Primal frozen potatoes? page 2

[ryanmercer]

You can really eat the skin? My mom always taught me it was poisonous. I guess if I don't have to peel I can use fresh potatoes.

The only time I've not eaten the skin is when I get fast food fries (aside from Wendy's newer ones) that don't have skins. I mean, have you never heard of stuffed potato skins? heh

[slowcooker]

Most of the anti-nutrients in a potato are in the skin. I'd buy organic potatoes if you can. Potato farmers have taken to dousing the crop in 'round up' a few weeks before pulling them out of the ground in order to kill off the leafy part of the plant and make it easier to dig them up.

[OneDeltaTenTango]

You can really eat the skin? My mom always taught me it was poisonous. I guess if I don't have to peel I can use fresh potatoes.

The skin is where the glycoalkaloids, toxic chemicals to protect the tuber from consumption, are found. At least according to a 2010 MDA blog post. This makes intuitive sense and it makes sense that the nutritious part would be the meat of the tuber itself; after all, a key purpose of a tuber is to store nutrients for future plant use.

I err on the side of peeling.

[gopintos]

I use to not peel (much), thinking the skin was good for me. But since Primal, I normally peel. But if I am doing a large quantity at one time, I found it easier to bake them first then peel them later just before eating it, or boil them whole, then peel later.

I like the reds and the yukons with their skin. I am hoping that isnt too bad.

[AshleyL]

I just recently learned myself that this is not true.

"Despite the popular notion, the majority of nutrients are not found in the skin, but in the potato itself. Nonetheless, leaving the skin on the potatoes retains all the nutrients, the fiber in the skin and makes potatoes easier to prepare."

Washington State Potato Commission :: Nutrition

Bottom of the page....

Julie

Ah, technically true, but what do they mean by nutrients? Of course there are more in the potato flesh, but only because there is SO much more potato flesh than skin to the potato. But the nutrition punch (the minerals and good stuff, not energy -starch- which we can easily get plenty of) is in the skin. An equal portion of skin is far more nutritious than an equal portion of flesh.

Compare:
Whole potato baked: Calories in Potato, Baked, Flesh And Skin, Without Salt | Nutrition and Health Facts
Baked potato flesh only: Calories in Potatoes, Baked, Flesh, Without Salt | Nutrition and Health Facts

Under nutrition details, extend the details and look at the mineral contents. Remember the skin is a very small portion of the potato, yet it is doubling and tripling many of these mineral counts.


Some more technically true yet misleading info, (thrown in with totally false info) from that website:

• Carbohydrates DO NOT cause weight gain and obesity
• Carbohydrates DO NOT automatically cause blood sugar "spikes" and insulin "surges"
• Carbohydrates DO NOT cause diabetes, heart disease or cancer.

Carbohydrates are the body's primary fuel source. Muscles prefer them and the brain relies on them. In fact, carbohydrates are so crucial to the body that if you severely cut them from your diet, your body will begin to breakdown muscle and other protein-containing tissues-your heart and other vital organs-in order to make them.

They assume a properly functioning sugar metabolism in the bullet points. Something more than half of Americans lack. And someone worried about obesity probably is overweight, and if you are, you probably have insulin resistance and thus, yes potato will make you fat. If your metabolism works well, then no, they will not make you fat and are a good food.

And I love how if you don't eat potatoes your muscles and organs will be eaten. Yet people eating zero carb and close to it still have tons of muscle.. hmmmm.

[Ouis]

FYI--Trader Joes carries frozen sweet potatoes with absolutely no added ingredients, and frozen hashbrowns with only dextrose added to prevent discolouration.

[otzi]

I grow my own potatoes, so not worried about chemicals...sometimes I peel, sometimes not. For those that I boil and chill to eat cold, I peel. For those I bake or fry--not peeled. Shredded hashbrowns--always peeled (the skins clog my shredder).

What 'slowcooker' said above about commercial farmers spraying them with weed killer--yes, that it true. Get organic potatoes if at all possible! Grow your own next year, even better! Store bought potatoes are also mostly treated with something that prevents them from sprouting. Not sure how healthful that is.

My bottom line is this: Store bought, iffy quality...peel
Homegrown or farmers market/organic...peel or don't peel

Just a quick shout out for Resistant Starch! If you are interested in feeding your good gut bacteria some quality food they can use, eat several slices of raw potato when you are preparing them for cooking and also eat lots of 'cooked then cooled' potatoes. Read more: Resistant starch - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia or Resistant Starch

[Chaohinon]

If you can't handle working with fresh potatoes, then I don't see how you could ever follow the primal diet. Food prep is just part of the gig.

Set aside some time here and there to cut up large amounts of potatoes, parboil them, and freeze them. There's no such thing as a prepackaged frozen potato product that's not filled with crap, believe me I've looked.

[pjgh]

For Grok's sake! Buy real potatoes, peel 'em and eat 'em ... anything that has an ingredients list is NOT food! Food IS ingredients.

Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew

[bob loblaw]

If you can't handle working with fresh potatoes, then I don't see how you could ever follow the primal diet. Food prep is just part of the gig.

Set aside some time here and there to cut up large amounts of potatoes, parboil them, and freeze them. There's no such thing as a prepackaged frozen potato product that's not filled with crap, believe me I've looked.

My whole foods carries organic frozen sweet potatoes with nothing add and organic french fries with only a tiny amount of sugar added for browning. Obviously preparing your own organic potatoes is superior, but there are some very decent frozen alternatives nowadays.