Sweet Potato vs Yam and their Benefits || Healthy Eats

Hello Beautiful People !

As a Chinese, I grew up eating sweet potatoes as dessert, as a meal, as a snack. It shocks me that I know so little of this amazing food. SO what are the difference and have we been buying the wrong stuff all along ?

What's a Sweet Potato?

There are many varieties of sweet potatoes, which come from the morning glory family. Skin color can range from white and yellow to red, purple and brown, while the flesh can be white, yellow, orange or even orange-red. These vegetables have an elongated shape with tapered ends.

Among the numerous varieties of sweet potatoes grown in the U.S. there are two major types:

Firm sweet potatoes, which have golden skin and paler flesh.
Soft sweet potatoes, which have copper skin and orange flesh.
The two types of sweet potatoes cook differently. After cooking firm sweet potatoes still remain firm and a little waxy, while the soft variety becomes creamy, fluffy, and moist.

What's a Yam?

Yams have a cylindrical shape with blackish or brown, bark-like skin and white, purple or reddish flesh. Compared to sweet potatoes, yams are starchier and drier. True yams can be tough to find. 



Quiz:
Which is which?


 (Answer : Left is yam . Right is sweet potato)

Benefit of Sweet Potatoes

• They are a good source of vitamin C that plays an important role in bone and tooth formation, digestion, and blood cell formation. It helps accelerate wound healing, produces collagen which helps maintain skin’s youthful elasticity, and is essential to helping us cope with stress. It even appears to help protect our body against toxins that may be linked to cancer.

• They contain Vitamin D that plays an important role in our energy levels, moods, and helps to build healthy bones, heart, nerves, skin, and teeth, and it supports the thyroid gland.

• Sweet potatoes contain iron. Most people are aware that we need the mineral iron to have adequate energy, but iron plays other important roles in our body, including red and white blood cell production, resistance to stress, proper immune functioning, and the metabolizing of protein, among other things.

• Controls blood sugar and maintaining energy

• Source of Vitamin A. This vitamin helps improve skin and hair growth. They encourage healthy, glowing skin and collagen growth

Benefit of Yams

• Blood Sugar and Weight Control. Yams' complex carbohydrates and fiber deliver the goods gradually, slowing the rate at which their sugars are released and absorbed into the bloodstream. In addition, because they're rich in fiber, yams fill you up without filling out your hips and waistline. 

• A good source of manganese,

• Yam contains small amounts of vitamin-A that maintains healthy mucus membranes and skin, night vision, growth and protection from lung and oral cavity cancers.

• It contains Vitamin C that plays an important roles in anti-aging, immune function, wound healing, and bone growth.

• Supports Female Endocrine System:

• Yam is particularly useful for menopausal women.  It contains an enzyme that provides a natural alternative to hormonal replacement in women who have reached menopause.Wild yam is also known to support the female endocrine system. Its root has been traditionally used in conjunction with lactation. Vitamin B6 is an important supplement for Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS) in women, especially the depression that is triggered by it.

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