Although not actually part of the potato family, sweet potatoes have become one of America’s favorite tuber vegetables. With an all-time high in 2017 at 8 pounds per capita. Not only are they so popular in the modern world, but they were also so popular in old times that George Washington grew them in his back yard, and in world war 1, people used starch from sweet potatoes to make flour in order to stretch wheat flour. Although this was more due to an abundance of food at the time.
- Kingdom: Plantae
- Order: Solanales
- Family: Convolvulaceae
- Genus: Ipomoea
- Species: I. Batatas
- Binomial name: Ipomoea batatas
Sweet Potatoes Trivia
Facts:
- The sweet potato is the official state vegetable of North Carolina
- February is sweet potato month.
- Sweet potatoes can range from white, brown to yellow and even purple.
Definitions:
- Tuber: Enlarged structures in some plant species used as storage organs for nutrients. They are used for the plant’s perennation, to provide energy and nutrients for regrowth during the next growing season, and as a means of asexual reproduction.
- Per Capita: a unit of mesurement for each person; in relation to people taken individually.
- Hundredweight(cwt): a unit of weight equal to 100 lb
- Domestication: the process whereby wild plants have been evolved into crop plants through artificial selection.
- Yams: Yam is the common name for some plant species in the genus Dioscorea (family Dioscoreaceae) that form edible tubers.
- Yucca: a long and tapered, with a firm, homogeneous flesh encased in a detachable rind, about 1 mm thick, rough and brown on the outside.
- beta carotene: a red-orange pigment found in plants and fruits, especially carrots and colorful vegetables.