5 Reasons to Eat More Sweetpotatoes + A Surprising Benefit of Organizing Your Home | Karla Walsh

Written By Kornegay Family Farms and Produce

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Karla Walsh — Nov 7

Happy fall back Monday, all,

I hope you had a sweet Halloween! Rather than dressing up this year, I jetted off to Raleigh, North Carolina last Monday to spend a week with the North Carolina Sweetpotato Commission touring and studying up on how these root vegetables go from seed to sprout to supermarket to supper. In case you missed any of the action, I’ve created a North Carolina Highlight in my Instagram profile so you can relive it all with me—including my first ride in a tractor!

I learned far more than I had time to share while soaking it all up, however, so I wanted to recap a few fun facts about why I’m even more inspired than ever to cook with these colorful spuds.

  1. Sweetpotatoes are quite misunderstood. Even though your grocery store might label them as “yams” or your grandma served “candied yams” every Thanksgiving, there’s a very high likelihood that you, like me, have never actually eaten a yam. I have a story coming out about why this confusion is so common, so watch for that coming soon in the “What to Read” section of this newsletter. You might also be curious about why I’m spelling it as one word. This is actually the botanically correct spelling, and since sweetpotatoes are not related to potatoes and the sweet isn’t an adjective for the potato, petitions have been submitted to the AP Stylebook and dictionaries to adjust the spelling accordingly. Feel free to join me and beat the guidebook authors to the punch and start using the one-word spelling now, if you like!

  2. They’re packed with micronutrients. When you eat one medium sweetpotato with the skin, you score 100 percent of the recommended daily amount of vitamin A, which supports vision, bone structure and the immune system. To take in that amount of vitamin A from broccoli, for instance, the USDA confirms that you’d have to eat 23 cups(!). In another case of comparing produce aisle favorites, bananas often get the spotlight as a potassium superstar. But a 5-inch medium sweetpotato has 438 mg potassium, compared to a 7-inch medium banana’s 422 mg potassium. (By the way, eating a potassium-rich and lower-sodium diet may help reduce the risk of high blood pressure and heart disease, according to the American Heart Association.) Sweetpotatoes also deliver a dose of iron, vitamin C, phosphorus and several B vitamins.

  3. You can enjoy U.S.-grown sweetpotatoes year-round. You might spy locally-grown sweetpotatoes at your farmers market in fall and winter, which is when they’re harvested. If you do, stock up; when stored under proper conditions, they should last up to 2 weeks. But you’ll definitely see them 12 months of the year at your supermarket. How and why? Before this trip, I guessed that they were shipped in from other countries, just like retailers do with berries or tropical fruit, for instance. But many commercially-sold sweetpotatoes actually undergo a natural process called “curing.” To cure, farmers keep harvested sweetpototoes under climate-controlled conditions (80° to 85° F temperature and 80 to 90 percent relative humidity) for 4 to 7 days post-harvest. This shifts some of the starches into sugars, making the flesh sweeter and the skin tougher. Then, if they store them between 55° and 60° F at 85 percent relative humidity, the roots can last for nearly a full year.

  4. Scientists are leveraging genetic information and natural breeding processes to develop new varieties of sweetpotatoes with superpowers. North Carolina grows about 2 in every 3 sweetpotatoes sold in the U.S. Since it is, by far, the top-producing state, experts from one of its universities are helping to change the American industry—and the world—with their research. By tapping into genome mapping and breeding trials in partnership with local farmers, North Carolina State University experts like Dr. Ken Pecota and Dr. Craig Yencho are making the world a more colorful, delicious and healthier place. (Dr. Yencho and Dr. Pecota spoke at one of our dinners, and led us through a mind-bending tasting session, which you’ll see in my Instagram Highlight!) To date, their work has produced new varieties that are particularly stellar at:

    1. Growing and thriving in subsaharan Africa. As part of their work with SweetGAINS, a project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the scientists are working to find pest-resistant, climate-tolerant sweetpotato styles that can help combat hunger across Africa.

    2. Providing polyphenols. The latest purple sweetpotato varieities have more cancer-fighting anthocyanins than grapes, elderberries and red cabbage, according to an August 2022 study published in the journal .

    3. Being transformed into crispy-on-the-outside, fluffy-on-the-inside sweetpotato fries.

    4. Looking beautiful. Many gardeners and landscapers like to showcase ornamental sweetpotato varieties, which are prized for their beautiful leaves.

    5. Tasting amazing! The tan-skinned, orange-fleshed Covington account for about 9 in 10 sweetpotatotes grown in North Carolina, and about 20 percent of all grown across the U.S. The North Carolina State research team are in the lab daily trying to find a new style that is even more delicious—and can stand up to the rapidly-changing and extreme weather patterns.

  5. Sweetpotatoes are remarkably versatile. From soups and stews to cakes and cocktails to hashes and hand pies, you can add sweetpoatoes to your menu any time of day. To keep the fun going and to bring this journey back to Iowa, I’m going to share this newsletter on Instagram with some images of my favorite sweetpotato dishes from Des Moines area restaurants. ICYMI, you can find me @karlaswalsh!

What to Read…

Ready to discover your “true abundance”? The answer might lie in a magic little thing called tidying up. According to the organizing and mental health experts I spoke to for the first feature below, taking charge of the energy in our spaces helps us live in the present, lead a more fulfilling life, and let go of things — and people — from our past that diminish our self-worth. It’s a way to approach the world with a mindset of quality over quantity, and allows us to focus on what trulymatters.

The outer order, inner calm philosophy popularized by author Gretchen Rubin was an absolute game-changer in my new place, which I’ve called home for 13 months. I realized that all the “stuff” in my previous apartment was majorly weighing me down. So before I packed, I donated about two-thirds of my possessions, keeping only what I would actually use and would be proud to share and have in my space. As a result, I was able to unpack in less than 48 hours, am aware of everything that’s within my walls, have an easier job doing quick tidy-up tasks (to welcome guests happily any time) and can focus better on my work and life (rather than where I put that pair of shoes or the closet I should have cleaned 6 months ago).

Find this story, along with plenty of Thanksgiving tips, 8 ways to use one of the most heart-healthy pantry staples and more in my newly-published content this week:


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