Tutorial Tuesday: Sweet Potato S'mores Bars

In honor of National S'mores Day on August 10, we created this interesting take on a s'more with an unusual ingredient, sweet potatoes.  S'mores go hand and hand with summer campfires and childhood memories.  Legend states that Alec Barnum, an entrepreneur, is first credited with creating the traditional dessert of a melted marshmallow sandwiched between a slice of chocolate and graham crackers (1).  In 1927, the first official recipe for S'mores was included in the Girl Scout's Cookbook.  Since then, variations of this recipe have been included in American camping vacations for generations.   

Sweet Potato S'mores Bars

Time required:  45 minutes

Ingredients
1/4 cup butter
1 bag mini marshmallows
Large sweet potato
2 Hershey chocolate bars (I used one king size and regular sized)
1 tbsp. brown sugar
1/4 cup milk
4 cups golden grahams







1.   Peel and chop the sweet potato into squares.  Cook the sweet potato in boiling water about 10 minutes in a medium sized sauce pan until tender.
2.  Drain potatoes and return to saucepan or add to stand mixer.  Add pieces of the chocolate bar, brown sugar and milk.  Mix with a potato masher, back of fork or the stand mixer.  Set aside.
3.  Melt the butter and mini marshmallows in a medium sized sauce pan.  Once melted, remove from heat.
4.  Add the sweet potato mixture to the butter and mini marshmallow mixture.
4.  Add the cereal and mix to coat.  Using a buttered spatula transfer the cereal mixture to into a 9 x 13"-inch pan coated with cooking spray. 



Why the sweet potato? Sweet potato is an excellent source of Vitamin A, which works as an antioxidant, is essential to sight, and matures cells into specialized workhorses. 

Newer research suggests that like Vitamin E and C, Vitamin A also works as a powerful antioxidant (2).   Antioxidants protect against the natural process of oxidation.  Oxidation is when oxygen intermingles with the environment such as when an apple turns brown or a copper penny turns green (3).   In the body, oxidation produces substances called free radicals.  Because free radicals contain only a single electron, they are extremely unstable and want to react with everything they come in contact with trying to "steal" an electron.  "When the "attacked" molecule loses its electron, it becomes a free radical itself, beginning a chain reaction. Once the process is started, it can cascade, finally resulting in the disruption of a living cell" (4). 



The human body's ability to distinguish the subtle color changes in a marvelous sunrise, see in dim light and recover after bright flashes of all light are all thanks to Vitamin A.   When we ingest foods high in beta-carotene like sweet potatoes, it is converted into three forms of Vitamin A: retinol, retinal, and retinoic acid.  Retinol and retinal are responsible for vision, sexual reproduction, bone health and immune function.  Retinal combines with a protein, opsin, to make a substance called rhodopsin.  This compound is required for the eye to communicate with the brain.  When light hits the rod and cone cells of the retina, rhodopsin breaks apart making retinal and opsin again but also sends messages to the brain noting very subtle changes in the environment.  Retinal does get recycled and used again however some of the retinal is lost with every reaction.  The body then pulls more retinal from the bloodstream (2). 

Finally, Vitamin A helps determine whether an immature cell will become an intestinal cells versus a corneal cell of the eye or even more importantly a specialized immune system cells to fight off infections.  According to Janice Thompson, author of Nutrition: An Applied Approach, "when vitamin A levels are insufficient, these cells fail to differentiate appropriately, and we lose these functions" (2).  If your immune system function is low, this can lead to infections of the lungs, respiratory tract, vagina and eyes. 

Bibliography
1.  S'mores. 2013. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%27more
2.  Thompson, Janice and Melinda Manore. Nutrition: An Applied Approach . San Francisco : Pearson Education , 2012.

3.  "What is Oxidation? ." 2003 . WiseGeek. <http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-oxidation.htm>.

 

4.  "Understanding Free Radicals and Antioxidants ." 2011. Health Check Systems. http://www.healthchecksystems.com/antioxid.htm.