#SWEET POTATO SKIN#

Anthocyanins are the pigments that give red, blue, and violet plant foods their beautiful colors.

Okinawan sweet potatoes are also known as purple sweet potatoes because of their high anthocyanin content.

They don’t contain as many antioxidants as orange varieties.

White sweet potatoes are crumbly, with white flesh and golden brown skin.

Who knew sweet potatoes could be so sneaky? These are often the ones masquerading as yams at mainstream grocery stores.

#SWEET POTATO SKIN#

Garnet, Jewel, and Beauregard sweet potatoes have reddish-orange skin and deep orange flesh.Here are Just a Few of the Most Popular Types of Sweet Potatoes: They also have different tastes, sizes, shapes, and textures. Sweet potato varieties range in color from dark red to brown to purple to orange-yellow to white.

I don’t know about you, but personally, I wish I could try them all! The sweet potato geeks of the world may be fascinated to know that the International Potato Center in Peru maintains a gene bank consisting of over 6,500 varieties of sweet potato. And I was amazed to discover that this represents only a tiny fraction of the total diversity of sweet potatoes. While most supermarkets carry one or two different types of sweet potatoes, about 25 varieties are available in the United States. How Many Sweet Potato Varieties Exist? /xuanhuongho This is how they picked up the false name. The soft kind, which includes the Garnet and Jewel varieties, resemble yams. Grocers needed a way to differentiate between the two types. There are actually two types of sweet potatoes in most mainstream produce sections: firm and soft. You might be thinking, “but I see yams at my grocery store all the time” - and you’d be right that they’re labeled that way. However, in North America and Europe, you will only find true yams stocked at international and specialty markets. You can find sweet potatoes at just about any grocery store. Sweet potatoes have characteristic tapered ends with smoother skin. They’re usually cylindrical with black or brown, rough, bark-like skin, and white, purple, or red flesh. Yams are related to grasses and lilies and native to Africa and Asia. People often mistakenly refer to sweet potatoes as “yams.” But these two plants aren’t actually related at all. What’s the Difference Between a Sweet Potato and a Yam? Wherever and whenever they originated, and however they have traveled the globe, I’m incredibly thankful that most of us have sweet potatoes in our lives today. This could beat the American claim as the point of origin of the sweet potato family by about 22 million years. But very recently, scientists discovered 57-million-year-old leaf fossils in India that appear to be ancient morning glory leaves. We have fossil evidence that sweet potatoes were growing in the Americas 35 million years ago. They are native to Central and South America. Sweet potatoes are some of the oldest foods known to humanity.

They draw upon these resources to feed the aboveground parts of the plant. Root tubers store water and energy, like starch and other carbohydrates, underground. Other root tubers include beets, carrots, parsnips, celeriac, and turnips. Other members include tomatoes, tomatillos, eggplants, peppers, pimentos, and Goji berries. Non-sweet potatoes (including red, white, and Yukon gold varieties) are part of the edible nightshade family. They actually belong to the morning glory family.ĭespite the shared name, sweet potatoes are only distantly related to the potatoes used to make French fries or potato chips.

Sweet potatoes ( Ipomoea batatas) are large, starchy, sweet-tasting vegetables. How can we prepare them, aside from in holiday casseroles and pies? And most confusing of all (to almost everyone), what’s the difference between sweet potatoes and yams? Meet the Sweet Potato /smartstock So when I decided to write an article about them, I had to check all my happy memories at the keyboard and look at the evidence.Īre sweet potatoes good for you? Are there any sweet potato health benefits? Where do they come from? When they were baking in the oven, our tiny cabin would fill with warmth (which was its own special treat, especially in the Canadian winter!) and the exquisite smell of sweet-potatoey goodness.Ĭlearly, I’m extremely fond of sweet potatoes. When I was a kid growing up in British Columbia, my kale and turnip-loving parents didn’t feed us processed sugar of any kind.īut once in a while, on a special occasion, we’d have sweet potatoes.