The early arrival of Chanukah this year caught many of us by surprise.  Busy as we are, preparing for the Thanksgiving feast, the latkes just might have to wait until the turkey leftovers have been put away.  If you are a true potato lover, however, fear not: the Thanksgiving meal would not be complete without the golden centerpiece of orange yams, in all their sweet and glorious goodness. 

While it is true that the sweet potato packs a nutritional power-punch with its richness in Vitamins A and C, I have always felt that all that brown sugar, butter, and of course the plethora of marshmallows sitting atop the beautiful casserole somehow negates anything worthwhile about this side dish.

Here’s something to chew on as you prepare for your Thanksgiving meal: there is another way to achieve the sweet creaminess that we have all come to associate with this fall favorite, and the secret lies in the method of preparation.  

As soon as a sweet potato begins to heat up, either in the oven or in a pot of boiling water, a unique enzyme present in the tuber begins to break down the starchy fibers into a sugar called maltose.  The enzyme becomes activated at around 135 degrees and ceases its reaction upon reaching 170 degrees. Therefore, by baking the raw sweet potatoes at a lower oven temperature, for a longer amount of time, the enzyme will have no trouble initiating and completing its work of breaking down the starch, rendering your final product plenty sweet – without the need for brown sugar and marshmallows.

This season, introduce your family to a new holiday tradition, and reap all of the health benefits of the sweet potato…guilt-free.