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Sweet
potatoes: A food fit for astronauts
September 15, 05
Suzanne Havala Hobbs
What food would you pack if you were going to Mars?
Folks who have wrestled with questions like that have considered
a Tar Heel specialty: sweet potatoes.
Years ago I took part in a meeting at the Johnson Space Center
in Houston where NASA was brainstorming ideas about how to
feed space station inhabitants. Food had to provide maximum
nutrition with minimal waste. Plants needed to be grown hydroponically
or in special soil in microgravity.
A tall order, but one scientist gave a convincing case for
including sweet potatoes, one of the most versatile and nutritious
vegetables on Earth.
Sweet potatoes are easy to grow in a variety of conditions.
They’re rich in fiber, potassium and vitamins A and
C. The leaves of the plant are also edible and could be an
important source of nutrition in space.
And sweet potatoes are versatile. A story told to us by one
of the meeting participants has stuck with me all these years.
Sally Silverstone was one of the “Biospherians”
– co-captain of the team of scientists who spent two
years in the early 1990s living in Biosphere 2, a closed ecological
life support system or “planet in a bottle” near
Tucson, Ariz. – an earthly version of a space station.
The Biospherians had to grow everything they ate, practicing
good crop management and recycling their waste. They spent
two years without some of the luxuries they were used to outside
of Biosphere, including table sugar.
The sweetest food in Biosphere was the sweet potato. When
somebody’s birthday rolled around, they used sweet potatoes
to make a birthday cake. Sally said the cakes were delicious.
I’ve always liked sweet potatoes, but I’ve appreciated
them even more since my experience at the Space Center.
I haven’t tried my hand at sweet potato birthday cake,
but I can share other simple ways to use sweet potatoes:
* As an egg replacer. In recipes that call for more than one
egg, use one quarter cup of mashed sweet potatoes in place
of one egg. It cuts the cholesterol content of muffins, cookies,
and quick breads that call for eggs. If you experiment a bit,
you may find you can use mashed sweet potato in place of all
of the egg in some recipes.
* As a fat replacer. Mashed sweet potato can replace some
or all of the fat in recipes for baked goods. The amount varies
by recipe, so you’ll need to experiment to find the
right proportions. Muffins made this way are denser and chewier
than those made with oil, but the texture is pleasing and
the flavor is good.
Other ways to enjoy sweet potatoes more often:
* Try baked sweet potatoes topped with nonfat cottage cheese
and cinnamon or crushed pineapple and fresh lime juice, or
wrap a baked sweet potato in aluminum foil and take it to
school or work for lunch.
* Boil sweet potatoes, mash them and mix with a little maple
syrup, cinnamon and raisins. Candied sweet potatoes are also
good mixed with stewed apple slices.
* For the chefs out there: Whipped sweet potato and chopped
walnuts makes a heavenly ravioli filling.
* My favorite, inspired by the Flyin’ Mayan Burrito
at the Flying Burrito in Chapel Hill: Layer mashed sweet potato
in a burrito with cooked rice, black beans, guacamole, salsa,
chopped lettuce and tomato and a scoop of nonfat plain yogurt
or light sour cream.
You can also find online recipes for sweet potato pancakes,
pie, soup, casserole, home fries, muffins and more.
With a little thought and daring, you can find interesting
ways to work more good foods – like sweet potatoes –
into your diet. After all, it’s not rocket science.
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