Yam or Sweet Potato?

I had made some low carb crepes the other day and this morning our daughter asked (texted me from her bedroom…) if I would be making crepes again.  I remarked I needed to figure out a filling and she suggested Sweet Potatoes.  Hmm, that sounds pretty good, so thats what I did and the family really liked them!  Find the recipe here Sweet Potato filling for crepes.
In our house, we are looking for natural, healthful, low carbohydrate, and low sugar foods.  We rotate the items we bring home so that we do not eat the same thing every week and one of those items are Sweet Potatoes.  I couldn’t remember the carbohydrate count of a sweet potato so I looked it up, and then thought, I should compare with yams.  Well, it turns out that their overall carb count is close, but the grams of sugar are significantly less for a yam (150g serving = 0.8g sugar for a yam vs sweet potato’s 6.3g sugar).  With that knowledge, I then wanted to know the difference between the two.

According to North Carolina SweetPotato Commision Inc.
A true yam is a starchy edible root of the Dioscorea genus, and is generally imported to America from the Caribbean. It is rough and scaly and very low in beta carotene. http://www.ncsweetpotatoes.com/sweet-potatoes-101/difference-between-yam-and-sweet-potato/

I then thought of the canned yams that were used by my mom to make Thanksgiving dinner, so I Googled canned yams and clicked on the image of the label I recognized.

Then I saw it! “Bruce’s YAMS CUT SWEET POTATOES IN SYRUP”   WHAAAAT? I’ve been hoodwinked!  Cruel awaking – all of my Thanksgiving memories just flooded back and I can’t decide if I feel betrayed or not!

So how do I tell the difference between the two?

Another Google search and I find this great flow chart.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/26/sweet-potatoes-or-yams_n_4325275.html

Now I know and now you know too!

Nutrition Facts: