A potato is a round root of a plant with yellow, red or brown skin and yellow or white flesh and is eaten as a vegetable. The Potato is a starchy tuber of the Solanum tuberosum plant and is native to America. Potato is the most commonly eaten vegetable in the United States. Potato can make a tasty, satisfying and healthy dish if prepared the right way. This loved vegetable is easy to grow and is used in numerous dishes year-round.
Potato Glycemic Index
The glycemic index is a scale of how quickly a certain food causes your blood sugar levels to aggravate. It scores food on a 0-100 scale and ranks them as low, medium and high. Low GI foods release sugar slowly into your body, giving it more time to store or use it. Your body digest foods that rank high on the scale faster than low ones.
The scale list foods that have a rating of:
- High GI food has a rating of 70-100
- Medium GI food has a rating of 55-69
- Low GI food are 55 or below
Potatoes include in the high GI category. A cup of them can influence your blood sugar like a can of soda would. One study revealed that women who consume many potatoes raised their risk of diabetes—replacing them with whole grains less their risk. If you pile this veggie on your plate, you will have a richer chance of creating a blood sugar issue.
A change in Potato’s glycemic index depends on how you prepare it. Some examples include:
- Boiled Potato: 82
- Baked Potato: 111
- French fries: 73
- Instant mashed Potato: 87
- Sweet potato: 46-61
Does boiling potato lower the glycemic index?
An interesting study reveals that cooking a potato rather than cooling it before consuming it also lowers GI, even if you later reheat the Potato. Boiling potatoes results in a lower GI than baking.
Which Potato has the lowest glycemic load?
Roasted and boiled potatoes have the lower GI (both 59), while baked potatoes are higher at 69 and instant and mashed potatoes have the highest GI at 78 and 82, respectively.
Where do potatoes fall on the glycemic index?
The glycemic index ranking of potatoes makes them a bad carb. Any glycemic score above 70 is high; expressing the food leads to a rapid spike in blood sugar.
Ways to lower the glycemic index of Potato
Potatoes have a high glycemic index. The glycemic index is calculated based on consuming food in isolation. What is more relevant is what happens when you consume a meal. There is some food combination that significantly lowers the glycemic index of potatoes. In other words, you can delay the rate of digestion down when you consume potatoes with other foods.
To lower the whole GI of potatoes, eat them with:
Acid
Citrus, vinegar, or salsa lower the glycemic index of potatoes.
Fat
Butter, sour cream, avocadoes or olive oil will lower the glycemic index. This makes a fully packed baked potato interesting again.
Fibre
Adding other fibre-rich foods to a potato delays digestion and lowers the glycemic index. SO eat a kale or romaine salad with your potatoes.
Protein
Eating potatoes with protein lowers glycemic index, making steaks and potatoes a perfect choice over Potato alone.
Other low glycemic index food
Eating a combination of foods, including lower glycemic index food, decreases the combined glycemic index load of a meal, including potatoes.
Eat the skin
Eating the skin of Potato provide not only vitamin C but also fibre, and fibre helps lower the glycemic index.
And the type of Potato
Sweet potatoes
Sweet potatoes have a low glycemic index
Waxy potatoes
Waxy potatoes have a lower glycemic index than floury russet potatoes.
Does Potato spike blood sugar?
Like any other carb-containing food, potatoes aggravate blood sugar levels. When you consume them, your body breaks down the carbs into a simple sugar that moves into your bloodstream. This is usually called a spike in blood sugar levels.
Can diabetic eat Potato?
Although potatoes are a starchy vegetable, a person experiencing diabetes can still enjoy them as part of a healthful diet. People who deal with diabetes need to be aware of their carbohydrate intake each meal.
Why do potatoes have a higher glycemic index than sugar?
Regular white potatoes are not a food that is thought sugary or sweet. However, potatoes are all starch and are made up of a long string of glucose. Since the starch in potatoes is quickly digested, the glycemic index of potatoes can be almost as high as that of glucose alone. The glucose’s glycemic index is 100 points; potatoes are commonly listed as being in the high 80s or low 90s.
