your sweet spud with lean protein like eggs, skinless chicken, Greek yogurt, beans or chickpeas to make it more filling.
• If you have diabetes, Lehmann says, be mindful of how you eat sweet potatoes because they’re high in carbs: “Pair a sweet potato with a protein and a little fat to avoid a blood glucose spike,” she says.
• People with a history of kidney stones should also be mindful, as sweet potatoes are high in a nutrient called oxalate, which can cause kidney stones in people susceptible to them.

What’s the right amount of sweet potatoes to eat per day?

If knowing the benefits of sweet potatoes has you ready to eat them regularly, you may be wondering if the adage “too much of a good thing” applies. While both our experts say eating a sweet potato a day is certainly healthy, they don’t recommend more than that. There are plenty of other vegetables to enjoy, after all.

“If you’re eating more than one a day, you might want to consider varying up your food choices so you get a variety of nutrients,” Rizzo says.

And fair warning, sweet potato fans: Lehmann adds that the high beta-carotene content in sweet potatoes can cause skin to turn orange when eaten in excess.

What is the healthiest way to eat sweet potatoes?

French fries are a good example of how a cooking method can turn a healthy food into a not-so-healthy food. To ensure the preparation of sweet potatoes doesn’t take away from their nutritional value, here are a few nutritionist-recommended cooking methods:

• Roasting
• Baking
• Air-frying
• Microwaving

When cooking sweet potatoes, keep these do’s and don’ts in mind:

• Do slice and dice. Lehmann’s favorite way to integrate sweet potatoes easily into meals is to dice them into cubes for stew or stir-fries.
• Do cook with healthy fats. Rizzo recommends baking or air-frying with a little olive oil and spices.
• Don’t pile on the unhealthy toppings. Lehmann advises against adding too much oil, salt or sugar to sweet potatoes while cooking.
• Don’t rely on butter. Rizzo warns against using heavy cream or lots of butter (both tasty but, sadly, high in saturated fat) when preparing mashed sweet potatoes.

There’s no shortage of ways to enjoy sweet potatoes—and experimenting is part of the fun! Integrating them into meals more often will benefit your body, and that’s, well, pretty sweet.

FAQs

What’s the difference between white, sweet, red and purple potatoes?

White, sweet, red and purple potatoes have different-colored skin and/or flesh, but that’s not the only thing that sets them apart. White potatoes are the round or oval spuds with brown skin that we use in our daily cooking. Also called russet potatoes, this veggie gets sliced, shredded and mashed into potato chips, french fries, hash browns, mashed potatoes and more.

Sweet potatoes, however, are slightly longer, have orange-hued skin and offer plenty of additional health benefits, along with a sweeter taste. They’re the basis for the classic Thanksgiving dish sweet potato pie (decidedly not healthy) as well as sweet potato fries, though plenty of people enjoy them baked or roasted.

Red potatoes are smaller than sweet and white, appearing as round tubers with red skin. The flesh, however, is typically white or yellow. While they taste closer to a white potato than a sweet potato, they’re slightly sweeter and less dry than their russet counterparts. Another red spud: the red sweet potato, which has orange flesh and redish skin and tastes like, well, a sweet potato.

Considering the fact that phytonutrients give plants their vibrant colors, it should come as no surprise that purple potatoes pack a nutritional punch. You’ll come across two types in the store: Purple potatoes taste similar to white potatoes but have a rich purple flesh. Purple sweet potatoes are similarly dark, but they have a flavor similar to sweet potatoes, if not a bit starchier.

What’s the difference between a sweet potato and a yam?

They may look like twins, but sweet potatoes and yams are actually two different plants. A member of the Dioscoreaceae family, yams are tubers native to Africa. Meanwhile, sweet potatoes, like morning glories, are part of the Convolvulaceae family, and these fleshy roots are native to tropical regions of the Americas.

The nutrients in yams are similar to those in sweet potatoes, although yams are higher in potassium, while sweet potatoes are higher in vitamin A. Whichever you choose, you can rest easy knowing it comes with plenty of health benefits.

How do sweet potatoes compare with regular potatoes in terms of the glycemic index?

Sweet potatoes have a lower glycemic index than russets. Why does that matter? First, a mini lesson: The glycemic index is a tool that helps explain how quickly a food will increase your blood sugar after eating. It can be particularly useful for people with diabetes, who need to avoid blood sugar swings.

According to a study published in The Open Nutrition Journal, no matter what cooking method you use, sweet potatoes are a low- to medium-glycemic food. White potatoes, on the other hand, are a high-glycemic food.

In other words, sweet potatoes won’t raise your blood sugar as quickly as a white potato, and they’re a better bet if you follow the glycemic index. That said, the glycemic load of a potato also depends on how you cook and eat it. Topped with brown sugar and marshmallows, a sweet potato has a much higher glycemic load.

Are sweet potatoes high in sugar?

Sweet potatoes do contain sugar (about 24 grams of carb in a medium potato), but since they’re complex carbohydrates, they won’t spike your blood sugar the way white potatoes do. There’s also a good amount of fiber in each spud, which helps slow down sugar absorption, keeping your blood sugar level more stable.

Of course, compared to certain other veggies, sweet potatoes are high in sugar. They contain more carbs than green beans, lettuce, tomatoes and broccoli, for instance.

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Sources:

• Natalie Rizzo, MS, RD, registered dietitian, author of Planted Performance and founder of Greenletes
• Jessica Lehmann, MS, RDN, registered dietitian nutritionist and associate teaching professor at Arizona State University
• American Heart Association: “Carbohydrates”
• Nutrition Research: “Carotenoids, inflammation, and oxidative stress—implications of cellular signaling pathways and relation to chronic disease prevention”
• USDA: “Sweet potato, cooked, baked in skin, flesh, without salt”
• PLOS One: “Relationship between blood manganese and bone mineral density and bone mineral content in adults”
• Antioxidants: “Sweet Potato Is Not Simply an Abundant Food Crop”
• Clinical Nutrition Research: “Nutritional Management of Kidney Stones (Nephrolithiasis)”
• University of California: “Why purple sweet potatoes belong on your holiday table”
• USDA: “Colorful Potatoes Offer Nutrition, Variety”
• The Open Nutrition Journal: “Glycemic Index of Sweet Potato as Affected by Cooking Methods”
• MDPI: “The Glycemic Index and Human Health with an Emphasis on Potatoes”

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