Health Benefits of Cooking with Lavender
(Health Secrets) For Sunday dinner, holidays or every day goodness, here’s a recipe for making the best healthy mashed potatoes. Fall and winter are the seasons for root vegetables. Of course, almost everyone’s favorite in this category is the potato, considered one of life’s best comfort foods. But whether they are mashed, baked or roasted, potatoes provide much more than comfort food.
One medium sized potato supplies more than 27% of the minimum daily value of Vitamin C needed for health. While we have been taught to think of bananas as the food most high in potassium, potatoes are even richer in this health promoting mineral. One potato provides more than 26% of the daily value of potassium, the mineral which regulates healthy heartbeats, clear thinking, and normalized blood pressure. One potato also supplies almost 22% of tryptophan, an amino acid that encourages serotonin production, driving depression away.
Potatoes are rich in fiber, needed for digestive tract health and hormone regulation. To get the full benefit of fiber and all potatoes have to offer, be sure to leave their skins on when you prepare them. This best healthy mashed potatoes recipe will be a hit at any holiday or Sunday dinner. In fact, these great tasting mashed potatoes offer so many health benefits that you can serve them any day.
Best Healthy Mashed Potatoes with Sour Cream and Chives
Ingredients
*4 large potatoes (Idaho or russet, organic is much preferred)
*1 cup MSG-free chicken broth
*Sea salt to taste
*Freshly ground black pepper
*2 tablespoons freshly chopped chives
*3 or more tablespoons organic sour cream
Directions
1) Peel the potatoes, cut them in half and place them in a pot. Cover with cold water. Bring to a boil over high heat and reduce to simmer until the potatoes are tender when pricked with a fork (about 30 minutes depending on the size of the potatoes). Drain.
2) Bring the chicken broth to a boil, and reduce to a simmer.
3) Mash the potatoes with a potato masher or fork, or use a food mill. Slowly add the stock until the desired consistency is reached.
4) Adjust the salt and pepper to taste. Fold in the sour cream and chives.
Yields 6 one-half cup servings.
Why organic sour cream?
Have you ever checked the label on store-bought sour cream? Chances are that it contains ingredients such as: cultured cream, whey, modified food starch, sodium phosphate, sodium citrate, guar gum, carrageenan, calcium sulfate, potassium sorbate and/or locust bean gum.
That is a chemical soup, not real sour cream! And certainly not worthy of being in the best healthy mashed potatoes. Plus, the cream may have come from cows given growth hormones and antibiotics, and “modified food starch” is often used to hide dangerous MSG.
If you are buying sour cream from the store, organic sour cream is much better alternative. Read the label and see that most of the chemicals you find in conventional sour cream are not in organic sour cream. Or better yet, make your own with this easy recipe:
http://www.tbyil.com/Homemade_Sour_Cream.htm
For more information:
http://www.tbyil.com/Healthy_Holiday_Recipes.htm
http://www.tbyil.com/Homemade_Sour_Cream.htm
