Should you eat potatoes or avoid them?

Potatoes used to be an important food for many people.  They were common at meals as they were relatively inexpensive, easy to store and cook, and could be prepared in many ways.

Then came the “don’t eat foods that are white” movement, the keto diet, and low carb diets. People started fearing potatoes. Then the potato industry pushed back and launched complex marketing campaigns to attempt to counter the “potatoes are bad for you” thinking.

So what is the real story?  Are they healthy, or should you avoid eating potatoes?

Like so many foods, it depends on several things.  Use the following questions to help you decide:

Question #1: What potato dish will you be having?

How your potatoes are prepared is the first question you want to ask yourself.

Are you, or the restaurant you are eating at, dropping them in oil to fry them and then covering the potatoes with cheese sauce?  In that case, they’re definitely a food to indulge in only a few times a year, and savor every bite when you do have them!

Eating scalloped potatoes or mashed potatoes with butter and cream, cream cheese, or gravy? The same thing applies.

Having them steamed, boiled, or roasted?  Then potatoes could be part of a healthy meal, but you need to consider question #2 and #3 first.

Question #2: What else are you eating with the potatoes?

Eating potatoes with other starchy foods at the meal or if you’re planning on having dessert could be a problem. Why?

As part of your digestive process, your body converts starchy foods from carbohydrates to glucose.  The glucose passes from your intestines to your bloodstream.  This is not a bad thing, as your body needs the glucose for energy to keep you alive and going during your day.

If you have diabetes or pre-diabetes, however, your body has challenges moving that glucose from your blood into your cells where your body can use it.  If your blood glucose stays too high for too long, it can damage your eyes, kidneys, brain, nerves, and even your brain.   Managing the amount of carbohydrates you consume at different times during the day can help your body do a better job of managing your blood glucose level.

If you are trying to keep from gaining weight or lose weight, you can also benefit from managing the amount of carbohydrates you eat as well as when you eat them.

I help people understand all of this and figure out a plan that works for them in personalized nutrition counseling sessions.

You also need to consider question #3.

Question#3: How much are you having?

As with so many other things, it’s the amount you eat that matters.  A half cup of potatoes with the skin on that has been microwaved has only 78 calories.

Yes, it has 18 grams of carbohydrates, but those are high quality carbs! A half cup portion will give you:

321 mg of potassium, which is 12% of the daily recommended amount for an adult woman who isn’t pregnant. Most Americans don’t consume enough of this important mineral.  Why is this a nutrition issue?  Because potassium helps keep our blood pressure in healthy ranges and reduces the risk of having a stroke.

Potassium can also help keep our bones strong by keeping calcium in our bones and not forming kidney stones.  Some research also indicates that it plays a role in insulin secretion that affects blood glucose levels.

You’ll also be getting between 17% and 19% of the recommended daily recommended amount of vitamin B-6, depending on your age.  This is important because vitamin B-6 is involved in over 100 enzyme reactions in your body. Many of these reactions involve protein metabolism.  Your body also needs vitamin B-6 for your immune system and to make hemoglobin which carries oxygen in your blood.

Eating that half cup of microwaved potatoes will also give you 1.4 grams of fiber plus some gut healthy resistant starch.

What is resistant starch?

Resistant starch, unlike many starches we eat, can’t be broken down in your intestines.  This has several beneficial effects:

1. Resistant starch can help you to feel fuller for a longer period of time.
2. Since your body can’t break it down, resistant starch doesn’t raise your blood glucose levels or, if the current theories are correct, increase your weight.
3. Resistant starch is a prebiotic fiber, meaning that it feeds your gut microbiome and benefits your gut health and your overall health.  (Read “Gut health: 9 Ways your gut microbiome affects your overall health” for more about this.)
4. Although they are prebiotics, resistant starches are less likely to cause gas and bloating than some other prebiotics.  This is especially important if you’re suffering from GI issues such as constipation or IBS.  It’s why you can eat potatoes on the low FODMAP diet.

Question #4: How are you cooking your potatoes? Will you be eating them warm or cold?

If you’re eating potatoes to help with your potassium levels, it’s also best to bake them.  Boiling potatoes reduces the amount of potassium by 29% compared to a baked potato.  Microwaving them reduces the potassium by 23% compared to baking.  There are minor changes in other nutrients, but for this vegetable, baking is the best way to go.

The cooking method you use for your potatoes affects how much resistant starch forms.  For example, baking a potato allows between 34 and 52% more resistant starch to form versus boiling the potato.

What’s more important to the level of that gut healthy resistant starch is the temperature of the potatoes when you eat them.  Cooking potatoes and then chilling them results in 26 to 70% more resistant starch being formed depending on the cooking method and the type of potatoes.  The key is you need to eat the potatoes chilled.  Reheating the potatoes breaks down some or all of the extra resistant starch that was formed.

Eating chilled potatoes doesn’t sound appealing, but if you make a potato salad, it can be quite tasty and even healthy, depending on how the salad is made.

Question #5: When are you eating your potatoes?

What time of day you are eating your potatoes also needs to be considered.  Why?  Because your metabolism and your circadian rhythm (your body’s clock) are linked.

This is especially true for how your body handles carbohydrates.  To simplify a lot of complex research, in general if you eat carbohydrates in the morning your your body typically does a better job of managing your blood glucose (aka your blood sugar) than if you ate them at night.

So if you are going to eat potatoes, have them for breakfast instead of for supper.  But be careful of what else you are having for breakfast!  Having hash browns and toast or a breakfast sandwich or pancakes is not a good idea.

So, should you eat potatoes or avoid eating them?

Although many people would prefer simple, “one size fits all” responses for topics such as foods, nutrition, and diets, that’s not possible with potatoes.

Whether you should eat potatoes really depends on your medical situation, your goals, how active you are, and all of the questions I’ve written about above.

For everyone, I recommend being careful about the portion size of potatoes you choose to eat and how they are prepared.  But I say that for most foods!

For some clients, I recommend incorporating potatoes as part of a balanced healthy eating plan.  Often, this is because they have gut health conditions such as celiac disease, IBS, or other gastrointestinal conditions that limit what carbohydrate or potassium sources they can consume.  But I also have some clients with some food sensitivities who are better off avoiding eating potatoes.

For other clients who see me for help with diabetes or losing weight,  I may recommend they limit how often they have potatoes as well as when they eat them.   But it really does depend on their individual situation!

If you’re not sure if or when eating potatoes is right for you, book a free discovery call with me, and we can talk about what you’re trying to achieve or your nutrition situation.

If you’re curious about eating potatoes, you’ve probably thought about making some other changes to how you eat.  Many people find that changing eating habits can be a challenge.  There are ways, however, to make this easier.  Instantly download my free ebook for some helpful tips on how to have success changing how you eat.