Eating good with YBBG

Sweet potato from Wendy's

Smoothie from me courtesy of my magic bullet.
Magic Bullet Hi-Speed Blender / Mixer System

Fast food is getting less greasy and more healthy these days.  Take Wendy's for example. They are offering sweet potatoes as a sides selection on their menu.

Apparently, sweet potatoes pack one heck of a health punch.  Check out what World Healthiest Foods says about the benefits of sweet potatoes:

• 
  It's important to have some fat in your sweet potato-containing meals if you want to enjoy the full beta-carotene benefits of this root vegetable. Recent research has shown that a minimum of 3-5 grams of fat per meal significantly increases our uptake of beta-carotene from sweet potatoes. Of course, this minimal amount of fat can be very easy to include. In our Healthy Mashed Sweet Potatoes recipe, for example, we include 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil, and with just this one tablespoon, each of our 4 servings for this delicious recipe provides 3.5 grams of fat.

• Some nutritional benefits from sweet potatoes simply may not be achievable unless you use steaming or boiling as your cooking method. Recent studies show excellent preservation of sweet potato anthocyanins with steaming, and several studies comparing boiling to roasting have shown better blood sugar effects (including the achievement of a lower glycemic index, or GI value) with boiling. The impact of steaming is particularly interesting, since only two minutes of steaming have been show to deactivate peroxidase enzymes that might otherwise be able to break down anthocyanins found in the sweet potato. In fact, with these peroxidase enzymes deactivated, natural anthocyanin extracts from sweet potato used for food coloring may be even more stable than the synthetic dye Red 40! This benefit isn't limited to the food's appearance since the anthocyanins have great health benefits as antioxidants and anti-inflammatory nutrients.

 Anyway, there is a way to make healthy choices, even when eating fast food.  It is always good to cook at home thought. I make smoothies with a little protein powder, since a fitness coach told me that high protein helps with weight balance.