how do I increase the nutritional value of (meals with) potatoes?

[caedmyn]

So I read recently that potatoes have about the same nutritional value per calorie as white rice or white flour Which is not comforting knowledge as we eat a LOT of potatoes, generally at least once a day as they are cheap and the one starchy food that everyone tolerates well. Which probably isn't helping my kids' overall nutrition. Any suggestions on what I can do or serve with meals containing potatoes to increase the overall nutrition? Neither of my kids tolerate dairy (except butter) or eggs. Would trying to serve bone broth or a bone broth gravy with them help? My bone broth comes from free-range chickens and that's the best I can do at this point as pastured chickens are only available a couple of months a year and beef stock is probably not a good option for us due to my kids' food chemical sensitivities (long story).

[BunnySlippers]

gravy or soup broth is great.

you can mash them with sweet potatoe, squash or carrots I like to add agave to mine when they are mixed like this.

I like potatoes with corn in it too, with salt

You can make pancakes out of them, with egg, onion, garlic, brocolli (or whatever)

I make hashbrowns with chili powder and lime...ok i don't how that makes it healthier, but this sure is yummy!

spanish omlet: eggs, potato chunks (small), onion and salt.

I love potatoes!

oh wait...I see they dont tolerate egg...dont try the omlete, and the potato pancakes could be made without egg i am sure!

[fruitfulmomma]

have about the same nutritional value per calorie as white rice or white flour

I find that really hard to believe...

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?t...dspice&dbid=48

Anyway I don't eat them without fat because they are high carb so I always add butter, cheese, a good cultured sour cream, or bacon or all of those.

[FireWithin]

the one thing I do to increase the healthiness is to make sure I keep the peels on whatvever I make. So, I don't make mashed one with thick skinned russets, I save those for our very frequent meals containing baked potato fries. If I do need to peel them, I save the peelings and add them to the end of a broth making. We don't buy all organic veggies, but organic potatoes are one of the few veggies I insist on being organic. Since we eat so many I think that's important fir chemical reasons and potentially improved nutrition.

We LOVe potatoes around here.

[organicmidwestmama]

Originally Posted by fruitfulmomma

I find that really hard to believe...

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?t...dspice&dbid=48

Anyway I don't eat them without fat because they are high carb so I always add butter, cheese, a good cultured sour cream, or bacon or all of those.

agree with all the above suggestions.

heres the thing, potatoes are a filler. period. just like white rice. they dont have anything in them, nutritionally that you couldnt live without. you could just eatmore other real foodssuch as veggies, meat, coconut foods, fish, nuts, ect. no one NEEDS to eat potatoes, though they are yummy.

in re; to keeping the peels on, i disagree. my understanding is that when hunter-gatherers first ate tubers they would cook them in hot coals and the skin would get burnt and not be eaten. im not sure that the skin is meant to be eaten.

sweet potatoes are a bit better nutritionally.

[Llyra]

I don't understand where the notion comes from that potatoes are filler. Potatoes are an abundant source of quite a few vitamins and minerals. They are a good whole food and not to be disparaged or compared with non-foods like white flour. Not at all.

This irritates me.

http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/v...roducts/2770/2

http://www.organicfacts.net/organic-...of-potato.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato#Nutrition

[Magali]

Originally Posted by fruitfulmomma

I find that really hard to believe...

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?t...dspice&dbid=48

This.

[Magali]

Originally Posted by Llyra

I don't understand where the notion comes from that potatoes are filler. Potatoes are an abundant source of quite a few vitamins and minerals. They are a good whole food and not to be disparaged or compared with non-foods like white flour. Not at all.

This irritates me.

http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/v...roducts/2770/2

http://www.organicfacts.net/organic-...of-potato.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato#Nutrition

This as well.

[mamababamba]

my ds who is incredibly picky, loves them with flax seed oil and nutritional yeast.

[Magelet]

my goodness, potatos as bad for you as white flour, I don't think so!!

they might not be as nutritionally dense as say grass-fed butter or meat, however they are much better for you than white flour. White flour is not just "empty calories", it's actually bad for you. potatos have plenty of nutrients (and sweet potatoes even more).

We eat LOTS of potatoes around here, and definitely don't consider them as bad as white flour, or even bad at all.

[Gingercat]

I avoid potatoes too but occasionally we prepare them (say with roast chicken) because my DH and my DS love them. I have personally gone through periods that I refused to even touch a potato (I was doing a vegetarian low-carb diet then) and felt great. The idea is to replace potatoes with other nutritionally denser vegetables, not necessarily only the leafy ones, e.g beets, turnips, carrots etc.

But if you buy potatoes make sure that they're at least organic. Dr Mercola has recently posted a very interesting article regarding potatoes being one of the most heavily sprayed plants.

[Llyra]

Originally Posted by Gingercat

But if you buy potatoes make sure that they're at least organic. Dr Mercola has recently posted a very interesting article regarding potatoes being one of the most heavily sprayed plants.

I grow my own.

But you're right-- the standard conventional Idaho russet potato is one of the most heavily contaminated foods on the planet. But organic potatoes are becoming easier and easier to find.

[FairyRae]

I use potatoes quite a bit, and just try to make them 1/3 of the meal when we eat them. I like to do the other 2/3rds a blend of animal protein and non-tuber veggies. We don't do many grains (I'm grain free, and ds is gluten free, and I just don't prepare them often for the family.) So we use tubers in place of the grain component of a meal often. (I like to try to have a meat/egg serving then starchy veggie or fruit serving and a green/non starchy veg. serving as the 'balance' of our meals, along w/ lots of fat and some fermented goodies, although it varies.)

I also coat them w/ ghee or bone broth based gravy or coconut milk. And seriously, if they can help you get bone broth in, that is so amazingly nutrient dense, I wouldn't even think twice about having them at every meal if you're getting that in!!! (Bone broth is something I'm always working on getting more into my diet...)

We like to do potato/veggie mash dishes--like potato broccoli or potato carrot or potato spinach mash. We just think they taste yummy. (We are dairy free as well, aside from the ghee so use coconut milk in place of butter and milk in our mash mixes. Add salt and pepper and it's just as good as I remember mashed potatoes being!)

I've also read that sweet potatoes are a bit nutritionally superior--I think I've read that red potatoes may be as well? Worth looking into if you're concerned about it.

Oh, and here are some links on tubers in paleolithic diets and hunter gatherer diets. I think they are really good reads (esp the first link--scroll down and read them from the bottom up), even if you're not interested in paleo diets/etc. He also references Weston Price's work, which you may find interesting/helpful in making decisions about potatoes for your family...

HTH!

[organicmidwestmama]

Originally Posted by Llyra

I don't understand where the notion comes from that potatoes are filler. Potatoes are an abundant source of quite a few vitamins and minerals. They are a good whole food and not to be disparaged or compared with non-foods like white flour. Not at all.

This irritates me.

http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/v...roducts/2770/2

http://www.organicfacts.net/organic-...of-potato.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato#Nutrition

not to pick these exapmples apart, but the potato in the nutrition data link is mostly carbs, only 7% protien, and while it has some vit c and iron, you can get a great deal more vit and iron from leafy greens like kale, or even meat. iron is especially abundant in meat, much more so, and in a more bio-available form then iron from a potato.

[mamaofthree]

thanks for the potato info links. they may not be the number one food to eat, but they are better for you then i thought.

[prescottchels]

butter, sea salt and nutritional yeast here! or sour cream and gr onions, but that's a rare treat.

[mamaofthree]

you could add sweet potatoes to the mix and maybe some greens (like chard) and onions, garlic, leeks? i love this btw! lol

h

[tmwmommy]

I've heard both sides but I believe they do have nutritional value. I always thought that the nutrients are in the peels. We eat a lot of potatoes here though dd won't touch them. I've heard sweet potatoes are more nutritious but dh won't eat them.

[Llyra]

Originally Posted by organicmidwestmama

not to pick these exapmples apart, but the potato in the nutrition data link is mostly carbs, only 7% protien, and while it has some vit c and iron, you can get a great deal more vit and iron from leafy greens like kale, or even meat. iron is especially abundant in meat, much more so, and in a more bio-available form then iron from a potato.

Yes, but they're also sources of potassium, B6, magnesium, and a few other trace minerals, not to mention folic acid and niacin. 7 1/2 grams of protein is not mind-blowing, but it's not nothing, either. And they're cheap, and most of the time small children will eat them willingly.

I'm not saying they're the perfect food. I'm not saying we should all live exclusively on potatoes. I'm just saying they're a far cry from white flour, which has nearly no nutrients at all other than the ones added back to it artificially. I think a potato has a place in a healthy diet. That's all I'm saying.

[PreggieUBA2C]

Potatoes are a tuber, and like all tubers, their nutrient content is going to reflect the soil they grew in. Well, that's true of anything, actually, but no less the potato. And they will as a species select for certain nutrients, so obviously this is variable, but not infinitely; they are still potatoes.

I live in one of the most mineral rich areas on the earth. This makes the soil difficult to use for growing, but with compost and lots of careful tending, it yields foods that are replete with minerals, and so much so that the foods taste like it. Of course, I had some vegetables in an area high in a mineral that tastes salty and the beets were completely unpalatable, but the onions and carrots loved it and were sweeeeeeeeet! The beets where we are now are like super beets. They taste like ten beets in every bite, condensed. Soooo yummy!

Anyway, it's impossible to determine completely context-less nutritional value of plants and animals. It only makes sense to say that potatoes grown here contain such and such and potatoes grown over here contain this and that.

The potatoes I eat from here don't have the same nutritional profile as the ones grown in Idaho or PEI. Not at all. Excepting what makes them recognisably the same species.

And yes, do choose organic at least (local or homegrown with compost is so much better though, of course) because as evidenced in PEI, potatoes are very heavily sprayed. PEI for a while, and I'm not sure about now, had the highest rate of idiopathic cancers in children per capita compared with anywhere in Canada and maybe even the US, although I don't recall exactly. The cancers have been linked to the sprays on their farms, which are largely potato farms. Don't eat the stuff that kills babies. Just my opinion.

I would be comfortable comparing PEI potatoes with white flour, but not the potatoes grown here with compost. Obviously the ecology and inputs make all the difference.