It is good for health, diet, and sweats, sweet potato flour has been a popular and smart choice to be included in your diet substituting both potato and wheat flour. It is not only a healthy sweetener but also a delicious one !!

The magical effect of sweet potatoes !!

When you use sweet potato flour in your diet, the fibrous elements of sweet potato with a high water content extend your sense of satiation and make you last longer without eating.

More importantly, the low glycemic scale (GI) of sweet potato does not give your blood sugar rush which helps you keep your energy and preserves your muscle mass preventing its deterioration during the diet.

sweet potatoes

The source of sweet potato flour

Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) is a root vegetable with sweet tubers, a starchy, fibrous product that isn’t needy; as long as the soil is warm, clean, and moist, it can grow easily in its standard shape, especially in the spring season.

It has many colors according to the place and conditions it grew on, white, brown, yellow, and purple, and also these colors vary in their nutritional content and value.

Sweet potato flour in potato diet

A 200 gm of sweet potato contains 180 calories. Some people might consider that high and think that sweet potato starch can make you gain weight easily and cause fattening, but the fact is you can use it for both losing or gaining weight !!

In fact, it’s not allowed on the potato diet. However, sweet potato flour is allowed when participating in the spud fit challenge – a popular type of diet created by Andrew Taylor.

The benefit of resistant starch in sweet potato

Resistant starch is a unique type of starch that the body can digest only after 2 hours of eating, which makes you feel full longer. It is similar to fibers as it promotes digestion and prevents constipation. 

Cooking sweet potato and cooling it increase its amount of Resistant starch, and even if you had to heat the food again later, it won’t lose its value. 

Sweet potato flour as a supplement

Sweet potato flour is very rich in:

  • vitamins, sweet potato contains more than 700% of the standard daily share of vitamin A and high content of vitamin C and D.
  • fibers and proteins.
  • minerals: phosphorus, iron, potassium, sodium, calcium, and manganese.
  • antioxidants mainly beta-carotene and anthocyanin.
  • moderate in its carb content and contains almost no fat.

It is the perfect integrated meal for people who finally want to start eating healthy without torture.

sweet potato flour

You can use 2 servings of the sweet potato flour in your baking whether in pancake or pie breakfast, in your soup, sauces, and dressings as a thickening agent, or in lunch meals as pasta and bread, it can even be added to sausages!!

All of that along with its traditional use in making sweets and cookies. Sweet potato flour can guarantee both tastiness and healthiness.

The only con you might find in sweet potato flour is its cost, it is relatively expensive than other types of flour.

Sweet potato flour substitutes

We all know wheat flour as the all-purpose flour that helps us in emergencies all the time.

It absorbs less water which gives you a fluffy dough, but it has more calories and carb content than sweet potato flour which makes the latter healthier and a better choice to be included in your calorie diet.

But what if you are out of it and your recipe urgently needs it?

Here are some substitutes that you might consider in such circumstances:

Sweet potato flour vs. Potato flour

The first thing that might come to mind is the regular potato flour. It is cheap, available everywhere, and – like sweet potato flour gluten-free.

It has almost the same use in baking and cooking but has less nutritional value due to its high carbs and fat nature. The high starch content in potato makes its flour an excellent thickening agent in soups and dressings and is highly recommended in baking crackers and crisps.

You can make potato flour easily at home by cooking and drying potatoes and making a fine powder out of it.

Starch in both potato types 

For similar amounts of white potato and sweet potato, sweet potato contains 6.8g of Starch more than white potato, so sweet potato is more starchy than regular potato. 

You can use potato starch as well

Starch can be extracted by mashing the potato and drying the starchy pulp without the fibers. people use potato starch in baking instead of flour, it doesn’t give the same taste and color though, but it works as a binding agent in making pastries, pie fillings, and jelly as well, replacing fats.

It is also preferred when it comes to potato chips as potato starch gives the proper thickness to the potato chip and intensifies its flavor.

Is sweet potato starch healthy? 

There is no doubt that sweet potato is a healthy vegetable for many reasons we mentioned earlier, but is using its starch only in baking good for us too?

Well, it is less nutritious but also does not have serious risks to our health. 

You just have to limit your use to the normal range to avoid weight and digestion problems. 

Cornstarch – another type of starch – is used as an anti-caking agent to give a crumble texture to your bread or increase your pudding thickness.

Rice flour is a less probable choice

China is known for its rice recipes whether as a leading dish or the main component in a recipe. They first grind rice and kneaded it into balls- their famous traditional dish- then they started including the rice powder in their dishes to make rice noodles and cakes.

rice flour

Although you can’t use it as a 1-1 alternative for sweet potato flour, it is gluten-free and improves your digestive movements greatly. Recent research shows that rice flour has the ability to lower your cholesterol level.

Sophia Alex
I have been a Registered Dietitian for over 11 years, working in many different capacities. The majority of my experience has been working as an outpatient dietitian. I have had a lot of experience in the areas of research, general wellness, weight loss, oncology, CKD/renal failure, celiac disease, diabetes (I and II) and gastrointestinal concerns.

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