Potatoes are one of the important food sources that provide vitamin C for the body. However, how potatoes are prepared can affect the amount of vitamin C they provide.
Each sweet potato provides about 20% of the daily vitamin C requirement for the body. However, vitamin C in potatoes is easily broken down when exposed to high temperatures or during processing. Therefore, choosing a reasonable cooking method will help protect this nutrient.
Research published in Food Chemistry shows that boiling potatoes can lose up to 30% of the vitamin C in potatoes. This is because vitamin C is soluble in water and is lost during the boiling process. If potatoes are steamed instead of boiled, the level of vitamin C loss will be much lower.
The study also recommends that potato processing should avoid chopping this root before processing because the exposure area to temperature will increase vitamin C loss.
In addition, processing potatoes at low temperatures and in a short period of time, such as frying potatoes in hot oil, can help protect vitamin C better than cooking potatoes at high temperatures for a long time, but this method cannot preserve the absolute amount of vitamin C such as steaming.
Potatoes can retain most of their vitamin C if they are processed with shells. Because the potato skins contain many antioxidants and help protect vitamin C from loss. According to research by the World Health Organization, eating potatoes with shells helps maximize nutritional value and reduce the amount of vitamin C destroyed during processing.
