How to balance diet to prevent and treat diseases? Professor Zhao Faji, a member of the Expert Committee of the Chinese Residents' Dietary Guidelines, said at the "Advancing New Nutrition" seminar recently held in Shanghai by the US Potato Association: "The 'New Dietary Guidelines' emphasize eating more vegetables, fruits, and potatoes to meet the needs of a reasonable dietary structure."
Potatoes, once forgotten by residents, are listed as a staple in the "New Dietary Guidelines" due to their rich nutrition and low energy. To advocate for a new diet, UNESCO has designated 2008 as the "International Year of the Potato," calling it a "hidden treasure" that can save humanity from "diseases of affluence" in the 21st century. 1. Potatoes are a food for lowering blood pressure
Excess or deficiency of certain nutrients in the diet can cause diseases. Similarly, adjusting the diet can also "eat away" corresponding diseases.
For example, excessive sodium intake causes sodium and water retention in the blood, leading to high blood pressure. If we utilize the physiological characteristic that sodium and potassium must be balanced, and appropriately increase potassium intake in the diet, when the excess potassium is excreted by the body, it can take away excess sodium, lowering blood pressure and the risk of stroke at the same time.
The New Dietary Guidelines recommend that each person should eat potatoes about 5 times a week, with an intake of 50-100 grams each time. Every 100 grams of potatoes contain up to 300 milligrams of potassium, the highest among more than 20 commonly eaten vegetables and fruits. A Japanese study found that eating 5-6 potatoes a week can reduce the risk of stroke by 40%. 2. You can eat your fill without gaining weight
Being overweight is caused by excessive energy intake. How to "eat away" obesity? One method from Professor Zhao is to eat more low-energy foods. Protein, fat, and sugar (starch) can be oxidized in cells to produce energy for life activities. Among them, fat produces 9 kilocalories per gram; while sugar and protein produce 4 kilocalories per gram. Therefore, the "New Dietary Guidelines" list grains and potatoes, which have lower energy-producing capacities, as staples, while limiting the intake of fat, which has a higher heat-producing capacity.
However, many people, in order to lose weight, think that potatoes contain more starch (sugar) and consider them fattening foods, so they shy away. Professor Zhao said this is a misunderstanding. Potatoes and yams, for example, contain more than 70% water, with the actual starch content being only about 20%. Moreover, potatoes contain only 0.1% natural fat, which is unmatched by other staple foods.
A friend asked: Aren't french fries always considered an accomplice to childhood obesity? How have they now become a weight-loss star? Professor Zhao explained: A serving of french fries contains only a few thousand calories before frying, but after being made into fried potatoes, the calorie content exceeds 200 kilocalories. What makes people fat is not the potato itself, but the oil it absorbs. 3. Potato weight loss is a good strategy
South Korean star Jeon Jin-hye is a big eater and absolutely cannot stand the feeling of hunger, so she often carries cooked potatoes as her main meal. She said that the sweet substances in potatoes satisfy the taste buds and also make people feel full quickly.
How do potatoes, which are low in energy, still make people feel full easily? Professor Zhao Faji explained that this is because potato foods are rich in soft dietary fiber.
Dietary fiber is the tough wall layer of plant cells. After being eaten by the human body, it is not absorbed and does not provide calories. However, due to its indispensable role in metabolism, it is listed as the "7th nutrient" after carbohydrates, proteins, fats, water, minerals, and vitamins.
Why does it easily produce a feeling of fullness? Because cellulose has a small specific gravity and large volume, after being eaten, it fills the stomach cavity and takes a long time to digest, prolonging the time of gastric emptying, thus producing a feeling of fullness.
"Potato weight loss" is indeed a good strategy because dietary fiber has a good weight-loss effect: 1. It itself does not produce heat. When eaten in the stomach, it makes people feel full, reducing the calorie ratio in the ingested food; 2. Fiber absorbs water in the intestine, optimizing the growth environment of normal bacteria in the intestine. During their reproduction, these bacteria can convert cholesterol and excrete it with feces; 3. Certain components in dietary fiber, such as pectin, can directly bind with cholesterol and be excreted with feces. 4. The trend after Reagan's cancer
In the early 1990s, when news broke that US President Reagan had colorectal cancer, a wave of research on dietary fiber swept across the United States and even the entire European Community. The reason was that modern medicine discovered that dietary fiber is an "internal cleanser."
The components of dietary fiber, in addition to the pectin mentioned above, also include cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin, alginic acid, agar, and other complex sugars, all of which are polysaccharides. Lowering blood lipids
In the intestine, lignin in dietary fiber can combine with sterols in bile acids, causing them to be directly excreted with feces. To maintain the composition of bile acids, cholesterol in the body will come to supplement the bile, thus lowering blood lipids. Diabetes
Pectin in fiber can prolong the time food stays in the intestine, slow down the absorption rate of glucose, and prevent a sharp rise in blood sugar after a meal; because blood sugar rises slowly, it does not stimulate excessive insulin secretion. Insulin has the effect of increasing appetite, which can also reduce food intake. This helps prevent the phenomenon of "insulin resistance" and is beneficial for preventing or treating diabetes. Colorectal cancer
In the process of digestion and decomposition, food will produce a lot of toxins. These harmful substances will stimulate the mucosal epithelium in the intestinal cavity, causing inflammation over time, which is the pathological basis for the occurrence of colorectal cancer; if the toxins in the intestinal contents are adsorbed by cellulose, the contact between the intestinal mucosa and toxins can be reduced. Cellulose stimulates intestinal peristalsis, causing waste to be excreted in time, which also reduces the toxic effect of toxins on the intestinal wall.
Some people say that dietary fiber is "rough" and eating too much will hurt the stomach. Indeed, the bran, wheat bran, and the roots, skins, stems, and leaves of vegetables and fruits composed of dietary fiber can be very rough. But potatoes, such as potatoes, Chinese yams, and taro, contain some components that can "harmonize the stomach and regulate the middle, and benefit the qi and strengthen the spleen."
The "American Dietary Guidelines" recommend: Eat 2-4 servings of potatoes daily. Can you still eat potatoes if they have sprouted?
Sprouted potatoes produce a toxin called solanine (also called solanine). Good quality potatoes contain only 10 milligrams of solanine per 100 grams, while green, sprouted, or rotten potatoes can have 50 times or more solanine. Eating a very small amount of solanine may not have obvious harm to the human body, but if you eat 200 milligrams of solanine at once (about eating half a liang of green, sprouted potatoes), symptoms can appear within 15 minutes to 3 hours. The first symptoms are itching in the mouth and throat, pain in the upper abdomen, and symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. For patients with milder symptoms, they will recover through their own detoxification functions after 1-2 hours. If you eat 300-400 milligrams or more of solanine, the symptoms will be severe,表现为体温升高和反复呕吐而致失水，以及瞳孔放大、怕光、耳鸣、抽搐、呼吸困难、血压下降，极少数人可因呼吸麻痹而死亡。因此，对于症状较重的病人要尽早送医院治疗。
It is necessary to pay attention to preventing solanine poisoning from potatoes. Do not eat immature green-skinned potatoes
The slightly sprouted and green parts as well as the rotten parts of the potato should be completely removed. If the green part of the potato is large and there are many sprouted parts, the potato should be thrown away.
Cut the peeled potatoes into small pieces and soak them in cold water for more than half an hour to dissolve the remaining solanine in the water.
Utilizing the weak alkaline characteristic of solanine, add an appropriate amount of rice vinegar when cooking potatoes to use the acidic effect of vinegar to decompose solanine, which can have a detoxifying effect.
Cook potatoes until they are soft and thoroughly cooked, using high heat for a long time to partially decompose solanine.
If you feel a numbness in your mouth when eating potatoes, it means that the potato still contains a lot of solanine, and you should stop eating immediately to prevent poisoning.
There are reports that if pregnant women eat too much solanine, it may cause fetal malformation, so pregnant women should be especially careful.