PHOENIX — Yams and sweet potatoes are both popular during the Thanksgiving holiday, but the vegetables are not the same thing.
For starters, the vegetables used to make candied yams and sweet potato pie don’t really look alike. They are different on both the outside and the inside.
The University of Mississippi has pointed out some of the differences between the two holiday treats.
Their overall shapes differ from one another. Yams are long and cylindrical while sweet potatoes are blocky and short.
Sweet potatoes have smooth orange thin skin while yams have rough brown scaly skin.
On the inside, sweet potatoes can have orange, white or purple flesh while yams have white flesh.
They also have a different consistency to them. You’ll find yams are more dry and starchy but sweet potatoes are moist and sweet.
Another big difference is where they come from. Yams are imported to the United States from the Caribbean and sweet potatoes are homegrown in the United States.
The part that you eat is different for each. You eat the tuber of a yam and the root of a sweet potato.
From a botanical standpoint, the two vegetables are very different, according to the Library of Congress.
Yams are closely related to plants like lilies and grasses. Many varieties of sweet potatoes, however, are likely to be members of the morning glory family.
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