Health Benefits of Raw Potatoes
Consuming raw potatoes has more health benefits than cooked one. Because of its high content of potassium, sulphur, phosphorus, and chlorine, undiluted raw potato juice is proven to be effective in clearing up skin blemishes. However, you can get this potato benefits only if you consume potato as raw food because these powerful minerals are converted to inorganic atoms when potatoes are cooked. And, the best way to consume it raw is by taking it as juice. Fresh raw undiluted potato-carrot juice is so nutritious. A cup or two of potato-carrot juice a day is a great help to health problems like skin blemishes and high blood pressure.
Health Benefits of Potato
Potatoes are a good source of proteins, vitamins A and B, potash, soda, and alkaline salts, but this does not mean that they are going to be good for everyone. If you are already overweight it may be best to keep them to a minimum as they can still cause you health problems although they will give added benefits such as relieve from intestinal toxemia, constipation or dropsy. As they are full of starch they can however make you feel drowsy.
Potatoes may help fight against high blood pressure, prevent heart attack, protect against stroke, prevent kidney damage due to high blood pressure, controls appetite and could protect you from certain cancers due to its potassium and vitamin C content. You could get all these benefits when you consume raw potato as juice or just steam the potato.
- Digestion - They will help your digestion as they pass easily through the system and are also a very good source of roughage.
- Skin Benefits - The vitamin B and C will work on your skin. If you do get to the stage when you cannot eat anymore, just mash them up and make a face pack.
- Vitamin C - This will help prevent scurvy and boost your immune system to prevent colds.
- Calcium and Magnesium - This will help fight rheumatism but care must be taken not to put on too much weight as this will be counterproductive as excess weight will aggravate it.
- Healthy Brain - The glucose helps to keep the blood sugar level up and the brain does not get tired. There is also plenty of iron in potatoes that will help the hemoglobin carry blood to the brain and keep it functioning properly.
- Carotenoids - Their presence helps prevent heart disease but again needs to be checked against diabetes that can be caused by the high sugar content.
Potato is still healthy to be consumed as baked, boiled and mashed one but its healthy effects is much lesser than consuming it raw and the easily digestible sugars in raw potatoes are converted to starches upon cooking. Potatoes are not good to be consumed as chips and fries because of acrylamide formation. When you eat chips, there are a number of things that can give you health issues. Firstly the oil that they are fried in and secondly the acrylamide. Tests carried out on animals in labs have produced results that show that this can cause cancer. The level is not known, but it has been realized that pre-boiling the potatoes can cut down this risk, as can cooking them in the microwave. This will be a big scare for most people but sadly not enough to make them stop frying their food.
Did you know that consuming sweet potato is much more beneficial compared to Irish potato? Sweet potatoes has one-third more carbohydrates, three times more calcium, twice more sodium and silicon, and more than four times chlorine than Irish potatoes.
If you have not tried drinking potato-carrot juice yet now is the right time to do it. Remember, you could get the full health benefits of potato if you consume it raw. All in all eating potatoes is good for as long as you are sensible. Quantities should not be too high and there should be no side effects.