Vegetable of the Month

As we head into Thanksgiving weekend (for Canadians, anyway), what better way to celebrate than by featuring this particular veggie of the month:




POTATOES!


Yes, the humble potato will likely make an appearance front and centre on your Thanksgiving table this year, whether mashed, roasted, or scallopped.  This veggie is often shunned as being "too starchy" because it has carbs.  Remember that time when I posted about how carbs aren't the devil in disguise?  Indeed, potatoes do contain carbohydrate, but if you aren't eating a billion of them, I promise, you will live!

So what's so cool about potatoes?  This info is from the Canadian Nutrient File for a medium Russet potato (the kind that's usually used for baked potatoes, fries, etc).  Other potato varieties might have a bit different info, but quite similar in health benefits :)

• 4.5g of protein
• 168 calories (FOR A WHOLE POTATO, skin on!)
• 38g of carbohydrate
• about 3g of fibre (skin on)
• about 2mg of iron, which is about 11% of a woman's daily need (25% for you men!)
• about 15% of a woman's daily magnesium needs, 12% for men
• 17% of your daily phosphorus needs
• 16% of a women's vitamin C needs, 13% for men
• 20% of your daily niacin needs!
• 7% of your daily folate needs
• a mere 11mg of sodium (not including any extras you top it up with :P)

Potatoes are available year round, and in endless varieties.  Depending on what you are using them for, different kinds of potatoes will be best.  For example, russet potatoes are all-purpose, great for baking, roasting, making fries/wedges, putting chunks into stews, etc.  Yukon gold potatoes have a buttery texture and flavour, and are great for making mashed potatoes and soups (so that you can limit the amount of cream and butter that you need - it's already built in!).  New potatoes (the little red ones) are great for mashing, roasting, and in quarters for soups and stews.

But what about all those CARBS!?

Potatoes have a bad reputation for some reason, because everyone is concerned about carbohydrates.  Yes, potatoes have carbs.  The carbohydrate content in potatoes comes mostly from starch (only about 1g of sugar in a potato, 3g of fibre, and the rest from starch).  In humans, extra carbohydrate is stored as glycogen in the liver and muscles, and acts as a reserve energy store for when we do vigorous activity, are in periods of starvation or fasting, etc.  In plants, starch plays the same role.  Both of these compounds are made up of long chains of glucose.  So, when we eat starch, it gets broken up into little glucose molecules to be absorbed by the body.  We turn that glucose into energy (if you remember high school biology, glucose is used in ATP production), or stored as glycogen if our stores are depleted.  If we eat excess carbohydrate (or any other macronutrient, e.g. protein), it will be stored as fat instead.  It's not starch's fault -- it doesn't automatically go to your hips just to make you suffer.  It, and all the other excess macronutrients that you will probably consume over the Thanksgiving weekend, will band together and create adipose tissue - better known as body fat.

Ideally, we should aim to eat no more than one serving of starch at a meal in order to avoid consuming excess carbohydrate.  Notice that I didn't say that you should ideally eat no starches, or no more than one in a day, or something like that.  You can eat starch!  In fact, I encourage you to eat it!  Though starchy foods can increase blood sugar quicker than other foods (so diabetics, this is something you'll need to track carefully), sometimes that's not a bad thing.  If you're starving before your Thanksgiving dinner because you worked out extra hard that morning to make room, that extra surge of blood glucose will help to replenish your glycogen stores that were depleted in your workout.  When we use our muscles, and when we don't eat for extended periods of time (the pre-Thanksgiving fast to save up extra space for turkey.  What?  That's just me who does that?  Oh.), our muscles and/or liver release their glycogen stores in order to create energy.  We need to replenish that in order to keep us running strong :)!

You've convinced me!  Give me a recipe! 

As we are entering fall, one of my favourite things ever at this time of year is SOUP!!!!!  I make potato and leek soup every year, and this is one of my fave recipes:

Potato Leek Soup
4 Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and chopped into evenly-sized chunks
4 leeks, washed* and chopped into rounds
5 cups reduced sodium chicken or veggie broth
pepper to taste

* leeks tend to hold a lot of sand in between their layers around the bottom.  Great washing tip: slice lenthwise into the bottom of a leek so that the layers can fan out.  Dip them in a bowl of water, and swish around so that the layers open up like a broom.  Alternatively, chop them as usual, and place into a deep bowl of water.  Again, swish them around to get the dirt out.

In a big pot, combine potatoes, leeks and stock, and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to simmer.  Cover and simmer till veggies are very soft, about 25 minutes.
Blenderize!  Using either a hand blender (immersion blender) or using a regular blender and splitting the soup into batches, puree until the soup is smooth.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Options: try adding diced ham or bacon for a bit of salty yummyness :)