You should torture your sweet potatoes before cooking them

You know anti-oxidants are good for you, because oxidative stress ends up disrupting your body chemistry, creating wrinkles, brain fog and forgetfulness.

You’re always on the hunt for ways to get more of these chemicals, which mop up oxygen radicals and things, which cause inflammation, which leads to DIS-EASE.

You’re already,

Sipping from the fountain of youth, eating tomato puree and carrot soup
Cracking open nuts, especially walnuts
Drinking a glass of red wine with your dinner
You’re pacifying the fat cells you already have and working hard to de-stress them a little, by draining out the excess fat
And as an insurance policy, you’re swallowing a specially formulated anti-oxidant supplement

You might want to add, electrocuting sweet potatoes to your anti-oxidant tool box.

No kidding, getting ordinary sweet potatoes frothing at the mouth, with a jolt of electricity, turns them into a anti-oxidant power house.

Torturing sweet potatoes

A team of Japanese scientists discovered that torturing sweet potatoes (and real potatoes too), is a relatively easy thing to do and besides being quite a lot of fun, it ends up being a GOOD thing to do.

Okay, lets clarify – GOOD for humans. It probably isn’t that GOOD for the sweet potato. Having a high voltage electric current streaming through your flesh can’t be considered GOOD, even if you are just a plant’s storage cupboard.

NOTE : The researchers did not electrocute the plant ! So no plant was harmed during this experiment.

So what was good about it ?

Applying an electric current to a sweet potato, causes the potato to turn on the polyphenol switch, so the levels rise by as much as 60 %. The EXTRA polyphenols take the sweet potato from an ordinary nutrient dense food, to a super food.

For the record, the superduper improved potato – tastes the same.

So stress does not always kill – it sometimes fattens.

The team discovered the best torture method was to plop the potato in some salty water and send a 0.2 Amp current through the water for about 5 minutes. This really is quite easy to do !

Who should be doing this ?

You’re might be thinking – why bother

I like the odd sweet potato, but shocking it into delivering a few extra polyphenols and things seems a bit like overkill. After all, I’m doing the health thing….. I’m eating five fruits and vegetables each day.

But, in many parts of the world, a sweet potato is not an accessory on an already full plate, it occupies the whole plate. Sweet potato serve as a staple food, more than 95 % of the global sweet potato crop grows in the developing world.

An “electrocuted” sweet potato can help do more than just fill a hungry belly, it can provide nutrients that are often missing from under nourished people i.e. address hidden hungers.

An electrifying nutritional experience

Setting up a system to electrocute sweet potatoes is pretty easy, so if you really do want to add a few extra polyphenols to your dinner, give it a try.

Here is a photo of the experimental set up you will need….

Kazunori Hironaka, Ph.D

Just make sure you don’t accidentally electrocute yourself.

Electrifying success in raising antioxidant levels in sweet potatoes – press release from the American Chemical Society.

Interested in learning more about anti-oxidants and things ?

Subcribe to E-spoons, to get e-mail updates once a month to learn how to have better body chemistry so you can optimize your health.

NOTE : Privacy & spam policy. Spoonful of Science will not rent, trade or sell the e-mail list to anyone. You can unsubscribe at any time by following the unsubscribe link. Know someone who will find this post useful ? Share it on facebook, linkedi n, twitter


Balance Eicosanoids	Rein in insulin	Dial down stress	Sleep !	Increase Vit D	Culivate microflora	Think champion

BBC

Small things can make a big difference to your health