Are yellow potatoes better than white potatoes? And what about glycoalkaloid toxins?
High glycemic effect of potatoes can growth the risk of type 2 diabetes, possibly over-stimulating insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. In my last two blogs, I explained how you can reduce the glycemic impact of white potatoes by eating them cold, cold and hot or by adding broccoli, lemon juice or vinegar. What else can we do?
Well, pigments in bright berries can action as starch blockers as you can see below and at 0:38 in my video The healthiest type of potato.
So, if you eat high glycemic foods, you can do this moderate influence it by spreading raspberries on your toast, adding strawberries to your corn or sprinkling blueberries on your pancake batter. I’m not saying you should put black skin on your baked potatoes, but considering that the natural color compounds in fruit can slow starch digestion, what about pigmented potatoes?
Even regular yellow potatoes like Yukon Gold can outperform white, but the best can to be purple potatoes – not only potatoes with purple skin, but potatoes with purple skin. If you’ve never seen purple potatoes, they’re amazing – they almost have a neon-blue glow, which you can see below and at 1:14 on mine. video.
And not only they look cool, but purple potatoes reason compared to yellow-fleshed potatoes, lower insulin levels and lower blood sugar levels indicate that switching from yellow or white potatoes to purple “may have great potential in maintaining public health.”
How do we know that the pigments themselves are responsible and not other differences between different potato varieties? Researchers have tried using berries in potato starch jelly, but this method seems to add more variables. Purple and red fleshy potato extracts can be found in a test tube action as starch blockers. So if you quote and remove purple potato pigment, you can remove any other effects of different potato varieties by adding that purple pigment to yellow potatoes. And so, compared to a simple yellow potato, it causes a decrease in blood sugar and an increase in insulin. Instead of an overreaction where blood sugar can actually drop below fasting levels, you get the gentler rise and fall in blood sugar that you would expect from a lower glycemic diet, as you can see below and at 2:25 in my post. video.
Authors suggests Purple potato extracts can be produced to make supplements or functional foods, but it may be more cost-effective to obtain these compounds from consuming the purple potato itself.
Purple potato pigments can also affect inflammation. Liked by the American Potato Association to paint potatoes as an anti-inflammatory food, but what they do not tell you, this benefit can limited to pigmented potatoes. When study participants were randomized to eat a small white potato for six weeks compared to a yellow or purple potato, those in the purple potato group compared to the white potato group had significantly lower levels of inflammation, measuring C-reactive protein and interleukin-6, as shown below and at 3:13 in I. video.
Consumption of pigmented potatoes as well changes oxidative stress. Within a few hours of eating a large purple potato, you’ll have 60% of your blood’s antioxidant power, resulting in less free radical damage to your DNA. If you compare Antioxidant activity of white potatoes, yellow and purple potatoes, Yukon gold has almost twice the antioxidant power of white, but purple has 20 times the antioxidants. This is comparable to what you see in berries. Half a purple potato contains about the same amount of antioxidant polyphenols as half a cup of blueberries.
Purple potatoes can growth the antioxidant capacity of our bloodstream, while the straight starch in white potatoes can act as a pro-oxidant and reduce it. Eat a purple potato, and for the next eight hours, your circulation’s antioxidant capacity will increase. Conversely, if you eat white potato starch without any pigment, you can end up worse than where you started, as you can see below and at 4:12 in mine. video.
Well, but does this translate into different physiological effects? Yes, indeed. When people ate either purple potatoes or white potatoes for two weeks, the purple potatoes slightly improved arterial stiffness, while the white potatoes did not. And this translates lowers blood pressure, even in those already taking high blood pressure medications, purple potatoes are an effective blood pressure lowering agent.
But what about toxic glycoalkaloid compounds found in potatoes? Human toxic dose starts about 2 to 5 mg/kg of body weight and the lethal dose is not so far. But the average total amount of glycoalkaloids found in most potatoes, less than 100 mg/kg; thus, in the average American weighing 180 pounds, a toxic dose is equivalent to four to nine pounds of potatoes. What happens when you get close to that amount? You may experience nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea, which can easily be confused with something like gastroenteritis or food poisoning. Some people may even become sick at a dose of 1.25 mg/kg body weight experience symptoms at 1 mg/kg. That would be only about two pounds of potatoes in the average American weight. It is also possible to initiate glycoalkaloids cumulative if you eat potatoes during the day and in the evening. But what about those people who eat a simple potato diet and eat three or four pounds a day? They can do this without risking disease if they are the skin their potato, which removes almost all glycoalkaloids.
Dr.’s comment
This is the last in a series of five videos about potatoes. If you missed any of the others, check out:
You may also be interested in it The best way to cook sweet potatoes.
Here is a video about the berries I mentioned Take starch to take a more resistant route.
