Ingredients
- 2 small potatoes
- A few sprigs cut up chives
- A few slices onions cut in rings
- A few tomato slices
- A few lettuce leaves
- 1 very ripe avacado
- 2 tablespoons unsweetened almond milk
- 1/2 tsp dried dill
Directions
- Grill the onion slices by placing in a pre-heated waffle iron sprayed with a little water for about 2 minutes
- Make a criss cross slit in both potatoes, wrap in a moistened paper towel and microwave until soft
- Place 1 baked potato (skin on) in the waffle iron, close the lid and smash the potato. Cook for 2 minutes, slowly lift the lid and sprinkle chives on top, close lid for another 2 minutes or until crispy. Repeat with the remaining potato.
- Whip the avacado, almond milk and dill together on high speed until creamy
- Place sliced tomatos, lettuce and grilled onions on one of the potato waffles. Spread some avacado-dill sauce on top. Cover with remaining potato waffle.
Spraying the waffle iron with a little water helps prevent sticking.
A Deep Dive into the Health Benefits
Potatoes often get a bad rap and it’s unfair. Potatoes are an excellent source of fiber especially with the skins on. Fiber helps to keep cholesterol and blood sugar in check. Potatoes are a great source of potassium, phosphorus, magnesium and vitamins B1, B3 and B6. Potatoes also contain antioxidants which play a role in preventing certain cancers and age-related diseases. There are only 130 calories in a baked potato with skin on and they are naturally low in fat.
It’s not potatoes that are bad. It’s the way many people eat them that are. I had lunch with a friend who claimed to be on a “diet” so was choosing a healthy lunch. The “healthy” lunch consisted of a baked potato loaded with bacon bits, butter, chedder cheese and sour cream. So we went from 130 lean calories to approximately 592 high fat calories. I had no words. No words at all. What about deep fried french fried potatoes with ketchup and plenty of salt? What about mashed potatoes with whole milk and butter? What about au graten potatoes with milk, butter and cheddar cheese? What about sour cream potato chips? Again, it’s not the potato that’s bad. It’s the way people eat them that is.
With all that said, you do need to know that potatoes are mostly starch that is broken down into glucose rapidly as they are digested. This means a rapid spike in blood sugar. This is important to know if you have issues controlling blood sugar.
To understand how a complex carbohydrate food like a potato effects blood sugar you would need to know its glycemic index (GI). GI is a scale that ranks foods on a scale of 0 – 100. The higher the GI the faster it raises blood sugar. Low GI foods release sugar slowly into the bloodstream giving it more time to use appropriately for energy.
-High GI foods 70 – 100
– Medium GI foods 55 – 69
– Low GI foods 55 or lower
Potatoes have a high GI of 111. That’s about the same as drinking a can of cola. But the method of preparation changes the index. A baked potato is 110 but a boiled potato is 82. That makes sense when you consider you boil off then drain the starch. But if you choose a sweet potato or yam the GI is down to 64 – a much better deal! But even still it doesn’t mean you can’t ever have white potatoes. It simply means you need to control the amount that you put on your plate.