Vegetables for vitality: potatoes

It's hard to believe the ever popular and highly nutritious potato was once thought to be poisonous. Today, many varieties of red, white, yellow and blue potatoes regularly compete for space on grocery store shelves. These guidelines will detail their health benefits and offer tips on preparation.

Packed into one medium baked potato:

• less than 200 calories
• plenty of potassium to maintain normal blood pressure
• more than one third the daily requirement for vitamin C
• flavonoids and other protective phytochemicals, especially in its skin
• insoluble fibre for better digestion

Since most mature potatoes store well, they are available all year. New potatoes are only harvested from spring through fall.

• Choose potatoes that are firm, dry, and well formed, with no bruises, cuts, cracks or sprouted eyes.
• Avoid potatoes with green spots, which indicates the presence of a toxin that develops when potatoes are exposed to light.

• Keep potatoes loosely wrapped in paper, netting or ventilated plastic bags in a cool, dry place with good air circulation.
• Under the best conditions, potatoes will keep for several months. New potatoes are the exception; they should be eaten within a week of purchase.

• Scrub potatoes well before cooking.
• Cut off and discard any sprouted areas.
• Basic cooking depends on the variety. All-purpose (chef's) potatoes — round, with smooth, pale skin and waxy flesh — are best when steamed, boiled, or roasted.
• Bliss potatoes, red-skinned and no larger than four centimetres (1 1/2 inches) in diameter, are excellent for roasting and steaming.
• Blue (purple) potatoes with their deep bluish-purple skin and flesh are used to make potato salads, home fries and sautés.
• Idaho (russet) are long potatoes with russet brown skin. They are best for baking and frying and also excellent for mashing.
• New potatoes are usually boiled, steamed, or cut up and roasted.
• Yukon golds are tan-skinned potatoes with golden yellow flesh and a buttery flavour. They can be baked, boiled and mashed as a side dish, or sliced and incorporated into salads or casserole-style dishes. They can also be fried.

• Potato skins are richer in B vitamins, fibre, calcium, iron, phosphorus, potassium and zinc than potato flesh.
• All the best flavour in a potato is close to the skin. Use a potato peeler instead of a knife to pare off the skin as thinly as possible, in order to preserve the maximum taste.

• Add potatoes to soups and, once cooked, remove some of them, mash and return to the pan to thicken the soup without adding extra flour.
• Make a colourful potato salad with unpeeled red, white, bluish-purple and yellow-skinned potatoes.
• Substitute mashed potato for some of the oil in a salad dressing. Then add chopped garlic and lemon juice or vinegar and whisk until smooth. The potato will give the dressing a creamy texture.
• Bind meat loaf or hamburgers with cubes of cooked potato instead of using bread crumbs.
• Top a baked potato with low-fat cream cheese and chopped fresh herbs such as parsley, chives or dill. Season with salt and pepper.