(RxWiki News) New research from the University of California, Davis and the National Center for Food Safety and Technology at the Illinois Institute of Technology indicates it's okay to eat potatoes if you're trying to lose weight.
The study results "confirm what health professionals and nutrition experts have said for years," said lead researcher Dr. Britt Burton-Freeman, PhD, MS. And that is: potatoes, when made in a healthy way, do not contribute to weight gain.
"It's reducing calories that count," said Burton-Freeman, who added evidence is pointing toward potatoes' role in weight-loss programs.
Researchers studied 86 overweight men and women randomly assigned to one of three groups during a 12-week period while measuring the effects of a reduced-calorie diet with the addition of potatoes. Two of the groups were to reduce their daily caloric intake by 500 calories while a third control group was encouraged to stick to U.S dietary guidelines but were not instructed to reduce calories. All groups were told to consume five to seven servings of potatoes per week.
All three groups lost weight, and there was no significant weight-loss difference between any of the three groups.
Potatoes are loaded with potassium and do not contain fat, sodium or cholesterol. Even better, one medium-sized potato with skin contains only about 110 calories.
