Swap your fries for sweet potato fries and you feel a little virtuous. Swap your mash for sweet potato mash and the feeling grows. The orange root has the better reputation, but is it really the healthier one?
Less than you might think. Gram for gram, sweet potatoes and potatoes hold almost the same energy, 76 and 77 kcal per 100 g, and the same carbohydrate, about 17.5 g [1]. The difference nobody can miss is vitamin A: 787 µg per 100 g in the sweet potato and none in the potato. Most of the rest is a draw or a small win for one side, and what you do in the kitchen moves blood sugar more than which root you pick.
One note on the numbers. Our sweet potato page uses the USDA entry for boiled sweet potato without skin, and our potato page the entry for raw potato with skin [2]. The pair is not a perfect like-for-like test, so we say so where it matters.
Sweet potato vs potato at a glance
The table puts the two side by side and follows the units switch in the header, so you can flip between a household measure and 100 g. A medium sweet potato is 151 g and 115 kcal, a medium potato 213 g and 164 kcal, which is why the potato wins most rows per piece. Per 100 g the calories match, so 100 g or 100 kcal is the fairer yardstick for the rest of this post.
| Per servingPer 100 g | Sweet potatoesper 1 medium (151 g) | Potatoesper 1 medium potato (213 g) |
|---|---|---|
| CaloriesEnergy | 115 kcal480 kJ / 115 kcal | 164 kcal686 kJ / 164 kcal |
| Vitamin A | 1,188 µg (132%) (149%) (higher) | 0 µg (0%) (0%) |
| Vitamin C | 19.3 mg (21%) (24%) | 42 mg (47%) (52%) (higher) |
| Vitamin B6 | 0.25 mg (15%) (18%) | 0.63 mg (37%) (45%) (higher) |
| Fiber | 3.78 g (13%) | 4.47 g (16%) (higher) |
| Protein | 2.07 g (4%) (4%) | 4.37 g (9%) (9%) (higher) |
| CaloriesEnergy | 76 kcal318 kJ / 76 kcal | 77 kcal322 kJ / 77 kcal |
| Vitamin A | 787 µg (87%) (98%) (higher) | 0 µg (0%) (0%) |
| Vitamin C | 12.8 mg (14%) (16%) | 19.7 mg (22%) (25%) (higher) |
| Vitamin B6 | 0.17 mg (10%) (12%) | 0.3 mg (18%) (21%) (higher) |
| Fiber | 2.5 g (9%) (higher) | 2.1 g (8%) |
| Protein | 1.37 g (3%) (3%) | 2.05 g (4%) (4%) (higher) |
● = higher amount. Source: USDA FoodData Central (FDC 168484, 170026).
Two rows stand out. Vitamin A is the sweet potato’s alone, and potassium is the potato’s, at 425 mg per 100 g against 230 mg.
Which has more vitamin A?
The sweet potato, by a wide margin. A 100 g serving of boiled sweet potato gives 787 µg of vitamin A (RAE), 87% of the 900 µg Daily Value [3], and one medium sweet potato gives 1,188 µg, or 132%. Our potato page lists 0 µg. Only 1 of 92 foods on NutriScrolls has more vitamin A gram for gram [1].
Drawn to scale. Boiled sweet potato and raw potato as on our food pages; the dashed line marks the Daily Value of 900 µg RAE. Data: USDA FoodData Central via NutriScrolls.
The source is the orange pigment beta-carotene, 9,444 µg per 100 g here, which the body can turn into vitamin A. That is the orange sweet potato. In the first trial below, the white-fleshed type served as the control because it has no beta-carotene.
Children who ate 125 g of boiled, mashed orange sweet potato a day for 53 school days had a greater improvement in vitamin A liver stores than children who ate white sweet potato
Randomized trial in 180 children aged 5 to 10, 90 per group, all dewormed. The orange sweet potato supplied 1,031 µg of retinol activity equivalents a day. The share of children with normal vitamin A status rose from 78% to 87%, a change the trial was not designed to test.
Daily sweet potato for 60 days raised vitamin A stores in Bangladeshi men, but about 13 µg of its beta-carotene made 1 µg of vitamin A, against about 6 µg for pure beta-carotene
Trial with 14 men per group, who ate cooked, puréed sweet potato, Indian spinach, retinyl palmitate or beta-carotene worth 750 µg of retinol equivalents a day on top of a low vitamin A diet. The rise in stores with sweet potato (0.029 mmol) did not reach statistical significance on its own (P = 0.21), though the authors conclude that it has a positive effect.
How you cook it counts too. A review of retention studies in cassava, maize and sweet potato found that boiling and steaming kept 80 to 98% of the provitamin A carotenoids, baking 30 to 70% and frying 18 to 54% (De Moura et al., 2015). Fat helps with uptake: in a lab digestion test, 49 to 73% of the beta-carotene in flour-based sweet potato foods cooked with oil (chapati and mandazi) became available for absorption, against 10% in puréed boiled root (Bechoff et al., 2011). That is a lab result, not a trial in people, but it points to a simple habit: steam or boil, then add a little oil.
Which has more potassium, fiber and vitamin C?
It depends on the nutrient, and the gaps are small. Because the two hold the same energy, the chart compares what 100 kcal of each gives, as a share of the Daily Value.
Drawn to scale. Our arithmetic on the per 100 g values on the food pages and the FDA Daily Values [3]. Boiled sweet potato without skin and raw potato with skin, so the pair is not a perfect like-for-like test. Vitamin A is left out because it would run off the chart: 115% for sweet potato, 0% for potato.
The potato leads on potassium (11.7% against 6.4%), vitamin B6, vitamin C and protein. The sweet potato leads on fiber, manganese and vitamin E. Fiber is nearly level at 2.5 g and 2.1 g per 100 g, far from the Daily Value of 28 g; our fiber page shows foods that do more.
Potassium is where the potato is clearest: a medium potato holds 905 mg, 19% of the Daily Value, against 347 mg, 7%, in a medium sweet potato [1]. It is also the nutrient here with the strongest trial evidence.
Eating more potassium lowered systolic blood pressure by 3.49 mm Hg in adults, an effect seen in people with high blood pressure but not in those without
Meta-analysis of 22 randomized trials (1,606 people) and 11 cohort studies (127,038 people). Higher potassium intake also went with a 24% lower risk of stroke. It tested potassium, not potatoes, and the authors say the benefit applies to people whose kidneys handle potassium normally.
If you have kidney disease, ask your doctor about potassium before you lean on potassium-rich foods.
Which one raises blood sugar more?
It depends on the cooking, and that matters more than which root you pick. The glycemic index (GI) ranks a food by how much it raises blood glucose against a reference food, and 55 or less counts as low on the 100-point scale (Atkinson et al., 2021). Our tables list 46 for boiled sweet potato and an estimate of 73 for potato [1]. One number hides a wide spread, though.
Drawn to scale. Sweet potato bars span the range across 10 cultivars; potato bars show single values from six varieties and two cooking methods. Each study used its own volunteers and method, so compare within a study, not across. Data: Bahado-Singh et al., 2011; Fernandes et al., 2005.
Boiled sweet potatoes had a glycemic index of 41 to 50, baked ones 82 to 94 and roasted ones 79 to 93
Ten healthy adults (5 men and 5 women, average age 27) ate ten sweet potato cultivars common in Jamaica, cooked by roasting, baking, frying or boiling. Cooking method mattered more than cultivar. The authors suggest boiled sweet potato may help limit blood sugar spikes in type 2 diabetes, but nobody with diabetes took part.
The glycemic index of potatoes ranged from 56 to 89, from boiled red potatoes eaten cold to boiled red potatoes
Two studies in healthy adults, with 10 people in the first and 12 in the second. Roasted California white potatoes scored 72, baked Russets 77 and instant mashed potatoes 88. Russets cooked ahead, refrigerated and reheated gave a smaller blood sugar rise than Russets eaten straight after cooking, while precooking made no difference for boiled white potatoes.
For sweet potato, boiling gave the lowest scores. For potatoes the pattern is less tidy: boiled red potatoes scored 89 hot and 56 cold, so temperature and variety mattered as much as the method. A review of GI tables agrees that most potato varieties are high-GI foods, while some low-GI varieties exist. So “sweet potato is low-GI” holds for the boiled kind and not the baked kind, and “potato is high-GI” holds for most hot potatoes, not all.
Does cooling a potato change anything?
You may have heard that cooked, chilled potatoes behave differently. There is some truth in it. When cooked starch cools, part of it becomes resistant starch, which the small intestine does not digest (more on our starch page). One Swedish lab measured how much, and what it did to blood sugar.
Boiled potatoes kept cold for 24 hours and dressed with vinegar cut the blood sugar response by 43% compared with freshly boiled potatoes
Crossover trial in 13 healthy adults who ate meals with 50 g of available carbohydrate: freshly boiled potatoes, boiled potatoes stored at 8 °C for 24 hours, the same with a vinaigrette, or white bread. Cold storage raised resistant starch from 3.3% to 5.2% of the starch and, by itself, lowered the insulin response by 28%. Healthy people ate one meal each.
Drawn to scale within each panel. The cold potatoes also had a vinaigrette (28 g white vinegar, 8 g olive oil); cold storage alone lowered the insulin response by 28%. Data: Leeman et al., 2005.
In adults with type 2 diabetes, boiled, roasted or cooled potato dinners did not raise after-meal glucose more than basmati rice, and all three gave lower glucose overnight
Randomized crossover trial in 24 adults (average age 58) with type 2 diabetes managed by diet or metformin. Dinner was a mixed meal with boiled, roasted or boiled-then-cooled (24 hours) potato, or rice. Insulin after the meal was higher with the cooled potatoes than with rice. Each person ate one of each dinner, so long-term effects are unknown.
The picture is mixed. A lab analysis of three potato varieties found that chilled potatoes had more resistant starch than hot or reheated ones, and baked more than boiled (Raatz et al., 2016), so reheating gives some of the gain back. Yet the reheated Russets above still produced a smaller glucose rise. The cooling studies we found tested potatoes, not sweet potatoes, and each measured a single meal. A potato salad made the day before is a fine lunch; the trials do not yet show it does more than that over months and years.
What do big studies say about potatoes and health?
A blood sugar curve after one meal is one thing; disease over decades is another. Start with the question many people ask first: does a potato fill you up?
Boiled potatoes ranked first of 38 foods for fullness, scoring 3.2 times as high as white bread
Groups of 11 to 13 people each ate a 240 kcal (1,000 kJ) serving of one food and rated their fullness for 2 hours. Boiled potatoes scored 323% against white bread at 100%, and croissants lowest at 47%. Fullness scores rose with the weight, protein, fiber and water of the food and fell with its fat. It tested a single serving of boiled potatoes, not fries.
Then the long view. The largest recent analysis followed 205,107 Americans across the Nurses’ Health Studies and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study.
Every 3 weekly servings of French fries went with a 20% higher rate of type 2 diabetes, while baked, boiled or mashed potatoes showed no link
Three US cohorts with 205,107 people and 22,299 diagnoses over 5.2 million person-years, adjusted for body mass index and other risk factors, plus a meta-analysis of 13 cohorts (587,081 people). Replacing 3 servings a week of baked, boiled or mashed potatoes with whole grains went with a 4% lower rate; replacing them with white rice went with a higher one. It shows association, not cause. The National Institutes of Health funded it.
Each square is the rate of type 2 diabetes for every 3 more servings a week, with its 95% confidence interval as a line; a line that crosses 1.00 means the data cannot rule out no effect. Drawn to scale. Data: Mousavi et al., 2025.
The cohorts counted white potatoes, so they say nothing about sweet potato fries either way. What they do show is that the fryer, not the potato, carries most of the signal: a fried potato is a different food from a boiled one. Pair that with the cooking results above and the advice is plain. Boil, steam or bake either root, and treat fries of any kind as an occasional food.
So which should you choose?
Choose by what you want from the plate. For vitamin A, take the orange sweet potato, boiled or steamed with a little oil. For potassium, vitamin C and vitamin B6, the potato has the edge, and a boiled one filled people up most in the fullness test. For blood sugar, boil either one, and know that baking pushed sweet potato scores into the 80s and 90s.
Or eat both, which is what the numbers favor. Neither is a protein food, at 1.4 g and 2.1 g per 100 g; if protein is your goal, read our protein maxxing guide. If you have diabetes or kidney disease, ask your doctor or dietitian how potatoes and sweet potatoes fit your plan.
Frequently asked questions
Is sweet potato healthier than potato?
Neither is clearly healthier. Sweet potato is the better source of vitamin A (787 µg against none per 100 g on our pages), fiber and manganese; potato has more potassium, vitamin C and vitamin B6. Calories are almost the same, 76 and 77 kcal per 100 g. How you cook either one, baked, boiled or fried, changes the health picture more than the choice between them.
Is sweet potato good for diabetes?
Boiled sweet potato had a lower glycemic index than baked in a test of ten cultivars: 41 to 50 against 82 to 94. All ten volunteers were healthy, so the result may not carry over to diabetes, and single-food tests differ from real meals. Ask your doctor or dietitian how sweet potato fits your plan before you change what you eat.
Does sweet potato have more sugar than potato?
On our pages, yes: 5.74 g of sugars per 100 g in boiled sweet potato against 0.82 g in raw potato, while the potato has more starch, 15.29 g against 5.22 g. Total carbohydrate is almost equal, 17.7 g and 17.5 g. One entry is boiled and the other raw, so treat the split between sugar and starch as approximate.
Do cold or reheated potatoes affect blood sugar less?
Sometimes. Boiled potatoes kept 24 hours at 8 °C had more resistant starch, 5.2% against 3.3% of the starch, and the insulin response fell 28% in 13 healthy adults. In a lab test, reheated potatoes had less resistant starch than chilled ones. These were small studies of single meals, so the effect over time is unknown.
Which is better for weight loss, sweet potato or potato?
No trial we found compared the two. Per 100 g they hold the same energy, 76 and 77 kcal. In a 1995 test of 38 foods served in 240 kcal portions, boiled potatoes were the most filling, at 3.2 times white bread. Fullness rose with the weight, protein, fiber and water of the food. Fries are a different food and were not tested.
Sources
- NutriScrolls. Sweet potatoes and Potatoes: nutrition facts per 100 g and per medium piece, glycemic index. nutriscrolls.com/food/vegetables/sweet-potatoes/ and nutriscrolls.com/food/vegetables/potatoes/. Accessed 24 Oct 2026.
- U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, entries used on NutriScrolls: Sweet potato, cooked, boiled, without skin (FDC 168484); Potatoes, flesh and skin, raw (FDC 170026). fdc.nal.usda.gov. Accessed 24 Oct 2026.
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Daily Value on the Nutrition and Supplement Facts Labels. fda.gov/food/nutrition-facts-label/daily-value-nutrition-and-supplement-facts-labels. Accessed 24 Oct 2026.
- Atkinson FS, Brand-Miller JC, Foster-Powell K, Buyken AE, Goletzke J. International tables of glycemic index and glycemic load values 2021: a systematic review. Am J Clin Nutr. 2021;114(5):1625-1632. doi:10.1093/ajcn/nqab233
- van Jaarsveld PJ, Faber M, Tanumihardjo SA, Nestel P, Lombard CJ, Benadé AJ. Beta-carotene-rich orange-fleshed sweet potato improves the vitamin A status of primary school children assessed with the modified-relative-dose-response test. Am J Clin Nutr. 2005;81(5):1080-1087. doi:10.1093/ajcn/81.5.1080
- Haskell MJ, Jamil KM, Hassan F, et al. Daily consumption of Indian spinach (Basella alba) or sweet potatoes has a positive effect on total-body vitamin A stores in Bangladeshi men. Am J Clin Nutr. 2004;80(3):705-714. doi:10.1093/ajcn/80.3.705
- De Moura FF, Miloff A, Boy E. Retention of provitamin A carotenoids in staple crops targeted for biofortification in Africa: cassava, maize and sweet potato. Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr. 2015;55(9):1246-1269. doi:10.1080/10408398.2012.724477
- Bechoff A, Poulaert M, Tomlins KI, et al. Retention and bioaccessibility of beta-carotene in blended foods containing orange-fleshed sweet potato flour. J Agric Food Chem. 2011;59(18):10373-10380. doi:10.1021/jf201205y
- Aburto NJ, Hanson S, Gutierrez H, Hooper L, Elliott P, Cappuccio FP. Effect of increased potassium intake on cardiovascular risk factors and disease: systematic review and meta-analyses. BMJ. 2013;346:f1378. doi:10.1136/bmj.f1378
- Bahado-Singh PS, Riley CK, Wheatley AO, Lowe HI. Relationship between processing method and the glycemic indices of ten sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) cultivars commonly consumed in Jamaica. J Nutr Metab. 2011;2011:584832. doi:10.1155/2011/584832
- Fernandes G, Velangi A, Wolever TM. Glycemic index of potatoes commonly consumed in North America. J Am Diet Assoc. 2005;105(4):557-562. doi:10.1016/j.jada.2005.01.003
- Leeman M, Ostman E, Björck I. Vinegar dressing and cold storage of potatoes lowers postprandial glycaemic and insulinaemic responses in healthy subjects. Eur J Clin Nutr. 2005;59(11):1266-1271. doi:10.1038/sj.ejcn.1602238
- Devlin BL, Parr EB, Radford BE, Hawley JA. Lower nocturnal blood glucose response to a potato-based mixed evening meal compared to rice in individuals with type 2 diabetes. Clin Nutr. 2021;40(4):2200-2209. doi:10.1016/j.clnu.2020.09.049
- Raatz SK, Idso L, Johnson LK, Jackson MI, Combs GF Jr. Resistant starch analysis of commonly consumed potatoes: content varies by cooking method and service temperature but not by variety. Food Chem. 2016;208:297-300. doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2016.03.120
- Holt SH, Miller JC, Petocz P, Farmakalidis E. A satiety index of common foods. Eur J Clin Nutr. 1995;49(9):675-690.
- Mousavi SM, Gu X, Imamura F, et al. Total and specific potato intake and risk of type 2 diabetes: results from three US cohort studies and a substitution meta-analysis of prospective cohorts. BMJ. 2025;390:e082121. doi:10.1136/bmj-2024-082121
Not medical advice
This article is general information, not a diagnosis or treatment. Talk to a doctor or registered dietitian before changing your diet, especially if you are pregnant, take medication or have a health condition. Read our medical disclaimer.
