Baked yams/sweet potatoes and freshness?

[REWohsnus]

In particular my question relates to yams or the orange flesh sweet potatoes/yams and the white sweet potatoes found in US supermarkets. My questions:

1) The orange flesh yams or sweet potatoes I typically buy are consistently orange thoughout after baking. I love them, however, I toss any that are marbled white/orange .... typically I see the marbled occur at the end of the season. It is always a bummer to toss out one of these as you don't know the vegetable is bad until after baking. I understand fresh potatoes of all varieties come to market in November. Do you have the same experience with this type of sweet potato or yam. Is there anyway to determine if it will be white/orange marbled before baking?

2) The baked white sweet potatoes I have purchased recently (end of the season) look great on the outside, but after baking they turn brown/blue on the outside and on the inside are still light colored but darkish - they don't look good either - tossed seven away yesterday - egads! Have you had this happen? I'm thinking it is best perhaps to stop buying yams or sweet potatoes (white or orange) in the last couple of months and wait until November when the fresh ones come in. The waste has been incredible this year. I do love 'em though.

[calvin]

Been eating yams and sweets since started this woe over 4yrs ago and never tossed one. Sometimes cut off a section of overripeness though (mushy).

[Pumpkin Pete]

First please note sweet potato and yams are not the same - they are different vegetables only distantly related.
It's consistently a source of confusion.
I write about this in a food tip as part of a food tip series I post for my local community garden.
Here is the link;
https://sites.google.com/site/qhuccommunitygarden/peter-s-food-tips-from-our-garden
Please scroll down the page and click on the food tip; I for Ipomoea Bata (the scientific name for sweet potato).

I regularly consume sweet potato mostly of the common orange fleshed variety.
Recently I purchased a number of orange fleshed sweet potatoes that were on special.
To my surprise as this hasn't happened to me before is the sweet potatoes were bitter.
I thought this was very unusual but the sweet potatoes had probably been sitting around for months. I picked them from a selection of sweet potoates that were showing signs of spoilage. I will be a little more careful next time when selecting sweet potatoes.
Clearly it's not very pleasant biting into a sweet potato which is bitter when your expectation is that it will be sweet.

[GeoffreyLevens]

And the real problem is how the grower/producer handles them post harvest. Properly "cured", sweet potatoes will keep a very long time. Really this is a problem caused by mass distribution and long supply chains

https://homeandgardenpress.com/curing-a ... -potatoes/