What is the difference between sweet potatos and yams? Whenever I go looking for sweet potatos, I can only find yams. When I go to Outback for dinner, I order the sweet potato...is that really a sweet potato? I like the sweetness of it, even without anything added. Is one better for you than the other? I'm on my way to the supermarket in a bit, someone help!

From what I understand, almost every "yam" you see at the supermarket or on a menu in the U.S. is actually a sweet potato, just mistakenly named by people that don't know the difference.

Here's an interesting site by someone striving to teach us the difference, and includes photos at the bottom
http://sweetpotato.pinkfairywand.com/

And this http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a990604b.html

This wiki article on true yams http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yam_%28vegetable%29 has some amazing pictures of the real thing. They are huge!

Thank you!

Yams aren't readily available in the US. The terms 'sweet potato' and 'yam' are used interchangeably.

That and sweet potatoes aren't really a potato, they're a root vegetable.

Just a tidbit of useless information

Technically that is true; however, "practically speaking" it depends on what part of the country you live in. In the Midwest where I grew up the terms were used interchangeably. But here in the Pacific NW where I now live people refer to them differently. The darker, reddish looking ones (which I grew up calling "sweet potatoes") are called yams, while the lighter colored ones are called sweet potatoes. I know several people (self included) who have forgotten this and been disappointed when they bought cartons of prepackaged "sweet potatoes" and gotten what they thought of as yams.

Not sure if this helps but something to watch for. The reason I became aware of it was that I did not even know the lighter ones existed until I had them at a friend's house and loved them! I have always HATED what I had thought of as sweet potatoes (the dark ones).

Sue

Just to add a little more confusion, lol, there are also white sweet potatoes. They are orange on the outside, but white on the inside, and still are sweet potatoes.

I've been buying garnet sweet potatoes lately that are offered in our organic food stores. They are a deep orange and are very good

About as much fun as trying to get turnips (the smallish white and purple things) and rutabagas (the larger orange and purplish things) sorted out.