Today’s Solutions: November 02, 2024

No matter your age, you should be fueling your body with healthy staples. However, as you progress in life, your body will go through hormonal shifts like puberty, pregnancy, and menopause. During these times, there are specific foods that will help you get through these hormonal milestones, and according to Aviva Romm, M.D., people in the 40s and 50s should be incorporating lots of one specific nutrient-dense food: sweet potatoes.

Why sweet potatoes?

Generally speaking, estrogen and progesterone start dropping around the 40s and 50s, which results in more difficulty digesting. Although everyone’s body is different, Romm says that most people will have more trouble digesting grains.

On the other hand, sweet potatoes will fill you up with healthy, whole carbs. Plus, they “are great for your digestion [and] your elimination.”

Sweet potatoes are high in resistant starch, a type of carbohydrate that’s especially good for gut health because it travels through the small intestine without fully digesting, and by the time the resistant starches reach the colon, they ferment and serve as a prebiotic.

If you want to boost the already high resistant starch present in your sweet potatoes, you can put them in the fridge overnight and reheat them before eating.

Sweet potatoes are also remarkably full of antioxidants and minerals (vitamin A, vitamin C, manganese, vitamin B6, magnesium, and potassium) which, once you’re in your 40s, you should be keeping an eye on.

To conclude, sweet potatoes are a healthy and tasty food to snack on at any age, but if you notice that your digestion isn’t as good as it once was as you venture into middle age, then consider grabbing some starchy sweet potatoes on your next supermarket run for some digestive relief.

Solutions News Source Print this article
More of Today's Solutions

This heartwarming Danish ad breaks down the ‘Us vs Them’ narrative

It’s rare that we publish a story about an advertisement, but then again it’s rare that an ad stirs so much emotion within its ...

Read More

NOAHs: Charlotte has a formula for long-lasting affordable housing

We recently shared how empty retail space could be the solution to California’s affordable housing crisis. Across the country in North Carolina, the city ...

Read More

A seat at the table for underrepresented communities

Climate change is already affecting all of us—however, those that bear the brunt of these consequences are predominantly from low-income, marginalized, BIPOC communities. So ...

Read More

Expanding democracy: Michigan opens new doors for formerly incarcerated voters

Malijah Gee's path from incarceration at the age of 17 to imminent freedom reflects the longing for a voice that has been suppressed for 36 years. ...

Read More