Potato Nutrition Facts

Potatoes are starchy plants that are herbaceous perennials which grow about 25 to 30 inches high from the surface but that totally depends on the variety of the plant. Potatoes are the world’s fourth largest food crops in terms of production and consumption. Over two third of the total production of potatoes are consumed by humans and the rest are fed to the animals or are used to produce starch.

There are about 5000 varieties of potatoes belonging to 8-9 species available across the world with 3000 of them being in Andes itself. They usually bear white, pink, red, blue, or purple flowers with yellow stamens. Once the flowering is done its plant produces young green fruits which contains 250-350 seeds each. Although the fruit is grown from the same plant, it has toxic alkaloid solanine making it inedible.

The carbohydrate content in a potato being as high as 26 grams makes it, its best feature. The major form of this carbohydrate in a potato is starch and along with that a potato also has vitamins, minerals, phyto-chemicals such as carotenoids, natural phenols, etc.

It is a proven fact that a medium-sized potato contains around just 110 calories and contains absolutely zero percent fat, sodium or cholesterol making it the perfect item for any sort of diet. A potato contains a lot of potassium, much more than a banana along with 45% of Vitamin C and 10% of Vitamin b6. The skin of the potato also provides as much as 2 grams of fiber. And lastly and most importantly, one medium sized potato provides upto 6 percent of iron.