Potatoes are usually ready for harvest 110-130 days from planting, or when the foliage has completely yellowed and stopped growing, but small early harvests can be taken once new potatoes reach a useable size.

North Dakota, Wisconsin, and Colorado are also leading producers of potatoes. In 2017 a total of 1.05 million acres of potatoes were harvested in the United States. The average price of potatoes increased by $0.02 to $9.10 per cwt. The total value of the potato crop was $3.71 billion (NASS 2018).

Potatoes can be classed as first earlies, second earlies, or maincrop. Look for varieties of ‘first early’ potatoes, which are the quickest growing of the lot. These can be ready as soon as 10 to 12 weeks after planting.

Russets

No. 1 potatoes have less defects and are more even shaped in general, so are easier for the kitchen to get use out of the whole potato. Yields could be better. If you put the bags or cartons out on display, like some hamburger fast food or fast casual operations, the No.

The Japanese satsuma-imo is my absolute favorite sweet potato. It features beautiful dark-purple skin and pale yellow flesh than darkens as it cooks. These sweet potatoes are much denser than most of the orange varieties, and starchier, too.

10 Healthy Alternatives To Mashed Potatoes

• Mashed Parsnips. Parsnips have a sweet flavor that is close to a carrot.
• Butternut Squash.
• Mashed Carrots.
• Mashed Celery Root.
• Mashed Acorn Squash.
• Mashed Brussel Sprouts.

The kind of potatoes that may be the healthiest are those with darker-colored flesh, such as the Purple Viking, Yukon Gold and Ruby Crescent. The pigments in these potatoes provide flavonoids and carotenoids that promote good health.

The Disadvantages of Sweet Potatoes and Yams

• High in Carbohydrates.
• Low in Protein.
• Low in Fat.
• Low in Iron.
• Lack of Vitamin D.
• Lack of Vitamin B12.

Some Cautions. Sweet potatoes are starches and not low-carb vegetables, with about 20 net carbs per medium potato. If you’re counting carbs, you might want to choose them only occasionally and not every day. Also, don’t make sweet potatoes your only vegetable choice in a day.

Sweet potatoes are loaded with fiber. Trainer Steven Stiefel writes on the Muscle and Body website that bodybuilders ignore fiber at their peril. Fiber is essential for helping to control appetite, burn fat, maintain healthy digestion and build muscle. A 1-cup serving of sweet potatoes contains about 8 grams of fiber.

It’s important to keep caloric needs in mind when eating for muscle growth and recovery. Potatoes are a perfect option for this. They’re rich in carbohydrates, which provide a necessary energy source. I love sweet potatoes in particular because they’re filling, sweet, and rich in antioxidants.

They also contain amino acids and are helpful in building muscles, gaining weight and for those much-desired six-pack abs. Sweet potatoes: Sweet potatoes as enriched with vitamin A, potassium, vitamin B6, C, riboflavin, folic acid, copper and pantothenic acid. These all nutrients aids in the muscle building process.

Boiling sweet potatoes retains more beta-carotene and makes the nutrient more absorbable than other cooking methods such as baking or frying. Up to 92% of the nutrient can be retained by limiting the cook time, such as boiling in a pot with a tightly covered lid for 20 minutes.

While boiling makes sweet potatoes tender, it doesn’t help much with their flavor. Most dishes that call for boiled sweet potatoes would be improved if you used roasted or baked sweet potatoes. Even if you are making mashed sweet potatoes, they will taste better with oven-cooked potatoes.

Boiling may actually retain most of the antioxidant power of sweet potatoes, compared to roasting and steaming. Baking can also cause an 80% drop in vitamin A levels, twice as much as boiling. Therefore, from a nutritional standpoint, boiling rather than baking should be recommended for cooking sweet potato.