I recently had a request for a post about potatoes. As we’re entering into fall and local potatoes are readily available this seemed like as good a time as any to address the question about nutrition and potatoes. Potatoes have been much maligned. They’re primarily carbohydrate and for many people, carbs are pretty much the work of the devil (not true by the way!).

Potatoes are actually a great source of a number of nutrients, besides carbohydrate. A “serving” of potato is approximately half of a medium potato. However, as most of us are likely to consume a whole potato in a sitting I’m going to provide the nutrition information for an entire medium potato.

One medium baked potato with the skin contains about 166 calories, 4.32 grams of protein, 3.8 g of fibre, 26 mg of calcium, 1.87 mg of iron, 48 mg of magnesium, an 926 mg of potassium. And there is some truth that a great deal of these nutrients are present in, or near, the skin. Remove the skin from that same baked potato and you’re left with: 145 calories, 3.06 g of protein, 3.4 g of fibre, 8 mg of calcium, 0.55 mg of iron, 39 mg of magnesium, and 610 mg of potassium.