Counting your carbs? Miss bread? Try this sweet potato toast recipe!

How to Make Sweet Potato Toast

Sometimes I am a bit behind so if this is old news to you, well, it’s still yummy news.

I love bread but can’t eat it and lettuce wraps only get you so far so when I saw blogger, Kelsey’s post “Sweet Potato Toast: 3 Ways” I thought “yes, please….”

For best results, choose a sweet potato that will be large enough to cut into bread-sized pieces.  Longer potatoes, rather than round, fat ones will be easier to cut to the correct size.

• Rinse the sweet potato and pat dry.
• Slice lengthwise into 1/4″ strips.  Leave the skin on — there are wonderful nutrients in the skin and it will help prevent the edges from burning.  If you have a bagel-slot toaster resist the urge to make fatter toast — thicker slices will remain raw on the inside and burn on the outside.
• Pop into the toaster the same as you would bread.

Individual toasters have different settings and heat values so you may need to play with yours a bit.  Start on a normal toast setting — you can always toast it longer, but because of their sugar content sweet potatoes can burn if exposed to the heating elements for too long.

Sweet Potato Toast Recipe Ideas

When done, dress it up any way you like.  To help you think outside the box a bit, here are some ideas:

• Thanksgiving Sandwich – add a slice of turkey and some cranberry for a healthy and delicious meal.
• Butter, and top with dash of brown sugar and cinnamon.
• Butter and top with sliced bananas.
• Spread peanut butter, almond butter, or your favorite nut spread.
• Nutella.  Need I saw more?  (Low-carbers can buy sugar-free hazelnut cream (Nutella) online.)

Why Eating Sweet Potato Toast is Smarter Than Eating Bread

When you think of sweet potatoes and yams you probably think “CARBS! NO THANK YOU!” but even Dr. Atkins allowed them on his low-carb diet plan so before you rule them out, check your own diet because you may be surprised to find that because they are a “superfood” you can have them on your own plan.  Sweet potatoes are delicious by themselves, or when served as part of a meal and can also be substituted in virtually any recipe that calls for apples, squash or white potatoes.

All carbs are not equal but fortunately it is not too hard to determined healthy from unhealthy carbohydrates.   Organic foods in their natural state (unprocessed) are healthier than those that have been processed, or, in many cases, when cooked.

Cooking and processing can damage nutrients, but many processed foods, including enriched white bread, are even worse.  When you see “enriched” flour, don’t assume that because it boasts certain nutrients that it is healthier.  To create an “enriched” product, nutrients are stripped and added back in to try to increase its appeal from both a taste and marketing perspective (remember the old Wonder Bread commercials of the 60s and 70s?)

Popsugar.com has a wonderful explanation of this process:

A whole grain of wheat (known as a wheat berry) is made up of three layers — the bran, the germ, and the endosperm. To make white flour, the bran — which contains fiber, protein, and trace minerals — is removed as well as the germ, which contains B vitamins and trace minerals. The germ also contains a percentage of the grain’s fat, so another reason it’s removed is to increase the flour’s shelf life, which means less wasted food for companies.

What’s left is the endosperm, which is ground into flour. It has a slightly yellowish color, so the flour is then bleached using chemicals such as chlorine or benzoyl peroxide to oxidize the flour, giving it that pure white hue. And since many of the nutrients are destroyed in this big process, it’s then enriched with B vitamins, iron, and sometimes calcium.

More on the Web

• Sweet Potato Toast: 3 Ways
• So Sweet Potato Toast is a Thing Now