are white sweet potatos still sweet potatos? I am eating one right now. Sweet potatos are recommended for me.

They are yellow rather than orange, and do taste like a sweet potato.

Yes.  My favorite are the variety called "Japanese Yams"   Burgundy on the outside, off white/cream flesh on the inside.

They're labelled as the same thing but yams are a type of sweet potato.  Are they the same thing really?
http://zoebakes.com/2008/11/21/the-sweet-potato-vs-yam-debate-on-nprs-weekend-america/

Based on the pictures from the above link what I buy most often are jewel yams.  But they are labelled as garnet yams which I guess might be the same thing.

The one i was eating is called a Garnet Yam. Not bad tasting. I think if I eat alot of sweet potatos, I might pick the garnet yam because all these health foods have such strong flavors, I bore of them quickly. The garnet yam is sweet but mild. Sweet and mild is more palatable for everyday use, which is why regular potatos, white bread, white rice are so popular. Anything with a distinct taste seems to benifit from frequent rotation.

In fact, the need to rotate my food choices is the biggest problem with the BTD/GTD! All these strong (but delicious) flavored veggies wear out their welcome too quickly with my palate.

The "yam" label in the store in the US is essential useless as far as identifying whether it is a yam or sweet potato as far as the Blood Type/GenoType/SWAMI diets are concerned.

One is a dicot the other is monocot. They are quite different botanically.


If it is Ipomoea batatas  in the family Convolvulaceae (morning glories) you treat as a sweet potato regardless of color. (dicot)


Any genus in the order of Dioscorea (family Dioscoreaceae) is treated as a yam in  Blood Type/GenoType/SWAMI diets.

More on yams http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yam_(vegetable)

Garnet yam and the jewel yam are both varieties of Ipomoea batatas and there fore not yams as far as Blood Type/GenoType/SWAMI diets are concerned.

just to clarify, white potatoes are different "sweet potatoes" although you can get a white fleshed sweet potato.

the classic white potato is what they make French fies or chips or crisps out of, can be boiled, fried, sautéed, or mashed they are a nightshade. some people even say the skins are the best part. it never eat the skins and rarely eat white potatoes. but i used to eat them for 40 years.

i used to not like sweet potatoes but since doing BTD, i have become very fond of them. things change lol

A friend who is Jamaican says we have it all wrong with the yam/sweet potato thing. The sweet potato is creamy white in colour, no hint of orange or yellow flesh. Out labeling is wrong. Need to shop at West Indies stores to find a true sweet potato and there is no comparing the flavour of the two.

Quoted Text

The sweet potato is creamy white in colour, no hint of orange or yellow flesh.

This is my understanding to.  A yam is orange inside.  Yams are usually referred to as sweet potato's.

hmm, I believe it is the yam that you can only find in the west indies grocery....
sweet potatoes are in varied colors and can be found in the US...is that what you meant?

Yes, white sweet potatoes are the same, for BTD purposes, as regular sweet potatoes.  Yay!  I bought white sweet potatoes today as a matter of fact.  I like them because they don't seem as sugary sweet as regular orange sweet potatoes (or yams).  I bet they make a good substitute for regular white potatoes, for roasting or mashing.

2 days off potatoes - which replaced wheat for me so I ate ALOT and the muscular pain in my upper back and neck seems to have subsided!

I really hope this continues as muscle tension in my back, neck and chest have impeded me for years!

Anything else I should avoid - tomatoes?

Peace

Quoted from Anxious O

2 days off potatoes -

Anything else I should avoid - tomatoes?

You can look up many foods in the Typebase listed above in "Online Support".

Tomatoes are Neutral for Type O per BTD...

Since you have read ER4YT and LR4YT, you know the major foods to avoid are listed at the front of the food lists for each type in both books...

Anxious O - it depends about the tomatoes. I don't have joint pain so I get them as a diamond food in my SWAMI. If I check off the box in SWAMI for joint pain, I get it as an avoid.

I have hardly eaten white potatoes the past 30 years (only at Christmas or dining at a friend's), so perhaps if I had it would be a different story. I don't eat tomatoes every week, mostly in the summer and a bit of sauce the rest of the time.

Quoted from Anxious O

2 days off potatoes - which replaced wheat for me so I ate ALOT and the muscular pain in my upper back and neck seems to have subsided!

I really hope this continues as muscle tension in my back, neck and chest have impeded me for years!

Anything else I should avoid - tomatoes?

Peace

Tomatoes completely wreck my nervous system, and I am an A-Type non-secretor.

Very interesting - thinking I should avoid all nightshades and add back in as I progress.

Many thanks

A

smart move anxious get a secretor test and then get swami, you'll be glad you did. perhaps fill in some more detail in your signature bit of your profile so some of the more experienced members can help you further - the more info the better.

lol @ the yams vs sweet potato debate.

i did a whole lot of research on this as one is a diamond for me (sweet potato) and the other an avoid (yam).

i found a lot of conflicting info, and ended up consulting a horticulturist at the college where i do some contract work.

C_Sharp has it right....

in a nut shell, sweet potato is part of the morning glory family and the root can be an number of colours from pale yellow thru to dark orange. The skin is thin and smooth and is only a little darker than the interior flesh (more reddish for the orange, more tannish for the yellow). The the darker the sweet potato, the richer and sweeter the flavour.

a true yam, OTOH, has a rough, outer skin (kind of hairy or shaggy), usually medium to dark brown, and the insides a white or very pale cream colour. The flavour is very bland. It is very starchy.

In the US and Canada, what is labelled as a "yam" *ie the thin skinned, orange tapered root* is in reality one of about a dozen varieties of sweet potato. What is labelled sweet potato (the light yellow to medium yellow tapered root) is also a sweet potato.

A true yam is seldom seen in the stores in the US and Canada, but may show up in specialty stores like West Indies groceries and some Asian super markets. I have seen them occasionally in my local store labelled as a mountain yam or a chinese yam.

The other visual difference that i can think of is the shape. Sweet potatoes are elongated and tapered on both ends. A yam tends to be more tubular shaped. I have seen true yams that were a lighter skinned...but they had a hairy or prickly look about them. That's a big cue.

Zenphoenix - thanks for such a thorough answer! It will make it much easier to find them now.

you're welcome!

as an addendum, i recently learned that true yams can be dark purple inside! I KNOW -  PURPLE! how odd! Apparently red as well... but they both have the long tubular shape and rough shaggy / scaly skin.