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Sweet Potatoes as Vegetables


Pedro Pinto

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Hello everyone.

This is something I would like to ask in order to get all your feedbacks.

Sweet potato is definitely a vegetable and it's a fact. However, we all know this is a tuber and it's a starchy one. So, as in the meal plan it's described to "fill the rest of the plate with vegetables" wouldn't it be a mistake to fill the rest of it ONLY with sweet potatoes or with a huge amount if it?

One more time, I know we have to vary and that's not the question. I just want to know how to deal with this whole30 compliant hypothesis :)

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I hear people talking about sweet potatoes in servings and in actual, whole, sweet potatoes.  I have no idea what this means given that a "serving" isn't well-defined on Whole30 (would it be the rest of the plate?) and that sweet potatoes really vary in size and I only see the ones in my stores.

 

I generally have a starchy veggie with meal one and I sometimes have one with another meal.  I would say I have less than a half cup at anytime.  My husband and I always share a whole sweet potato and spread it out over a couple of days, unless we are at a restaurant and the whole sweet potato is on side.  In that case, we split to veggie sides with one being sweet potato.

 

In addition to the starchy veggie, I try to have something leafy like kale or spinach, and something colorful like tomato, peppers, or zucchini, and I often have mushrooms.

 

There was a time when I used the Whole30 shopping list to count veggies.  The last time we did the count, we had 21 out of 48 of the veggies listed and 15 of them were the best choices.  Variety keeps me happy and healthy, but I am learning to balance that with simplicity for less time in the kitchen.

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We encourage people to eat a serving of starchy veggies every day. A serving of sweet potato would be a potato the size of your fist. If you mashed such a potato is probably would not fill up a plate in the space available after a palm-size portion of protein. Adding a second vegetable would be ideal. 

 

You can eat more than one serving of starchy veggies per day, especially if you have an active lifestyle, but variety is important.

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Hello Tom and Nico and thank you both for your replies. I actually understand the point Tom, but if we take the meal planning guide by heart, we would be able to add a starchy veggie (e.g. Sweet potato) on EACH meal, like... every day. In this case, even if it was only 1 sweet potato per meal and even if we were talking about an athlete, it would probably be too much since he probably wouldn't need that much energy. In addition, when we talk about fat, we see that we can add it on specific portions. It would be like 1 avocado, 1 closed hand of nuts, 1-2 thumbs oil and cooking fats, 1-2 hands of olives etc... What if we use them all together in a meal? What if I use EVOO for cooking, avocado as dessert and olives & 1 hand of nuts as a part of the meal? Can I mix them all?

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I must say I would be very bored with my meals if I only included one vege as the rest of the plate. I like having one starchy vege, one leafy vege, and one 'other' vege for variety. It makes my meals more satisfying.

As for fat, my understanding was that you split the recommendation, like if you thought 1 serving of fat was adequate, you might have half a closed handful of nuts on your salad, and half a thumb of olive oil in the dressing?

I usually add more fat anyway because I'm fairly active, so I don't worry too much about it

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Yes, the total is no more than two thumbs, whether that be 1/4 of an avocado some ghee, and some nuts and coconut flakes, or only one source of fat in a one to two thumb serving.  You have the choice and the control, within the template.

 

You could probably do a Whole30 with only one type of protein, only one veggie, and only one source of fat.  I wouldn't.

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Yes, the total is one more than two thumbs, whether that be 1/4 of an avocado, a splash of ghee, and some coconut flakes, or only one source of fat in a one to two thumb serving.  You have the choice and the control, within the template.

 

You could probably do a Whole30 with only one type of protein, only one veggie, and only one source of fat.  I wouldn't.

I like your veggie variety list.  

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