There's more to sweet potato than just the roots, researchers find

There’s more to sweet potato than meets the eye, nutritionally speaking. Researchers have discovered that not only is the root section of the sweet potato packed with nutrients, so too are the leaves.

A research study published in the journal HortScience has shown that the mature and young leaves of sweet potato plants can provide significant amounts of vitamin B6 and other essential vitamins.

“The objective of the study was to determine the ascorbic acid, thiamin, riboflavin and vitamin B6 content in a wide range of edible tissues of ‘Beauregard’ and ‘LA 07-146’ sweet potatoes, two important commercial cultivars in Louisiana,” said University of Louisiana researchers Wilmer Barrera and David Picha.

They analysed a variety of sweet potato tissue types, including root and leaf tissue, and found that young leaves contain the highest amount of ascorbic acid (AA). Buds also contained significantly higher AA levels than roots, vines and petiole tissues.

“These results confirm previous studies that sweet potato foliar tissues are a good source of ascorbic acid, and that young leaves have the highest foliar AA content,” the scientists noted.

Riboflavin was also found to be consistently higher in the leaves, with mature leaves containing higher amounts than young leaves and other plant tissues.

“Our results indicate that human and young leaves of sweet potato could provide significant amounts of vitamin B6 to the human diet,” the researchers said.

The complete study and abstract are available on the American Society for Horticultural Science (ASHS) HortScience electronic journal website: http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/content/49/11/1470.abstract.