Is it a yam or is it a sweet potato?

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Is it a yam or is it a sweet potato?

Postby jamietwo » Sun Sep 16, 2018 10:39 am

The Sprouts where I shop almost always sells two varieties of "yams" and at least one variety that they label as "sweet potato". If one of your main starches was yams and you wanted to do an elimination diet using sweet potatoes in place of yams, would you trust the labeling?! :shock:

According to this site: https://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysterie ... otato.html

"Although yams and sweet potatoes are both angiosperms (flowering plants), they are not related botanically. Yams are a monocot (a plant having one embryonic seed leaf) and from the Dioscoreaceae or Yam family. Sweet Potatoes, often called ‘yams’, are a dicot (a plant having two embryonic seed leaves) and are from the Convolvulacea or morning glory family."
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Re: Is it a yam or is it a sweet potato?

Postby Idgie » Sun Sep 16, 2018 10:50 am

True yams look really different. You would know if you saw one. Often, the market will call one color of sweet potato a sweet potato and the other a yam, but a real yam looks like this:

Image
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Re: Is it a yam or is it a sweet potato?

Postby AlwaysAgnes » Sun Sep 16, 2018 11:03 am

jamietwo wrote:The Sprouts where I shop almost always sells two varieties of "yams" and at least one variety that they label as "sweet potato". If one of your main starches was yams and you wanted to do an elimination diet using sweet potatoes in place of yams, would you trust the labeling?! :shock:

According to this site: https://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysterie ... otato.html

"Although yams and sweet potatoes are both angiosperms (flowering plants), they are not related botanically. Yams are a monocot (a plant having one embryonic seed leaf) and from the Dioscoreaceae or Yam family. Sweet Potatoes, often called ‘yams’, are a dicot (a plant having two embryonic seed leaves) and are from the Convolvulacea or morning glory family."



You will very rarely see a true yam in the U.S., unless you're shopping at an international market. The "yam" and sweet potatoes at Sprouts and most grocers are sweet potatoes, just different colors--pale yellow, orange, darker orange, maybe purple.

Once upon a time I bought a small (real) yam and took a picture of it alongside a sweet potato ("yam"). https://karicooks.blogspot.com/2012/04/ ... otato.html There are more pics of sweet potatoes and yams here: https://www.marksdailyapple.com/differe ... -potatoes/
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Re: Is it a yam or is it a sweet potato?

Postby colonyofcells » Sun Sep 16, 2018 11:46 am

Sweet Potato is ipomoea batatas.
True yam is dioscorea:
dioscorea cayennensis (dioscorea cayenensis)(yellow yam and subspecies rotundata white yam)(origin africa). sold in african grocery.
dioscorea polystachya (origin china). Chinese yam common name is japanese name nagaimo found in asian grocery and japanese grocery.
dioscorea alata (origin asia). Purple yam can be found in asian grocery as ube (philippines) and in india grocery as ratalu.
dioscorea trifida (origin south america). cush cush can be found in hispanic grocery and asian grocery.
Last edited by colonyofcells on Sun Sep 16, 2018 12:28 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Is it a yam or is it a sweet potato?

Postby Vegankit » Sun Sep 16, 2018 12:10 pm

jamietwo wrote:The Sprouts where I shop almost always sells two varieties of "yams" and at least one variety that they label as "sweet potato". If one of your main starches was yams and you wanted to do an elimination diet using sweet potatoes in place of yams, would you trust the labeling?! :shock:

According to this site: https://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysterie ... otato.html

"Although yams and sweet potatoes are both angiosperms (flowering plants), they are not related botanically. Yams are a monocot (a plant having one embryonic seed leaf) and from the Dioscoreaceae or Yam family. Sweet Potatoes, often called ‘yams’, are a dicot (a plant having two embryonic seed leaves) and are from the Convolvulacea or morning glory family."
Both the sweet potatoes and the "yams" that Sprouts are selling are sweet potatoes. It certainly is confusing. I doubt Sprouts are selling true yams which are rarely sold in the US except in ethnic grocery stores.

Sweet potatoes are often called "yams" in the southern parts of the US, in the north they are called sweet potatoes. Sometimes if sweet potatoes are grown in the south, they are labelled yams and grown in the north, labelled sweet potatoes. I bet the ones labelled yams in your Sprouts were grown in a southern state.

Enjoy all three of these as your sweet potato starch in your elimination diet. I've done that - and I've also included the Japanese or Asian sweet potato too.
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Re: Is it a yam or is it a sweet potato?

Postby jamietwo » Sun Sep 16, 2018 12:43 pm

Thanks, everyone, for clarifying!

Vegankit, I would love to use them in my elimination diet, but my two main starches are currently brown rice and yams (aka sweet potatoes!), and I'm concerned that one or both of them might be "suspect". I may have to go with butternut squash after all, but frozen is cost-prohibitive (and hard to find where I live) and fresh is time-prohibitive (especially when I think I threw away the rack for my instant pot. :shock: :-P
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Re: Is it a yam or is it a sweet potato?

Postby Idgie » Sun Sep 16, 2018 1:48 pm

Jamie, I made a pressure-cooker rack like this; I used foil instead of the zip-ties this blogger uses:

Image
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Re: Is it a yam or is it a sweet potato?

Postby GeoffreyLevens » Sun Sep 16, 2018 3:51 pm

If you have enough canning jar rings to fill the space, you don't need any sort of ties. Just put them in, add water, food, and go.

Minimal labor if you're around to bake butternut squash. Put whole, as is, on baking sheet and bake at 350 or so until fork stab soft. THEN once it cools a bit, you can cut in half, scoop seeds, peel (or not) whatever. No need to wrestle with rock hard squash and sharp knife so danger and hassle eliminated. Mostly just put in oven, set timer, forget about it. Can do in evening after work and once it cools some, stick in fridge and it's ready when you are.
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Re: Is it a yam or is it a sweet potato?

Postby Idgie » Sun Sep 16, 2018 4:16 pm

I have found that if I don't fasten the rings to each other, one or more is pushed out from under by the boiling water, and sometimes things topple.
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Re: Is it a yam or is it a sweet potato?

Postby jamietwo » Sun Sep 16, 2018 5:52 pm

Great suggestions! Thanks Idgie and Geoffrey! :)

You know, if I postponed this a couple of months, the squash would be on sale and I'd enjoy the heat from the oven! :lol:
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Re: Is it a yam or is it a sweet potato?

Postby Pumpkin Pete » Sun Sep 16, 2018 7:39 pm

Hi,

I have written about this in a regular food tip I write for my local community garden. As I state in the food tip, hopefully it may clear up the confustion.
Here is the link;
https://sites.google.com/site/qhuccommunitygarden/peter-s-food-tips-from-our-garden
Click onto the food tip for I. I is for Ipomoea batas - the scientific name for sweet potato.
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Re: Is it a yam or is it a sweet potato?

Postby colonyofcells » Sun Sep 16, 2018 8:07 pm

Picture of the many types of purple sweet potato in japan:
https://imgur.com/sHu7qXA
from website:
http://www.orchidtropical.com/sweet-potato/
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Re: Is it a yam or is it a sweet potato?

Postby landog » Tue Sep 18, 2018 4:26 pm

It's a sweet potato. :D
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Re: Is it a yam or is it a sweet potato?

Postby Werner1950 » Wed Sep 19, 2018 7:46 am

Apparently no one told this couple.
Image
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Re: Is it a yam or is it a sweet potato?

Postby Idgie » Wed Sep 19, 2018 8:36 am

Adorable!!
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