Potatoes, red, flesh and skin, baked

Fun Facts

1. Red potatoes provide you with essential vitamins, minerals and energy you need to fuel your busy day. They’re a root vegetable that makes a healthy addition to any well-balanced diet. You’ll get the most nutritional benefits from red potatoes by eating their thin skin, along with the white flesh.
2. A medium, red-skinned potato that’s baked measures about 2.25 to 3.25 inches in diameter. If you eat the skin and flesh of the potato, you’ll get 153 calories, 3 grams of protein and less than 1 gram of fat, according the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This makes potatoes a good fit for low-fat diets. They’re also a whole food, and a vegetable source of starch to eat with dinner, rather than eating processed foods.
3. Red potatoes also provide you with a variety of vitamins to maintain your health. A medium red potato provides 36 percent of the daily value of vitamin C. Your body needs vitamin C to form collagen — an essential connective-tissue protein — to fight infections, to help iron and copper absorption and to maintain healthy bones.
4. Red potatoes also contain many essential minerals. A medium potato provides 12 to 15 percent of the daily value for magnesium, copper, phosphorus and manganese, and 27 percent of the daily value for potassium.