TIP OF THE DAY: Choose Butternut Squash Over Sweet Potatoes

[1] Butternut squash (photo © Good Eggs).

[2] Sweet potatoes (photo © North Carolina Sweet Potatoes).

[3] You can mash either butternut squash or sweet potatoes. The choice is yours (photo © Chef Ingrid Hoffmann)

It’s the time of year where lots sweet potatoes and winter squash are served up.

They’re both orange, a color that owes thanks to lots of the antioxidant† beta-carotene.

They’re both yummy.

But are they equally nutritious? Nope.
 
 
SWEET POTATO SHOCKER

Sweet potatoes have about double the calories, carbs, and sugar than than butternut squash (see the chart below—source).

While sweet potatoes do have more fiber and protein than butternut squash, the numbers are not significant like the calorie and carb numbers:

 
We side with the squash.

And actually, cup for cup acorn squash is the most nutritious of all the winter squash varieties—but it’s smaller and thus yields less meat‡.

It has more calcium, folate, magnesium (nearly one-third of a day’s worth in one cup) and potassium than butternut, hubbard and spaghetti squash.

Of course, all winter squash varieties deliver on nutrition. In addition to fiber and protein, their nutrition includes:

 
So at it’s basic best, winter squash is health food!
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*There are 11 types of winter squash: acorn, banana, buttercup, butternut, delicata, hubbard, kabocha, pumpkin, spaghetti, sweet dumpling and turban squash. Summer squash has a thin peel that can be eaten. Yellow squash and zucchini are examples.

†An antioxidant is an enzyme or other organic molecule that reduces the rate of particular oxidation reactions and can counteract the damaging effects of oxygen in tissues. Here’s more about antioxidants.

‡In addition to referring to the flesh of animals used as food, “meat” also designates the edible part of anything, e.g. a fruit or nut.