Everyone loves a good helping of french fries, but are they really good for you? Many people have made the switch to sweet potato fries recently, but what are the health benefits of sweet potato fries anyway?
As we’ll discuss below, sweet potato fries have many health benefits. If you’re interested in whipping up a batch at home, try one of our best sweet potato fry cutter options to get started!
Health Benefits of Sweet Potato Fries
Lower Glycemic Index
The glycemic index (GI) of roasted sweet potatoes is lower than those of white potatoes. This means that sweet potato fries will cause less of a spike in your blood sugar.
Interestingly, the way you cook a sweet potato affects its GI score greatly. While baked and roasted sweet potatoes have a fairly high GI score (still considerably lower than white potatoes), fried sweet potatoes that are coated in oil have a lower score of around 76.
Even more interesting, sweet potatoes that are peeled and boiled for 30 minutes have an incredibly low GI score of just 46.
More Fiber Than White Potatoes
Sweet potatoes have about 2 grams more fiber than white potatoes. Two grams may not seem like a lot, but when you’re talking about fiber, it’s actually quite a bit.
According to the FDA and the American Heart Association, we should be consuming about 25 grams of fiber per day. However, studies show that only about 5% of Americans actually meet that recommendation each day. Not good!
An extra 2 grams of fiber from sweet potatoes may help you reach that goal of 25 grams per day more easily!
High Levels of Vitamin A
White potatoes have hardly any Vitamin A. However, one serving of sweet potato fries accounts for over 1,200% of your daily needs of Vitamin A!
Vitamin A is a must for a healthy immune system. Additionally, Vitamin A helps protect your eye health, especially from age-related issues, and may protect you against certain types of cancer.
Load Up on Healthy Sweet Potato Fries!
Sweet potato fries are a great alternative to regular french fries made from white potatoes. If you slice your own at home, you can whip them up in a flash in an air fryer, too!