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11 Comments

    1. Glad you found the information helpful Crista. As I think I mentioned, I always thought the firmer, lighter colored potatoes were true sweet potatoes and the softer, darker variety were yams. Imagine my surprise when I learned they were all sweet potatoes!

      1. Fantastic information! My local market has them all and never knew which to grab. I love the garnet yam. And a recipe will show an orange one while telling me to get a sweet potato so when I get to the store I’m always bringing home the middle one and was left puzzled. Lol. Now I know! Not finding out the nutrition of each! I’ve just spent 30 mins.. but at last the internet is still in a debate on the garnet being a yam or sweet potato. Thank you for a great read!

  1. The great irony is that the softer, orange-fleshed ones that were marketed as yams resemble actual African yams much less than the firm cream-color-fleshed ones that had existed previously. Indeed, those are the ones that enslaved African people probably first called yams by analogy. (And they’re the ones that actually resemble potatoes more, as well!)

    1. Yes – as I explain in the article, they are all sweet potatoes. The term “yam” was adopted to distinguish the difference between soft and firm-flesh sweet potatoes. What we typically call yams here in the U.S. are soft sweet potatoes.

    2. Thank you for the info i thought they were all in the same group. Because they are all a rooted vegetable much mahalo

  2. I bought some sweet potatoes but they were not the orange coloured ones but white can I still treat them as an orange one with the brown sugar and orange rind and juice not sure if the dish will turn out and taste the same also have some canned sweet potatoe that is past it’s due date can I still use ??

    1. Hi John – sweet potatoes with orange flesh tend to be softer than ones that are white, so the consistency will not be the same. As far as the canned sweet potatoes past it’s due date, that’s your call. I personally would not used canned goods that are out of date.

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