For people concerned with weight loss, I noticed something regarding potatoes this morning that I frankly hadn’t noticed before. Potatoes are actually great for weight loss, but it depends on how they are cooked.

I bake potatoes in my microwave, and weigh them before cooking, but for the first time today I weighed them after cooking and was shocked by how much water loss there was.

My 285 g raw potatoes shriveled to 180 grams! That has a huge effect on calorie density and also overall satiety per amount eaten. (It was for this reason I had stopped air frying potatoes).

According to my calculations, calorie densities are like this:

• Potatoes raw: 349 cal/lb
• Potatoes baked: 609 cal/lb (a huge jump)
• Potatoes boiled: 344 cal/lb (almost the same as when raw)
• Okayu (rice gruel): 272 cal/lb (a good bargain)
• Brown rice cooked: 675 cal/lb (on the high side)

Potatoes are indeed healthy, and full of healthy nutrients. And for whole food plant based healthy eating they are also great for weight loss. But going forward, I think I will stick more with boiled potatoes, in addition to the okayu I like, because of satiety vs calorie density benefits. The total calories don’t change, of course, from what you first measure. But you should feel more satiated with boiled potatoes because the weight hasn’t dropped so much.

Followup after my original post! Here’s 250 g of boiled potatoes (just 190 calories), sprinkled with cinnamon that I’m having for lunch right now, after my usual large lunch salad. They are satiating.