Electric Sweet Potatoes Are More Nutritious
Sam Rolley | Aug 24, 2012 | Comments 3 |
Sweet potatoes already enjoy a reputation as an extremely high source of fiber and antioxidants. Now, though, scientists have found that a simple, inexpensive treatment with an electric current boosts its polyphenols, phytonutrients that help the body fight disease.
Initially, researchers in Japan discovered that passing an electric current through white potatoes increases their polyphenol by 60 percent. Naturally found in fruits and vegetables, polyphenols help ward off disease and reduce the effects of aging. After their success with white potatoes, researchers zapped sweet potatoes.
The researchers electrified the vegetables by placing them in a salt solution that conducts electricity and passing varying amounts of electric current through the solution for five minutes. They found 0.2 amps of current to be optimal in increasing antioxidant activity in the sweet potatoes. The treated sweet potatoes had 1.4 times the antioxidant benefits of those left untreated.
The scientists note that the method represents an inexpensive and easy way to increase the health benefits of an already healthy food without altering flavor.
Sweet potatoes already contain seven times more polyphenols than other potatoes. The Center for Science in the Public Interest at one point named the sweet starch as the No. 1 nutritional vegetable when eaten baked.
When you cook sweet potatoes, you can retain the heightened antioxidant most effectively by steaming them.
Filed Under: Alternative Medicine • Easy Health Options News • Nutrition
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I’d be wary of this technique since it in some ways mimics the irradiation process, which can change sugars and other nutrients in foods into toxic elements. I did a mega study on global irradiation research in the 1980s when there was the push to irradiate most of the U.S. food supply, and food irradiation was found not favorable in animal studies. I testified before Congress during the hearings on food irradiation. Playing around with zapping foods with energy currents damages to food just as energy currents do damage to the human body. For what that’s worth.
I tend to agree with your summation Catherine not as much because of irradiation which I know is not healthy from many studies I read but because how electricity emits negative chaos which is a proven cancer causer. I don’t know if 0.2 amps is enough electric to cause any harm but since cooking is my favorite hobby and I cook for my daughters and my grand children often I won’t throw caution to the wind and let them receive the nutrients that God intended for them to receive naturally and since I only cook organic foods for them they will get more nutrition from the foods I make anyway.
Now I keep hearing about how gluten is so harmful to some people but I am an Italian/American and I do make home made pastas in many varieties and I don’t think I could survive without pasta and since a European diet is still considered to be the healthiest I don’t think I will worry about gluten, lol.
please do not rush to judgments and make your global statements and assertions. #1 Lots of empiricism and retrograde research has enlightened us since the 80′s. it is really simple electrolysis that can be qualified and quantized. these potatoes have very limited capacitance and electrification must render the sugars inert to one extent or the other.