Sweet Potatoes

I’m about to drop a major food bomb on you. Are you ready to have your mind blown??  Sweet potatoes are NOT potatoes! They are tubers but not potatoes. Potatoes are in the NightShade family remember, along with eggplant, tomato, etc. Sweet Potatoes are in the Morning Glory family and are just the edible tuber of the plant. Now potatoes are also edible tubers but of the potato plant. Sweet Potatoes are a completely different botanical beast. Unlike potatoes, sweet potatoes grow on rambling vines with gorgeous white or pale pink flowers that resemble the garden Morning Glory flowers and the leaves of the plant are also edible. Unfortunately eating the sweet potato leaves hasn’t quite caught on here in the US. They are popular in Viet Nam and elsewhere. It’s a shame because the leaves are super high in lutein, one of the best sources of lutein in fact, which is super important for our eye health.  But the tuber we eat is packed with good stuff too, the orange fleshed variety contains the highest amount of beta-carotene of any vegetable, the purple fleshed variety contains antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties to help block toxic effects from toxic heavy metals. Sweet potatoes also contain high amounts of vitamin A, C and are full of manganese, calcium, potassium, iron, B6 and fiber. It’s like a fiber boosted multi-vitamin. 

There are different varieties of sweet potatoes; the red skinned with orange flesh and white skinned purple fleshed as I mentioned. There’s also red skinned white fleshed and yellow skin white fleshed varieties too. And please DO NOT PEEL your sweet potatoes! Keep that nutrition and save yourself the time. 

Now seems like a good time to tackle the whole yam controversy. A yam is also a completely different botanical beast. Yams have hard brown tree bark like skin. They kind of look like a piece of tree root. At the grocery store and yes, even at the farmers market, you’ll see people labeling sweet potatoes as yams. It’s just a marketing ploy from the 50’s that stuck and some people just can’t let go of calling sweet potatoes yams. And sometimes farmers call sweet potatoes yams because they think you know them better as yams. Just like I still call a tissue a Kleenex. So just know that a real yam doesn’t look friendly or delicious and anything you see that looks like a sweet potato but is labeled a yam, is a sweet potato. Was that clear or clear as mud??

The bottom line - eat more sweet potatoes, they’re really, really good for you. This week I’m sharing the link to Epicurious’ 77 Sweet Potato Recipes for Any TIme of Day .  I think you should try the Sweet Potato Pie with praline topping, the Winter Stew, Sweet Potato Cobbler, Charred Chicken with Sweet Potatoes and Oranges, Spiced Sweet Potato Sandwich with Feta, Sweet Potato Sonker with Milk Dip (a classic North Carolina dessert), and Sweet Potato Bread with caramel and pecans. For the most health benefit however, steam your sweet potatoes with the skin on and finish them with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. Enjoy! 

• Trauger's Farm
• Jersey Pickles
• Wildemore Farm
• Bedminster Orchard
• Perfect Day Coffee
• Nord Bread
• Hershberger Heritage Farm
• Primordia Mushroom Farm
• Rabbit's Run Farm & Pan's Forest
• Spring Creek Farm
• Solrig Farm Microgreens
• Portch Tea Kombucha
• Wholly Crepe

• Noshes by Sherri
• Pie Bird Farm
• Love Grows
• Raymer's Homemade Candies
• Carol Cares Aromatherapy
• Marie's Soap Company
• Bucks County Alpacas
• Kathy's Kanine Kreations
• Wildbird Flowers
• FD Market Co. Refillery
• Ten 7 Brewing
• The Colony Meadery
• Chaddsford Winery

apples, apple cider, beets, onions, winter squash, eggplant, peppers, potatoes, sweet potatoes, spinach, Napa cabbage, turnips, Swiss Chard, Red Russian kale, Brussel Sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli, daikon radish, ginger, turmeric, fennel 

2nd Annual Winter Market at the Mercantile
on the following Saturdays from 10am to 1pm
December 3rd and 17th
January 7th and 21st
February 4th and 18th