are these foods diet-friendly?

1- dates. I love them and I know they are healthy and mentioned in the list of the most healthiest food BUT they are loaded with sugar. has anyone tried them while losing weight??

2- sweet potatoes? the same issue. they are heathy but loaded with sugar. 

another question please. for saute, which one is more healthy? a PAM spray or I can't believe it is not butter or REAL butter or olive oil?

Dates are high in sugar, but also high in fiber and potassium. I love one or two when I'm craving sweets, or for a  snack with walnuts - I just take out the stone and fill it back up with a walnut half - YUM!

Sweet Potatos are high in fiber, vitamin c, vitamin A, iron, calcuim, and beta carotine - another great choice!

My oil of choice is olive oil, and PAM makes an olive oil based cooking spray, which is fantastic too (although I usually buy the store brand, just as good but about $ .75 less!)

Thanks. but are they diet- friendly? what do you think?

also, I have found different kinds of PAM. which one is a diet friendly?

Dates and sweet potatoes are both "diet friendly"(do you mean that as in low-calorie or just healthy?) as long as you dont exceed your calorie goal. You're worrying about the wrong kind of sugars. It's the added sugars that you should be concerned about. Unless you are sprinkling sugar and drizzling syrup on them, enjoy your dates and sweet potatoes. 

I don't think it really matters what kind of PAM you use, unless you plan on using a large amount. If you are using a large amount, go for extra virgin olive oil, with high good ratio of unsaturated to saturated fats.

All foods are 'diet friendly'... even those with a high natural sugar content.  Please don't make the mistake of thinking that high-calorie or high-sugar foods are somehow bad choices. You just have to watch the amounts, that's all. 

Your dates, for example.  If you were to have five dates (250 calories) it wouldn't be as filling as, say, a 250 cal sandwich.  But if you really like dates you might think it would be worth it as a treat.  Sweet potatoes are extremely nutritious and make a good substitute for regular potatoes or any other complex carbohydrate

Real butter and olive oil are both good, natural things to eat and contain fairly similar amounts of calories.  Because it's an unsaturated fat, eat more olive oil than you do butter.... but each has its role. 

my fave cooking spray that i've found is " extra virgin italian olive oil spray" from trader joe's. its much cheaper than any other i found at other stores and works great.

Buy a stainless steel sprayer at Wallymart for 15 bucks, fill it with your own oil and spray away.  Much cheaper and much healthier too.  No addiitives, preservatives and no waste.

I remember reading once that sweet potatoes are pound for pound, the most overally nutritious vegetable you can eat, for a variety of reasons.  I love dates but they are way up near the top of the glycemic index, much higher than white table sugar for example, so I'd only eat them in combination with other lower glycemic foods, like oatmeal for example, and I mean real oatmeal, not the packaged, processed sugary kind. 

As for fat for saute, pick the one that's the least processed and the lowest in saturated fat.  Some would debate the merits of saturated fats, but I believe that unless you are an elite athlete or running across the plains or through the jungle to hunt down your meat, most of us are too sedentary to be consuming larger quantities of sat. fat.  Yes a tbsp a day probably won't harm you, but why bother when you can just choose something healthier?  As for unprocessed, I'd say that PAM or equivalent sprays are pretty much at the top of the list when it comes to processed fats and I'd avoid them like the plague. 

PAM and other such sprays are one of the biggest marketing scams out there. What I usually do is heat up a pan, then I saturate piece of paper napkin in olive oil and whipe the pan with it. It greases the pan quite nicely, doesn't add a lot of fat, and other chemicals that are in those aerosol cans. One of the best cooking tips I received was: "Hot pan/wok, 'cold' oil".

Sweet potatoes are awesome! They make such a nice snack, and satisfy sweet tooth. What more can be asked from the vegetable? :) I usually wipe them with a bit of olive oil, wrap in foil and bake in the oven for 50 minutes. They are a bit sticky thought, otherwise I would bring them on my training rides.

UD

Original Post by gi-jane:

Your dates, for example.  If you were to have five dates (250 calories) it wouldn't be as filling as, say, a 250 cal sandwich. 

Wow; they must have big dates where you live!  The ones I buy are 100 cals for five to six (a 40 g serving).  I love them as a snack.  I'll often pack a serving to take to work and eat them one or two at a time to space out the sugar.  I actually find them quite filling and they do wonders for my sweet tooth. 

(Oddly enough, Lara bars - which are just pureed dates with nuts - don't have the same effect for me.  Which makes no sense at all, but they nonetheless don't fill me up at all so I stick to whole dates.)

susiecue,

what brand is that? I love dates and sometimes I buy the coconut-date rolls but I guess those are very dense.  100 cals for five dates is great.

I can't believe the crap that they add in the ingredients of those " light version" butter. I guess I will go for the olive oil.

I have the same questions about pine apples and coconuts..

Original Post by susiecue:

Wow; they must have big dates where you live! 

 Juicy Medjool ones .... on the CC database 2 1/2 dates = 120 cals... 

yes I love those and that is what I buy.

Au-natural Sweet potatoes are not 'loaded with sugar' at all - unless you eat them in the American style and dump a ton of fat and sugar and marshmallows on top of them! At which point they cease to be a vegetable and become dessert. A plain sweet potato is very healthy (and delicious all by itself).

Original Post by umneydurak:

Sweet potatoes are awesome! They make such a nice snack, and satisfy sweet tooth. What more can be asked from the vegetable? :) I usually wipe them with a bit of olive oil, wrap in foil and bake in the oven for 50 minutes. They are a bit sticky thought, otherwise I would bring them on my training rides.

UD

I eat sweet potatoes as a snack with cinnamon sprinkled on them once or twice a week. I'm the oddball in my family because of it :)

so where do you find sweet potatoes? all what I have found so far is yams..

Lol. Most of the time what you see in the grocery store labeled as "yams" are actually sweetpotatoes. It's quite hard to find true yams unless you go to a specialty store.

Mars, how about if I tell you that yams are everywhere here.I had to go to several grocery stores to find sweetpotatoes. They are difficult to find. Now, I need to know the yellow one is yam and the white one is sweetpotato, right? JESUS I am confused. and why do those people lable food with the wrong name?

Dates are high in sugar and consumption should be limited - but they do have a lot of vitamins & minerals & fiber - keeps things regular! ha ha

Yams are also high in sugar and carbs but they too have fiber, vitamins & minerals too... try to limit your consumption to maybe 2 times a week if you can

Olive Oil is your best bet - healthy fats (omega-9s!) and it absolutely delicious! 

Safina,

If you are in the US, finding sweet potatoes shouldn't be a problem. Sweet potatoes vary in color also. 

http://www.ehow.com/how_2197543_between-true- yams-sweet-potatoes.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/glossary/y.shtml?ya m

http://www.foodreference.com/html/art-sweet-p otato-yam.html