Sweet potatoes are part of the morning glory family. They come in two main types: one with pale, dry flesh and one with orange, moist flesh. That orange one? It’s often mislabeled as a yam.
Real yams are a whole different story. They belong to the Dioscorea family, and they’re native to Africa and Asia. They’re starchier, drier, and can grow as big as your arm. I’m not exaggerating—some yams hit over 100 pounds.
You’ve probably never eaten a real yam unless you’ve visited an international market or a Caribbean grocery store. And even then, you might have glanced right past them. They look like rough, bark-covered logs.
Why does this confusion exist?
Blame the South and a little bit of marketing genius. In the 1930s, farmers in Louisiana started growing orange-fleshed sweet potatoes. They wanted to distinguish them from the pale ones, so they called them “yams.”
The USDA went along with it. They let stores label these sweet potatoes as yams, as long as they also said “sweet potato” somewhere. It was supposed to be temporary. It stuck. And now we have a collective identity crisis at the produce section.
Imagine if someone started calling apples “oranges” and everyone just went with it. That’s where we are. Ridiculous, right?
