Potato/Aloo Calories - Nutritional Value & Facts

About Calories in Potato

From French fries to steak dinners, the potato is part of a majority of the world’s meals one way or another, even without knowing it. While it can be enjoyed in its pure essence by simply being sliced and fried, the potato offers us a number of nutrients, nutritious benefits and advantages to our health, making it one of the most popular veggies of our century, and rightfully so. Despite these obvious health benefits, however, many fear eating them when on diets. Let’s take a look at what’s inside the potatoes.

Nutrients in Potatoes

Potatoes are packed with nutrients that are beneficial for the human body. Heavily littered with these fruitful nutrients, potato calories, even after being baked with the skin on, have nutrients such as proteins, vitamins C and B6 as well as potassium and manganese. In addition to this, the potato also has magnesium (which is beneficial in treating diabetes, strengthens the bones and helps improve the health of your heart), magnesium as well as folate (which is good for your heart and could help reduce the chances of cancer) and Niacin, also known as vitamin B3 which lowers cholesterol, triglycerides, and is also said to reduce the chances of arthritis.

In this article, let’s delve deeper into the vast plethora of benefits a single potato can provide us with, the calories in one potato, and assess the various health benefits. Additionally, as is the rule that applies to most things; too much of anything, even an extremely healthy and nutritious veggie like the potato, can be harmful or at the least, counterproductive. As a result, let’s look into what the ‘right’ or healthy amount of potatoes to consume is for a given individual on a given day. And most importantly, we will aim to study the calories in one potato, calories in one boiled potato as well as the calories in our favourite potato-based foods, such as the calories in one aloo paratha.

How many calories does Potato have?

The potato calories in one boiled potato will vary from the calories in one potato. Similarly, the potato calories will vary from potato to potato, based on its breed, size and variety. In India, the most common potato varieties are the russet potato and the white potato. Let’s take a look at the calories in one potato.

While the calories in one potato itself suffice, it is unlikely that you are looking to consume plain and pure potatoes every single day. Rather, we are always looking for ways to cook or prepare potatoes. Therefore, let’s look at the calories in one aloo paratha and other common potato dishes. Keep in mind that these figures of potato calories are estimates and can vary based on the preparation. Additionally, boiled potato calories may vary as well.

Health Benefits of Including Potatoes in Diet

Potato and potato calories offer us a number of advantages by being incorporated into our everyday diet, with some benefits being unknown to us as well.

• Help fight harmful molecules

For starters, as has been mentioned earlier, alongside the calories in one potato or calories in one boiled potato, they also consist of a slew of antioxidants such as carotenoids, phenolic acids and flavonoids. These serve the function of antioxidants in the body and help counteract any harmful molecules within us. When these molecules accumulate they increase the chances of diabetes, heart disease and cancer among others. Therefore, despite the calories in one aloo paratha, making it a part of your daily or weekly diet might be beneficial after all.

• Helps control blood sugar

In addition to the calories in one potato, they are also filled with an abundance of beneficial nutrients. Furthermore, someone ironically, despite the calories in one potato or the calories in one boiled potato, incorporating potatoes into your daily diet could also improve your control over your blood sugar, due to a type of starch present in the potato known as resistant starch that is not broken down and absorbed by the body, becoming a source of nutrients for it instead.

• Helps improve digestive health

Potatoes can also often help improve our digestive health despite the calories in one potato, due to the aforementioned resistant starches being converted into short-chain fatty acids.

How Many Potatoes Should You Consume Every Day?

Given the fact that the potato is a veggie, in addition to the various benefits potato calories provide us with, there are little ‘rules’ on how many potatoes you should eat each day. While this does not mean that you can always be spotted with a bag of french fries or ignoring the calories in one aloo paratha while you are on your 4th, one can incorporate potatoes into one’s meal fairly easily and without drawbacks each day. Of course, preparation plays an important role in the calories in one potato and calories in one boiled potato, meaning you will not get the same health benefits from 1 boiled potato calories as you would from a packet of deep-fried french fries. Some estimates, based on the assumption that you are eating plain cooked potatoes, state that you can eat between 1-2 kgs of potato a day safely.

Conclusion

Potatoes offer our systems and bodies almost as many benefits as they offer our palettes. If you are, however, still unsure about the net effect of consuming one potato, then you can aim to assess what a healthy amount of potatoes are in order to keep your BMI and BMR in check. In this article, we have broken down the calories in a potato and weighed it against the health benefits it provides. However, it is probably beneficial if you do not rely solely on potatoes for all your health needs. In the event that nutritious foods like a potato fails to keep you healthy, it could be beneficial to have health insurance that lets you manage health emergencies, if they were to arise.

 

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