Let’s Get It Right, Sweet Potatoes Aren’t Yams
In true capitalist form, we’ve spent years making yams and sweet potatoes synonymous due to a decades-old marketing campaign. There are two types of sweet potatoes: tubers with white flesh and those with orange flesh. The USDA started calling the latter yams to help farmers push sales, ignoring the fact that real yams, commonly found in West Africa, the Caribbean, and Asia, are completely different.
Siblings? More Like Distant Cousins
Sweet potatoes and yams are both tubers, but neither are related to potatoes or each other. There are hundreds of yam varieties, but none of them can survive in the US (so, you’ve probably never really had one).
The initial confusion took place back when African slaves mistook the white-fleshed sweet potatoes of the South for a type of their yams and we’ve been living in this confusing state of existence ever since.
The Taste Test
The African yam is typically used to make flour, but can achieve a sweetness when cooked. Both kinds of sweet potatoes live true to their namesake, boasting a candy-like taste, but the orange-fleshed variety is packed with more Vitamin A than a large carrot. If you hate carrots/your mom for making you eat them, sweet potatoes are a completely underrated substitute.
How To Stop Being So Basic With Sweet Potatoes
You don’t have to just throw sugar on them, they’re already sweet. If you embrace the more savory, natural sweetness, you can find uses for both kinds of sweet potato in salads, soups, and casseroles.
Instagram user @Helloitspetra
Seriously, just substitute them for potatoes in any recipe and prepare to amaze yourself while knocking off about 100 calories per potato. More adventurous types can throw some spices into the mix, if you really like confusing your tastebuds, in a surprise birthday party kind of way.
So put some respek on their name: sweet potatoes are too awesome for us to keep calling them yams.
