Sweet Potato Awareness Month

When we think of potatoes, too often we focus only on the white, starchy vegetable that needs a ton of butter, gravy, or frying oil to taste like anything. "Regular" potatoes are--let's face it--pretty boring. November, however, is Sweet Potato Awareness Month!

Sweet potatoes are not to be confused with yams, though many grocery stores make this mistake. Yams have white, starchy insides, while sweet potatoes are orange and, well, sweet inside. And candied yams, the syrupy tubers sitting demurely in cans on our shelves, are actually sweet potatoes. Confused yet? No wonder we need to devote an entire month to sweet potato awareness!

Sweet potatoes are delicious on their own, but even better in dishes like sweet potato pie and sweet potato pancakes. They can also be substituted for their boring, starchy cousins in recipes like sweet potato fries and mashed sweet potatoes for an extra-tasty treat! As if we needed more reasons to love the noble sweet potato, they're extremely nutritious, with twice the recommended daily allowance of vitamin A, 42% of the RDA of vitamin C, four times the RDA of beta carotene, and heaps of fiber. Check out some delicious recipes at Sweet Potato Awareness HQ.

Remember, Fall has been here for a while and Thanksgiving is just around the corner--what better to accompany your turkey dinner than a nice steaming helping of sweet potatoes?