Yams vs sweet potatoes?

Francl27

What in the world is the difference?

Sigmalongshot

They're the same thing!

RangerRN507

Same Thing

sjaplo

They are completely different species........

http://homecooking.about.com/od/howtocookvegetables/a/sweetpotatodiff.htm

Francl27

I know, but how do you tell?

sjaplo

I know, but how do you tell?

From the link;

"Generally sweeter than than the sweet potato, this tuber can grow over seven feet in length.

The word yam comes from African words njam, nyami, or djambi, meaning "to eat," and was first recorded in America in 1676.

The yam tuber has a brown or black skin which resembles the bark of a tree and off-white, purple or red flesh, depending on the variety. They are at home growing in tropical climates, primarily in South America, Africa, and the Caribbean.

Yams contain more natural sugar than sweet potatoes and have a higher moisture content. They are also marketed by their Spanish names, boniato and ñame."

hawaiiandream

Yams are very orange in color inside and make a great sweet potato casserole ironically.. The sweet potato inside looks just like a regular potato coloring, maybe a tad darker. I use yams at thanksgiving, etc. I use sweet potatoes and throw one or two in my potato salad and always get so many compliments because the hint of sweet makes it so yummy. But the color is the same as the rest of the potato so nobody ever knows where the taste is coming from..

DecemberPsalm

Yams are cheaper than sweet potatoes (in my area anyway), so I'm going to switch to yams! Either way they are my favorite "diet food" because they're soooo filling.

homesweeths

A produce guy told me that American yams are just a variety of sweet potato.

mygnsac

Aside from their color difference, to me yams do have a deeper and different kind of sweet taste (don't know how to describe it) and I prefer to eat them in a casserole or as a holiday yam dish. Sweet potatoes are my favorite to eat straight up with nothing added. Love them roasted, baked, and steamed.

quiltlovinlisa

"Yam" is more fun to say.

lemurcat12

A produce guy told me that American yams are just a variety of sweet potato.

According to wiki, that is mostly right.

Real yams apparently have a rough and scaly skin, whereas pretty much any "yams" I've seen in the US have the same skin as a sweet potato. From the Library of Congress' "Fun Science Facts" (http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysteries/sweetpotato.html):

Why the confusion?

In the United States, firm varieties of sweet potatoes were produced before soft varieties. When soft varieties were first grown commercially, there was a need to differentiate between the two. African slaves had already been calling the ‘soft’ sweet potatoes ‘yams’ because they resembled the yams in Africa. Thus, ‘soft’ sweet potatoes were referred to as ‘yams’ to distinguish them from the ‘firm’ varieties.

Today the U.S. Department of Agriculture requires labels with the term ‘yam’ to be accompanied by the term ‘sweet potato.’ Unless you specifically search for yams, which are usually found in an international market, you are probably eating sweet potatoes!

For what it's worth, I've always just seen "sweet potatoes" and called them that, and until recently I'd just thought yam was a synonym for sweet potatoes used mostly in the South. Since learning they were two separate vegetables I've occasionally looked for yams and not seen anything labeled as such. I also never saw the white ones until a couple of weeks ago when I accidently bought one at WF and freaked out when I peeled it, wondering it I'd accidently bought some weird potato instead. I looked it up, reassured myself that a sweet potato could look that way, and it tasted basically like a regular one. Next time I went to WF I checked and saw they were selling "white sweet potatoes" in addition to the regular kind.

janine2355

My understanding is they are the same

Francl27

My store sells them as 'yams' but if you look it up, you see that yams supposedly look very different...

I'm just asking because the nutrition info is different by 20% or so in the database, lol. Never know which one to use... Would you use the orange one as 'yam' and the white one as 'sweet potatoes' then?

lilithsrose

I believe they're pretty much the same in taste, but they technically are a different species. Yams are from Africa and have a different color skin that a sweet potato. Sorry I can't be more detailed.

There are different sweet potatoes too. I had something called and Oriental Sweet Potato the other day. The skin was purple and the inside was yellow. It was tasty.

mygnsac

In our grocery stores, the dark orange ones are labeled 'yams' and the near white ones are labeled 'sweet potatoes,' and that is how I log. Also, too me, when cooked, there is a subtle texture and taste difference.