Sweet Potato vs Cassava – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing sweet potato to cassava, we picked the sweet potato.
Why?
For any unfamiliar with cassava, it’s also called manioc or yuca/yucca, and it’s a tuber that can be used a lot like sweet potato. It’s popular in S. America, often in recipes that aren’t the healthiest (deep-fried chunky “cassava chips” are popular in Brazil, for example, and farofa, a flour made from cassava, is less healthy even than refined white flour from wheat), but today we’re going to judge it on its own merit—since after all, almost anything can be deep-fried and many things can be turned into flour, but it doesn’t mean we have to do that.
Let’s talk macros first: sweet potato has nearly 2x the protein, while cassava has nearly 2x the carbs. As for fiber to soften those carbs’ impact on our blood sugars, well, sweet potato has about 2x the fiber. All in all for macros, a clear and easy win for sweet potato.
Important note: as for the impact that has on glycemic index: the exact glycemic index will depend on what you do with it (different cooking methods change the GI), but broadly speaking, sweet potatoes are considered a medium GI food, while cassava is a very high GI food, to the point that it’s higher than sucrose, and nearly equal to pure glucose. Which is impressive, for a tuber.
In terms of vitamins, sweet potato’s famously high vitamin A content raises the bar, but it’s not all it has to offer: sweet potato has more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, E, and K, while cassava has more of vitamins B9 and choline. Just for amusement’s sake, let’s note that the sweet potato has over 1,478x the vitamin A content. In any case, the vitamins category is another clear win for sweet potato.
When it comes to minerals, it’s again quite one-sided: sweet potato has more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, and potassium, while cassava has more selenium. So, sweet potato wins yet again.
In short: definitely a case of “the less widely-available option is not necessarily the healthier”!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Glycemic Index vs Glycemic Load vs Insulin Index
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Avocado vs Olives – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing avocado to olives, we picked the avocado.
Why?
Both are certainly great! And when it comes to their respective oils, olive oil wins out as it retains many micronutrients that avocado oil loses. But, in their whole form, avocado beats olive:
In terms of macros, avocado has more protein, carbs, fiber, and (healthy) fats. Simply, it’s more nationally-dense than the already nutritionally-dense food that is olives.
When it comes to vitamins, olives are great but avocados really shine; avocado has more of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7 B9, C, E, K, and choline, while olives boast only more vitamin A.
In the category of minerals, things are closer to even; avocado has more magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc, while olives have a lot more calcium, copper, iron, and selenium. Still, a marginal victory for avocado here.
In short, this is another case of one very healthy food looking bad by standing next to an even better one, so by all means enjoy both—if you’re going to pick one though, avocado is the more nutritionally dense.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Avocado Oil vs Olive Oil – Which is Healthier? ← when made into oils, olive oil wins, but avocado oil is still a good option too
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The Vagus Nerve (And How You Can Make Use Of It)
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The Vagus Nerve: The Brain-Gut Highway
The longest cranial nerve is the vagus nerve; it runs all the way from your brain to your colon. It’s very important, and (amongst other tasks) it largely regulates your parasympathetic nervous system, and autonomous functions like:
- Breathing
- Heart rate
- Vasodilation & vasoconstriction
- Blood pressure
- Reflex actions (e.g. coughing, sneezing, swallowing, vomiting, hiccuping)
That’s great, but how does knowing about it help us?
Because of vagal maneuvers! This means taking an action to stimulate the vagus nerve, and prompt it to calm down various bodily functions that need calming down. This can take the form of:
- Massage
- Electrostimulation
- Diaphragmatic breathing
Massage is perhaps the simplest; “vagus” means “wandering”, and the nerve is accessible in various places, including behind the ears. That’s the kind of thing that’ easier to show than tell, though, so we’ll include a video at the end.
Electrostimulation is the fanciest, and has been used to treat migraines and cluster headaches. Check out, for example:
Update on noninvasive neuromodulation for migraine treatment-Vagus nerve stimulation
Diaphragmatic breathing means breathing from the diaphragm—the big muscular tissue that sits under your lungs. You might know it as “abdominal breathing”, and refers to breathing “to the abdomen” rather than merely to the chest.
Even though your lungs are obviously in your chest not your abdomen, breathing with a focus on expanding the abdomen (rather than the chest) when breathing in, will result in much deeper breathing as the diaphragm allows the lungs to fill downwards as well as outwards.
Why this helps when it comes to the vagus nerve is simply that the vagus nerve passes by the diaphragm, such that diaphragmatic breathing will massage the vagus nerve deep inside your body.
More than just treating migraines
Vagus nerve stimulation has also been researched and found potentially helpful for managing:
- Depression, inflammation, and heart disease
- Diabetes and glycemic issues in general
- Multiple sclerosis and autoimmune disease in general
- Alzheimer’s disease and dementia in general
- Rheumatoid arthritis (we already mentioned inflammation and autoimmune diseases, but this is an interesting paper so we included it)
All this is particularly important as we get older, because vagal response reduces with age, and vagus nerve stimulation, which improves vagal tone, makes it easier not just to manage the aforementioned maladies, but also simply to relax more easily and more deeply.
See: Influence of age and gender on autonomic regulation of heart
We promised a video for the massage, so here it is:
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Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess – by Dr. Caroline Leaf
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First of all, what mental mess is this? Well, that depends on you, but common items include:
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Stress
- Trauma
Dr. Caroline Leaf also includes the more nebulous item “toxic thoughts”, but this is mostly a catch-all term.
Given that it says “5 simple scientifically proven steps”, it would be fair if you are wondering:
“Is this going to be just basic CBT stuff?”
And… First, let’s not knock basic CBT stuff. It’s not a panacea, but it’s a great tool for a lot of things. However… Also, no, this book is not about just basic CBT stuff.
In fact, this book’s methods are presented in such a novel way that this reviewer was taken aback by how unlike it was to anything she’d read before.
And, it’s not that the components themselves are new—it’s just that they’re put together differently, in a much more organized comprehensive and systematic way, so that a lot less stuff falls through the cracks (a common problem with standalone psychological tools and techniques).
Bottom line: if you buy one mental health self-help book this year, we recommend that it be this one
Click here to check out Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess, and take a load off your mind!
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Sea Salt vs MSG – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing sea salt to MSG, we picked the MSG.
Why?
Surprise! Or maybe not? The results of the poll for this one should be interesting, and will help us know whether we need to keep mentioning in every second recipe that MSG is a healthier alternative to salt.
First of all, two things:
- Don’t be fooled by their respective names, and/or with such, an appeal to naturalism. For example, hydroxybenzoic acids are a major group of beneficial phenolic compounds, whereas hemlock is a wildflower that grows in this writer’s garden and will kill you if you eat it. Actually hydroxybenzoic acids also grow here (on the apple tree), but that’s not the point. The point is: worry less about names, and more about evidence!
- Don’t be fooled by the packaging. A lot of products go for “greenwashing” of one kind or another. You’re not eating the packaging (hopefully), so don’t be swayed by a graphic designer’s implementation of a marketing team’s aesthetic choices.
If naturalism is for some reason very important to you though, do bear in mind that glutamates occur generously in many common foodstuffs (tomatoes are a fine, healthy example) and eating tomato in the presence of salt will have the same biochemical effect as eating MSG, because it’s the same chemicals.
Since there are bad rumors about MSG’s safety, especially in the US where there is often a strong distrust of anything associated with China (actually MSG was first isolated in Japan, more than 100 years ago, by Japanese biochemist Dr. Kikunae Ikeda, but that gets drowned out by the “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome” fear in the US), know that this has resulted in MSG being one of the most-studied food additives in the last 40 years or so, with many teams of scientists trying to determine its risks and not finding any (aside from the same that could be said of any substance; anything in sufficient excess will kill you, including water or oxygen).
Well, that’s all been about safety, but what makes it healthier than sea salt?
Simply, it has about ⅓ of the sodium content, that’s all. So, if you are laboring all day in a field under the hot summer sun, then probably the sea salt will be healthier, to replenish more of the sodium you lost through sweat. But for most people most of the time, having less sodium rather than more is the healthier option.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
- Monosodium Glutamate: Sinless Flavor-Enhancer Or Terrible Health Risk?
- MSG vs. Salt: Sodium Comparison ← here be chemistry
- More Salt, Not Less? ← No
- Pink Himalayan Salt: Health Facts
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Beetroot vs Sweet Potato – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing beetroot to sweet potato, we picked the sweet potato.
Why?
Quite a straightforward one today!
In terms of macros, sweet potato has more protein, carbs, and fiber. The glycemic index of both of these root vegetables is similar (and in each case varies similarly depending on how it is cooked), so we’ll call the winner the one that’s more nutritionally dense—the sweet potato.
Looking at vitamins next, beetroot has more vitamin B9 (and is in fact a very good source of that, unlike sweet potato), and/but sweet potato is a lot higher in vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, C, E, K, and choline. And we’re talking for example more than 582x more vitamin A, more than 17x more vitamin E, more than a 10x more vitamin K, and at least multiples more of the other vitamins mentioned. So this category’s not a difficult one to call for sweet potato.
When it comes to minerals, beetroot has more selenium, while sweet potato has more calcium, copper, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, and potassium. They’re approximately equal in iron and zinc. Another win for sweet potato.
Of course, enjoy both. But if you’re looking for the root vegetable that’ll bring the most nutrients, it’s the sweet potato.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
No, beetroot isn’t vegetable Viagra. But here’s what else it can do
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Applesauce vs Cranberry Sauce – Which is Healthier?
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
Our Verdict
When comparing applesauce to cranberry sauce, we picked the applesauce.
Why?
It mostly comes down to the fact that apples are sweeter than cranberries:
In terms of macros, they are both equal on fiber (both languishing at a paltry 1.1g/100g), and/but cranberry sauce has 4x the carbs, of which, more than 3x the sugar. Simply, cranberry sauce recipes invariably have a lot of added sugar, while applesauce recipes don’t need that. So this is a huge relative win for applesauce (we say “relative” because it’s still not great, but cranberry sauce is far worse).
In the category of vitamins, applesauce has more of vitamins B1, B2, B5, B6, B9, and C, while cranberry sauce has more of vitamins E, K, and choline. A more moderate win for applesauce this time.
When it comes to minerals, applesauce has more calcium, copper, magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium, while cranberry sauce has more iron, manganese, and selenium. Another moderate win for applesauce.
Since we’ve discussed relative amounts rather than actual quantities, it’s worth noting that neither sauce is a good source of vitamins or minerals, and neither are close to just eating the actual fruits. Just, cranberry sauce is the relatively more barren of the two.
While cranberries famously have some UTI-fighting properties, you cannot usefully gain this benefit from a sauce that (with its very high sugar content and minimal fiber) actively feeds the very C. albicans you are likely trying to kill.
All in all, a pitiful show of nutritional inadequacy from these two products today, but one is relatively less bad than the other, and that’s the applesauce.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
From Apples to Bees, and High-Fructose Cs: Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?
Enjoy!
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