If you’re looking to eat more healthily, add sweet potatoes to your diet. A common favorite among bodybuilders, sweet potatoes are loaded with twice your daily recommended vitamin A, mainly in the form of the powerful antioxidant beta carotene. People with high blood pressure might like sweet potatoes, too, for their 950 milligrams of potassium to help shed excess sodium. Adding sweet potatoes to your meal can also help curb your appetite with more than 6 grams of fiber.
However, sweet potatoes are also high in oxalates, which can bind to minerals such as calcium and iron in your colon or kidneys. When oxalates bind with calcium in your kidneys, a kidney stone can form. (Here are symptoms of kidney stones you shouldn’t ignore.)
You’ll need to eat sweet potatoes with a calcium source such as cheese or yogurt to reduce your risk of kidney stones. While it might sound confusing to add calcium to your dishes to prevent oxalate kidney stones, the National Kidney Foundation says eating calcium with foods high in oxalates binds these two in your stomach and intestines rather than in your kidneys, which can reduce your chances of getting kidney stones.
How adding calcium can help prevent kidney stones
Most foods that are rich in oxalates — such as spinach, almonds, soy products, beets, and sweet potatoes — are very healthy, so you don’t want to cut these foods out of your diet to prevent kidney stones. Instead, the National Kidney Foundation suggests adding more calcium to your diet and reducing sodium. Sodium causes your body to excrete more calcium into your urine, which contributes to the formation of kidney stones.
Also, when you’re dehydrated, your urine becomes more concentrated so chemicals are more likely to form into kidney stones. Drinking more water every day will help reduce your risk of kidney stones by diluting the concentration of your urine.
People on high-protein diets are at risk for both calcium oxalate stones and uric acid stones. Uric acid stones form when your diet is rich in purines found in beef, poultry, pork, and fish which can make your urine more acidic. Organ meats such as liver are highest in purines.
Alcohol and foods with high fructose corn syrup also contribute to uric acid kidney stones. Adding more fruits and vegetables to your diet can lower your risk of uric acid kidney stones by making your urine more alkaline.
Healthy ways to add calcium to sweet potatoes
Sweet potatoes are often a side dish to meat, but too much protein can increase your risk of calcium oxalate kidney stones. In an exclusive interview, a Registered Dietitian at Top Nutrition Coaching, Destini Moody, gave Health Digest some tasty, but healthy suggestions on how to pair calcium with sweet potatoes.
“Loaded baked sweet potatoes containing a nice, lean protein with low-fat Mozzarella cheese (one of the highest calcium cheeses) and plain Greek yogurt as a substitute for sour cream is a mouthwatering, but healthy, way to combine these nutrients in a classic comfort food,” she said.
An ounce of low-fat mozzarella cheese adds just 72 calories but provides 222 milligrams of calcium and almost 7 more grams of protein. Adding 3 ounces of plain Greek yogurt gives you 85 more milligrams of calcium and another 7 grams of protein. Pairing those two foods together with a cup of sweet potato can be a filling meal in itself with 335 calories, more than 18 grams of protein, and almost 30% of your recommended calcium.
You can also have sweet potatoes as part of a healthy breakfast. “You can make a scramble with some sauteed, chopped sweet potatoes along with kale or collard greens,” Moody said. “For some extra calcium, having a glass of fortified orange juice on the side can make a winning morning combo.”