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They are sweet potatoes, NOT YAMS!
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They are sweet potatoes, NOT YAMS! They are sweet potatoes, NOT YAMS! The differences between sweet potatoes and yams? The common orange sweet potatoes you find are sweet potatoes, not yams. Sweet potatoes are grown in the U.S. in the ground. Yams are grown in Africa, Asia, South American and the Carribean and hang from a tree! Sweet potatoes you can hold in your hand, yams grow up to 7' long! Botanically, they are different and not even distantly related in any way however the USDA classifies the orange sweet potato as a yam. Sweet potatoes come in a white flesh or a pale yellow flesh while the ones I prefer and recommend are the orange flesh. The white flesh is not sweet, do not buy this. The outside skin is a lighter color. Buy the darker skin sweet potato with the orange flesh. The yam has a brown or black skin which resembles the bark of a tree and off-white, purple or red flesh, depending on the variety. However, the yam is slowly becoming more common in US markets and most of the 150 varieties of the yam are sweeter than the sweet potato and have a higher moisture content. They are also marketed by their Spanish names, boniato and ñame. Sweet potatoes offer 5 grams of protein in an 8 ounce serving, compared to 2 grams for yams, necessary for muscle building and tissue repair. As with most plant sources of protein, the proteins in yams and sweet potatoes do not provide all the essential amino acids your body needs. Sweet potatoes offer 40 grams of carbohydrates per 8-ounce serving supplying 7.5 grams of fiber. Sweet potatoes are very low fat foods, with less than half a gram of fat per serving. Your body requires some dietary fat to ensure a healthy intake of fat-soluble vitamins. An 8 oz sweet potato<b> supplies </font></b>a whopping 270 percent of your daily requirement for this vitamin, which is needed to keep your skin and soft tissues healthy. It’s also a good source of vitamin C, vitamin B6, thiamine and pantothenic acid, with 1 cup of sweet potatoes providing between 20 and 50 percent of your daily needs for each of these vitamins. Vitamin C helps your body repair wounds and damaged tissues, and vitamin B6, thiamine and pantothenic acid work to metabolize your food and keep your cells in good condition. A 1-cup serving of sweet potatoes gives you half your daily requirements for potassium, copper and manganese. Potassium helps with energy production and muscle contraction, while copper plays a role in the synthesis of collagen, hemoglobin and melanin. Choose sweet potatoes for the nutritional benefits but try yams to experiment. |
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