Can You Eat Sweet Potato Skins, and Should You?

1. Fiber

Most of the fiber content of sweet potato comes from the peel. Baked sweet potato with skin contains about 5 grams of fiber, which is higher than a serving of oats. Fiber helps lower cholesterol, control blood sugar, and promote bowel regularity.

2. Beta-carotene

When baked with the skins on, sweet potatoes are in high beta-carotene, which is converted to vitamin A in the body and needed for eye health and other important functions. The daily recommended intake of beta-carotene is 26,081.9 International Units (IU), and one large baked sweet potato with skin provides you with 20,700 mcg of beta-carotene. 

3. Vitamin C and E

Sweet potato skin contains vitamins C and E and other nutrients that are good for building immunity. Baked sweet potato with skin has 35.3 mg of vitamin C, which is nearly 50% of the daily recommended value. One serving of sweet potatoes has the daily recommended amount of vitamin E without any saturated fats, as well as 10.8 mcg of folate. 

4. Potassium

Potassium helps control blood sugar levels in addition to managing electrolyte balance, muscle contraction, and nerve messages. Compared to eating a sweet potato without the skin, which only has 230 mg or 7% of the daily value (DV) of potassium, eating both the skin and flesh of a sweet potato provides about 475 mg or 14% of the DV.

5. Magnesium

Magnesium plays a crucial role in calcium absorption and is thus important for bone health. Compared to a sweet potato without skin, which has 18 mg or 5% of the DV of magnesium, a sweet potato with skin provides 27 mg or 7% of the DV. 

6. Manganese

When you eat sweet potatoes with skins, you get the benefit of the manganese content. Manganese helps your body control blood sugar levels and maintain bone health.

Sweet potato skins are rich in oxalates. This means that if you are high risk of kidney stones, you may need to limit your consumption.

In rare cases, excessive consumption of vitamin A can lead to vitamin A toxicity.

Since potato skins are usually covered in dirt, it is important to scrub the potatoes thoroughly before use.

Studies have shown that sweet potato skins are an excellent source of fiber and vitamins A and C.

• A 2022 study published in Food Research looked at the potential health advantages of adding powdered sweet potato peel to cookies. According to the study, adding powdered sweet potato peel to cookie dough considerably enhanced the dietary fiber content, with more than twice the amount of fiber than in the control cookies (an increase from 0.8%-2.3% fiber by weight).
• A 2021 study published in agronomy looked at the nutritional value of purple sweet potatoes both with and without the peel. According to the study, peeling the sweet potato resulted in a 64% loss of fiber.