A staple in almost every local marketplace, a starch to add to a bubbling pot of local farm produce — sweet potato is a much-loved food item in Jamaica.

However, do we really understand just how nutritionally strong and versatile this carbohydrate is? This highly nutritious food is packed with loads of fibre, vitamins C, A and B6, as well as potassium.

Dr Joanne Smith, a nutritionist and lecturer in the Caribbean Institute of Health Research at The University of the West Indies as well as a consultant with health food brand, Not Jus’ A Salad, believes sweet potatoes can be very useful for people looking to reduce the amount of food they consume.

Sweet potato is a complex carbohydrate, which, among other nutritious qualities, helps individuals to feel full, faster.

“We encourage persons to use the sweet potato because of the amount of fibre it contains. It helps persons to not eat as much because you can’t eat much of it before feeling full and because it takes a long time to go through your intestinal system, you stay full for longer. This is as opposed to eating even regular Irish potato, which doesn’t have as much fibre, so it tends to be digested quickly,” Dr Smith said.

Though the word sweet is in its name, sweet potato actually has a lower glycaemic index than other starches, even Irish potato. The glycaemic index is a value assigned to foods based on how slowly or how quickly those foods cause increases in blood glucose levels.

“For persons who have pre or full-blown type 2 diabetes, for example, it is a much healthier alternative, because they cannot produce sufficient quantities of insulin to combat a spike in blood sugar levels that would be caused by other types of carbohydrates, including white rice,” Smith explained.

Sweet potatoes are also amazingly rich in beta-carotene — the antioxidant responsible for the vegetable’s bright orange colour. When converted to vitamin A in the body, beta-carotene helps to maintain eye and skin health. Vitamin A is also critical to a healthy immune system.

The versatility of this carbohydrate is unmatched. It can be boiled, roasted, baked, or even steamed.

“Outside of the popular sweet potato salad, Not Jus’ A Salad uses sweet potato to create many dishes like vegetarian versions of burgers, nuggets and patties. Sweet potato adds a nice texture, as well as flavour, to them. We roast it and add it into wraps and have it with hummus and even stuff sweet potatoes and bake them. And we can’t forget about sweet potato wedges,” said Khadine Smith, director of operations at Not Jus’ A Salad.

Due to its already rich flavour, there is also no reason to add salt to the water when boiling sweet potatoes, effectively reducing the amount of salt in the meal.