Potatoes are only distantly related to sweet potatoes. They are also called “spuds,” which probably originated centuries ago from a term for a spade used to dig holes to plant potatoes. Having been cultivated for centuries, there are thousands of potato varieties worldwide.
Do potatoes and sweet potatoes belong to the same family?
Fact: Even though both the potato and sweet potato originated from Central and South America, they are actually not related. They come from different families, with the potato coming from the nightshade and the sweet potato from the morning glory family. Myth: Sweet potatoes are yams.
What is the difference between potatoes and sweet potatoes?
Sweet potatoes contain more calories, carbohydrates and fat than regular boiled potato, but the regular potato had more protein. Perhaps unsurprisingly, boiled sweet potatoes contain more than 14 times the amount of sugar of regular boiled potatoes (11.6g compared to 0.8g per 100g).
Why is a sweet potato not a potato?
Sweet potatoes are not potatoes Unlike regular potatoes, which are tubers, sweet potatoes are considered to be root vegetables. The root, however, is described as a tuberous root. Both sweet and regular potatoes grow under the soil, but they are very different when it comes to density, taste and nutrition.
Are sweet potatoes and yams closely related?
It's true: yams and sweet potatoes are totally different plants and are not even closely related. In fact, these tasty starchy veggies are actually in two different plant families entirely! Yams are members of the genus Dioscorea and are in their own special family, Dioscoreaceae.
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