Talk:Sweet potato/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Photo

Sure about that photo? Sweet potato leaves tend to be heart-shaped. Perhaps you have a yam photo.

Sweetpotato leaf shapes are as varied as the root skin and flesh color. I have grown many sweetpotato varieties in my garden, and few of them have heart-shaped leaves. I have grown one with purple-skin and white flesh with heart-shaped leaves (Kotobuki). Those having leaves that are not heart-shaped display a variety of what I term "notched" but described as "palmately lobed" in the wiki text. These have included Vardaman (orange skin, orange flesh), Okinawan (white skin, magenta flesh), and Purple (purple skin, purple flesh). I have photographed them and include them on my web page at http://www.angelfire.com/mo/DougYounkin/sweetpotatoes.html. -- Updated Doug Younkin (talk) 23:13, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Kumar/Kumara

I'd appreciate a reference on the kumar/kumara. I remember the story being a bit more complicated. Diderot 20:55, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

POV

The text says Sweet potatoes are believed to have originated in South America and spread throughout the tropical Americas into the Caribbean and across the South Pacific to Easter Island. Very likely the tuber drifted across the sea just as coconuts and some other plants still do today.

All other texts I have found on the Internet say that it is impossible for sweet potatoes to drift across the sea. They would rot long before they arrived at Easter Island. See for instance [1], [2] and [3].

Because the general Polynesian word for the sweet potato is kumara, and the South American word is kumar, it was originally thought that this was evidence of cross-Pacific contact between South America and Polynesia. However, linguists have determined that kumara and kumar are totally unrelated and have nothing to do with each other. This therefore cannot be considered as evidence of pre-Magellan trans-Pacific crossings.

I would really like a reference for this "linguistic" assertion. It would only be possible to rule out that it is the same word, if and only if, the name kumara can be determined to have appeared in Polynesian before an important sound change. Loan words, such as kumara possibly is do not lend themselves to such categorical conclusions. According to this site, it is the same word in South America and Polynesia [4]. I strongly suspect that we have a POV crusader against transoceanic crossings at Wikipedia.--Wiglaf 10:28, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I suspect rather less malicious intent, but everything I remember about the sweet potato problem suggests that it's more complicated than this article says. The "linguistic proof" that the words are unrelated is the one that sticks in my gaw, since the whole idea of linguists "proving" that the word isn't related to the one used in South America is a tad bizarre. The more I trawl the web on it, the more confused it gets. It's possible that only the radicals are writing webpages though. The DNA research is a bit weird too. I'd have to do some paper research to do it justice, and I haven't the time.
It's not that simple, either the for case or the against. Frakly, the whole business seems to attract enough crackpots that even if the crackpots are right, you still don't want to have much to do with them.
Diderot 13:31, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Diderot about the complexity, the crackpots, and the time constraints.
I believe that the South American origin is undisputed, and the controversy has only to do with how the sweet potato came to be used in Polynesia.
I removed the statement about "kumara" because this seems to be exactly one of the points debated. I'm sure a more complete treatment would reinclude it, but with more detail and sources. We should explain, at least, that there are variations in the Polynesian forms, and explain which South American languages, among the hundreds, use this word.
Pekinensis 18:56, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Sure. I hope someone can fill it in with a relevant discussion. I just read this article [5] and it is a nice article. However, he seems a bit too eager to debunk the hypotheses. Especially the part about the Kensington runestone was a little too hasty. I don't believe that the Kensington runestone is authentic, but the debunking is not as easy or as straightforward as he claims.--Wiglaf 19:31, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)
As far as I know, the "american" kumara word is from quechuan origin. This ambiguity should be mentioned in the article, and also in the disambiguation page, where it is stated that it is a maori word, without any mention to the american word. Perhaps it would be better to say that kumara refers to the sweet potato (in the disambiguation page), and in this page extend a little bit over the controversy (but not left it out). Also, even though I don't know nothing about the history of the sweet potato, it is considered a fact that it has an american origin, and that it spread to New Zealand in relatively recent times (1.000 years would qualify as recent, considering that americans grew the plant for 5.000 years). Given that fact, it is difficult for me to mantain that the name wouldn't have migrated along with the plant. The coincidence, on the other hand, seems very unlikely to me.

the "yum" hypothesis

Can anyone point to a reliable source for ..."'yams' (originally expressed as "yum" by the Native American Indian when they were first introduced to them by the Spaniards)." I question its reliability." Liblamb 20:46, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

I had understood that story to be false. True yams are native to Africa, not America. --Diderot 21:09, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
I removed it. -- WormRunner | Talk 22:02, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Skin color

I believe "light red or tan" is too narrow (and doesn't even cover the photo in the article), but I'm not good with color descriptions, and my judgments have been called into question in the past, so I've collected some photos:

What about "ranging between red, purple, white, and brown"?

— Pekinensis 19:18, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Stats and POV text

Some queries:

  1. Is it correct to refer to China as a 'developing country'? - I'd have said not
  2. Is there any reason the 11th largest producer is singled out for detailed description, when the 2nd-10th largest producers aren't even mentioned? - this stinks POV to me. I'd suggest deleting the para about the 11th largest producer, and giving more info on the 2nd-5th largest producers
  3. The production figure for China should be checked - the text here gives 105,000 tonnes, but the FAO stat link referenced gives 105,197,100 tonnes, a thousand times as much. But equally, the FAO figure does seem extraordinary compared to the other large producers (2nd largest, Uganda, 2,650,000 tonnes, only 2½% of what they say China produces), I suspect there may be a typo on the FAO stats. Can anyone confirm? - MPF 21:34, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
  1. I'd say the point about the category is irrelevant, since China carries the story quite well by itself, and I have removed the phrase.
  2. I think parochialism might be a better word than POV. I originally left the paragraph there because I prefer to address this sort of problem by adding information rather than removing it, but on reconsideration I have removed it for lack of references, especially for the volume of the US, Canadian, and European markets.
  3. I believe the discrepancy is simply a typo on my part, and I have fixed it to conform to the FAO number, which I agree is amazing enough to demand scrutiny. I did not find demonstrably independent corroboration, but the FAO stats for China are at least internally consistent, showing only a modest decrease over the past ten years. [6]. — Pekinensis 19:59, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

origin of the sweet potato

1 excuse my poor english 2 about the name kumara : actually its not kumara in all polynesian languages but 'umara in tahitian, kuma'a in marquesan and 'uala in Hawaian (apparently a consoun was droped in the process) and 'umala in the Samoa. The evolution of the word, parallel to other words, suggest a protopolynesian origin : if the word had been borrowed from south america by polynesian at the late time of the colonisation of Pascua, could it have evoluted through all polynesia like an ancient word ? I think that the hawaian people would have heard instead : "kumala". Does somebody have links about that question ? according to (http://www.plantnames.unimelb.edu.au/Sorting/Ipomoea.html)Kuara exist also in NZ and in Niue, next to kumara you have simala, suggesting a mara root with ku or si prefixes ??? but the page does not give papuan names 3 Sweet potato is cultivated in all polynesia but also in melanesia and papooasia ! what about the names there ??? if the SP came from South America, had it the time to jump back to Papuasia ? links ? in the page quoted the fijian name is : kumara but other names compare it to yam (wa uvi) 4 does the the "spanish" name camote come from chamorro or which other language of asia ? 5 about the origin of plants : the origin of cultivated plants is not a mathematical issue. well known plants have no known origin, for exemple in polynesia : coconut trees ! the "mistery" of transport of the SP from america to polynesia exists only if you BELIEVE that this plant originated solely from america. (I dont know if I am clear enough ?) 5 " There is great confusion about how and when Sweet Potatoes came to be cultivated on the Pacific Islands in Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia. Their use on these islands seems to pre-date their possible introduction by European explorers but how this came about has not been fully resolved." I quote that good sentence to which I would add Papuasia, from http://www.museums.org.za/bio/plants/convolvulaceae/ipomoea_batatas.htm !

stefjourdan@caramail.com

I think it's cool to leave it as a mystery. But for me it's clear that sweet potato cultivation swept around the world from West to East right after 1492, that is starting in the West Indies then Europe and Africa, Asia, the Pacific. One big problem for me with Polynesia having them earlier is how to explain why they did not go the other direction from there. Steve Dufour 15:34, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Diversity

The International Potato Center (CIP) in Peru holds the largest sweet potato gene bank in the world with more than 6,500 wild, traditional, and improved varieties. Many of these are unique to a particular country or region. For example, an anthropologist in Irian Jaya found forty different cultivars of sweet potato growing in just one community garden. In contrast, Stephen Facciola's Cornucopia II (1998) lists only twenty-five different varieties available for the whole United States. Sweet potato flesh can be white, yellow, purple, red, pink, violet, and orange, while skin color varies among yellow, red, orange, and brown. Varieties with pale yellow or white flesh are less sweet and moist than those with red, pink, or orange flesh. They also have little or no beta-carotene and higher levels of dry matter, which means their textures are drier and more mealy and they stay firmer when cooked. Sweet potatoes also vary enormously in size, shape, taste, and texture, although all are smooth-skinned with roots always tapered at both ends. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.0.209.37 (talk) 06:50, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Sweet Potato Awareness

Since my link was removed, I'm supposed to talk about this here instead of re-adding it.

Yes, I'm affiliated with Sweet Potato Awareness Month, but I don't make any money off of it, I'm just trying to spread the word. I think it's entirely relevant.

I have flyers to download for people to print and pass out if they're as weird as I am about the difference between yams and sweet potatoes.

You can also find sweet potato recipes and information links there.

I don't see any harm in it. There are already links to sweet potato growers associations, properly so I think, and they make a profit. I will put your link back in.Steve Dufour 15:40, 1 December 2006 (UTC)p.s. It seems to me that sweet potatoes are one of the few things in the world that are not controversal. I have never heard anyone say anything bad about them.

Use in potato cannons

I yanked the following text from 'Origin and distribution', where it does not belong:

For reasons that are not yet explained, the sweet potato does not make an effective subsitution for a normal potato in a potato cannon. It could be because it has trouble cocking with the more diamond-shaped vegetable, and it could be that a sweet potato is softer.

If this text belongs in the article at all, it belongs under 'Uses'. I leave it to you to decide whether to put it there. eritain 01:43, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Sweet Potato Pie / Batata Studios

Why nothing on sweet potato pie? It is known to me as an African-American ethnic dish, very similar to pumpkin pie. I've only had it a couple of times. What I had was sweeter than pumpkin pie, and maybe not as mushy. Appearance and spiciness were similar to pumpkin pie. Surely the sweet potato people will have some good information about the pie.

The Batata Studios link seems to be spam. Nothing to do with the potato that I can see. Just a guy whose name is similar. Lou Sander 03:22, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Terms in NSW

Re: "(In NSW it is sometimes spelled as "Kumera", although "sweet potato" is more common in Australia, at least in Victoria)" – In NSW, the light brown skinned pale inside type was typically called "sweet potato"; supermarkets then marketed the one that's pinky brown with orangey insides as "kumera". In Australian English, English words are usual until more exotic terms are introduced; example "squash" until it was zuccini (Italian). If that's any help. Julia Rossi (talk) 04:00, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Terms in the UK

Re: "Substratum names used in local varieties of English include kumara (from the Māori word kūmara), as it was the staple food of the native Māori diet, in the UK and Australasia (in NSW it is sometimes spelled as "Kumera", although "sweet potato" is more common in Australia, at least in Victoria)."

Although the NZ word 'kumara' isn't unknown in Britain, this vegetable is almost universally known as 'sweet potato' in shops and markets where it is quite widely available. The exception is in urban areas with large populations of West Indian descent where is is known as 'yam', presumably because of the American / Caribbean influence. Confusingly, true Yams are also grown in the Caribbean--80.176.142.11 (talk) 16:01, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Ratale

This seems to be a type of small (miniature?) sweet potato grown in Sri Lanka. Can anyone point me to additional information about it (and maybe include it in the article)? Thanks—GRM (talk) 10:56, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Medical Significance in the Proper Labeling of Potatoes (suggestion to ad more pictures and descriptions)

Some people with medical problems dealing with inflammation and general pain syndromes suffer increased adverse symptoms from eating food from the night shade family, from which the the common potato is from. The constant mislabeling of potatoes coupled with the plethora of shapes, sizes, textures and colors the sweet potato comes in makes it difficult to ever feel safe when buying & eating sweet potatoes. And, sweet potatoes, characterized commonly as an extremely nutritious food, makes a good addition to anyone's diet whether suffering from health problems or not.

I believe accurate and exhaustive descriptions and photos characterizing the sweet potato, in all its incarnations, would be a positive addition to this page. The public needs tools to help stop mislabeling and misidentifying potatoes.

Any thoughts? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.137.212.230 (talk) 04:05, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

"Incorrectness" of yam name

Calling sweet potatoes "yams" is not incorrect; it is merely dialect, and widespread in the U.S. (I suppose that last phrase constitutes "original research", but whatever. 70.144.138.148 (talk) 08:25, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Diversity

The International Potato Center (CIP) in Peru holds the largest sweet potato gene bank in the world with more than 6,500 wild, traditional, and improved varieties. Many of these are unique to a particular country or region. For example, an anthropologist in Irian Jaya found forty different cultivars of sweet potato growing in just one community garden. In contrast, Stephen Facciola's Cornucopia II (1998) lists only twenty-five different varieties available for the whole United States. Sweet potato flesh can be white, yellow, purple, red, pink, violet, and orange, while skin color varies among yellow, red, orange, and brown. Varieties with pale yellow or white flesh are less sweet and moist than those with red, pink, or orange flesh. They also have little or no beta-carotene and higher levels of dry matter, which means their textures are drier and more mealy and they stay firmer when cooked. Sweet potatoes also vary enormously in size, shape, taste, and texture, although all are smooth-skinned with roots always tapered at both ends.

Comments

WHOEVER DID THIS ARTICLE IT'S REALLY BAD! WHERE DO WE MENTION PERU? HOW MANY TYPES OF SWEET POTATOE THERE IS? PERHAPS SOMEONE NEEDS TO FIND OUT A BIT MORE ABOUT IT! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.0.209.37 (talk) 06:46, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

If you have verifiable information from a reliable source, you are free to add the information that you feel is missing from the article. Also, please do not type in ALL CAPS, it considered rude - as if you were shouting at people. Deli nk (talk) 11:04, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Cultural history in NA?

I came upon this article because as a North American I was trying to figure out the history of the sweet potato in the US/Canada and how it evolved from a "staple dish", to one that fell out of favour,to what it is now, what I would consider more of a "specialty dish". Consider, order yam fries at any bar and they are at least 50% more than regular potato-based fries. Why is that, how did it come to be that the regular potato, with its blander taste and poorer nutritional value,become more popular than the sweet potato, which is apprantly not only more popular globally but also easier to cultivate?? I find it facisnating. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.251.208.12 (talk) 23:06, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Sweet Potato/Sweetpotato

Sweetpotatoes are a single word, but are commonly thought to be two separate words. There are a number of botanists, cultivators, and others who are pushing to adopt wider usage of the single word signifier for thsi vegetable -- should the Wiki page be updated to match?

see: this site and this other site and many other sites, mostly from University horticultural departments, if you search the Web for "sweet potato one word". Eggytoast (talk) 19:32, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Following quote from an Australian government website [7]

Why do we use one word for sweetpotato, not two?

The decision to use one word for sweetpotato was made at an international workshop held in Lima, Peru in June 1994. It was made to help differentiate between sweetpotatoes, Ipomoea batatas, and the common English or Irish potato, Solanum tuberosum, which is a member of a different botanical family.

It is important to differentiate between sweetpotatoes and ordinary potatoes because they can be used in different ways and they require different management for growing and postharvest handling. To many people a sweet potato would be a potato with a high sugar content.

Using sweetpotato as one word should help in marketing sweetpotatoes as a distinct product with different uses to normal potatoes.

however, I suggest that as it is still pronounced as two words there might not be any benifit to wiki by removing the space.--Donotdestroy (talk) 07:54, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

It's not Wikipedia's mission to facilitate the marketing of a product. The name is sweet potato, not sweetpotato. If that confuses people, then it confuses people. If it causes people not to buy sweet potatoes, that's not WP's responsibility. An encyclopedia's function is to document what is, not to manipulate information to support what somebody thinks ought to be, even if that somebody is a university or a government agency.--Jim10701 (talk) 18:26, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

duly noted and agreed--Donotdestroy (talk) 12:39, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Absurd & Bogus claims that the sweet potato is native to south america.

Update this article clean it out of archaic history regarding the sweet potato, the truth is it is native to Asia & South America! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.54.68.114 (talk) 08:41, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

New Zealand Stat

"New Zealanders grow enough kūmara to provide each person with 7 kg (15.4 lbs) per year, and also import substantially more than this from China."

really? has this been checked? is there a reference? sounds like its written by an Australian.

IM420 17:47, 29 Aug 2009 (EST) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.30.173.151 (talk)

so called tidying up

I am not putting down the users who do these practices I just do not understand how changing fact to citation needed and using a convert template over just typing it out improves the article so im just curious what its for and where these rules come from...--209.181.16.93 (talk) 20:38, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Smooth skin

The photo at [[8]] shows protruding growths from all parts of the potato. Does anyone know what "smooth skin" refers to and what those growths are called? Wakablogger2 (talk) 22:41, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

These are apparently called "root hairs." Is the skin still considered smooth? Wakablogger2 (talk) 23:49, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Names

Do we really need a section listing the word for sweet potato in a bunch of languages? This is not wiktionary, where translations belong in entries - wikipedia is not a dictionary and should not be dedicating large amounts of space in an article to translations of a word. If the article has interwiki sister articles under local names, link to those with interwiki links. If it is thought that readers will want to know every possible language's name for the sweet potato, link to wikt:sweet potato. But I can see no reason to have the name list inside this article, and I will be removing the bulk of that section shortly. keɪɑtɪk flʌfi (talk) 19:22, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

So someone has deleted the names of Sweet Potato in various languages? With the excuse it is in wiktionary? Except that it isn't in wiktionary - there are less names in various languages there than in the rump of this article. Ptilinopus (talk) 13:52, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Sweet Potato Colors and Species

I don't get it. So all the different color sweet potatoes are really of the Ipomoea batatas species? Even the purple ones which seem to be endemic to Okinawa?70.79.50.5 (talk) 12:45, 30 December 2010 (UTC)BeeCier

Grammatical clarification

"The sweet potato is only distantly related to the potato (Solanum tuberosum). The softer, orange variety is often called a yam in parts of North America, a practice intended to differentiate it from the firmer and more nutritious variety that is beige on the outside and yellow on the inside."

I assume the "softer, orange variety" is referring to the "softer, orange variety of sweet potato" rather than comparing a sweet potato to a potato. However, given the prior sentence referring to a potato and, also, that a potato is "beige on the outside and yellow on the inside" as compared to a sweet potato, it's a little confusing. At first, I interpreted the above as implying that a regular potato is "more nutritious" than a sweet potato which I don't believe is correct and is contradicted later in the article.

Could someone who is confident about the intent of the above quote reword the sentences to be a bit more clear? If nothing else change it to "softer, orange variety of sweet potato" (assuming that is the correct interpretation)? Thanks.

--Autumnfields (talk) 00:43, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

How about this edit? I also added a request for citation to gain clarity.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► 00:54, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Clostridial necrotizing enteritis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clostridial_necrotizing_enteritis this url makes a reference to sweet potato, can it be addressed — Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.185.151.131 (talk) 09:46, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Vitamin A content

Could someone with access to the data check the vitamin A content. I seems extraordinarily high and does not match the table in the vitamin A article. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:51, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

About correct: http://nutritiondata.self.com/

Kortoso (talk) 00:19, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

According to the USDA Nutrient Database, SR26[9] - which is reliably represented by http://nutritiondata.self.com/ - vitamin A content of raw, unprocessed sweet potato is 14,187 IU per 100 g. Via Wikipedia's International unit, 1 IU = 0.3 mcg retinol or 0.6 mcg beta-carotene (vitamin A precursor). By these references, the Article's nutrient table is correct for beta-carotene but incorrect for retinol. I've entered into the article table the mcg value for retinol. This looks correct to me. --Zefr (talk) 03:29, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
No, the USDA database lists the RAE (Retinol Activity Equivalent) as much lower. Beta carotene isn't converted 1:1 into retinol, the RAE adjusts for the conversion and absorption factors (it depends on what you eat it with and stuff). For a nutrition table, we want the dietary equivalence, how much retinol actually ends up in humans.GliderMaven (talk) 14:46, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Kaukau

I have PRODed Kaukau as an inadvertent content fork of this article. Reasons are outlined there. William Avery (talk) 17:25, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Except that the reasons are not to be found at that site. And while "Kaukau" redirects to Sweet Potato, there is no mention of it in the article. I find it incredible that the article says that in the Solomons Islands (and other nearby Melanesian islands and even parts of Polynesia!) it is called "common desert truffle" - a name I have NEVER heard from Melanesians and Polynesians (though I have worked with them for years in Papua New Guinea and elsewhere - and which would seem to be a pretentious restaurant name!), while the melanesian Tok Pisin name "Kaukau" - used by more than 5 million people even when they speak English - is deleted and/or ruled as irrelevant! Less people use the work "kumara" (NZ) which is featured several times in the article... A pity I can't access William Avery's reasons - I would have liked to address them. Ptilinopus (talk) 14:10, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Why is "Kaukau" (ie Mt Kaukau - the site of a television transmitter) on a page about television transmissions in New Zealand being REDIRECTED to this page? Please fix. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.101.88.37 (talk) 20:48, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I have dealt with both issues.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 14:36, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

I see no evidence that William Avery's claimed reasons can be found at the site indicated - does not seem fixed. And the nonsense about use of the term "common desert truffle" in Melanesia persists in the article, while the term Kaukau is still absent. What does it take to correct these anomalies? Ptilinopus (talk) 10:36, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Unfair comparison of carbohydrate values

In the table where the nutritional values of sweet potatoes are compared with other foods, the carbohydrate values for the foods are misleading. The carbohydrate values of rice for example, (80g) seems very high compared to potato(17g) and sweet potato(20g). However, this is very misleading because the figure given is for dry rice, not cooked rice. Nobody eats rice dry and the figure for cooked rice(21-28g depending on the variety) is very close to that of potato and sweet potato, as can be seen here: http://www.carbohydrate-counter.org/cereal/search.php?cat=Rice&fg=2000 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 179.26.220.133 (talk) 12:50, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Name correction

The term "sweet potato" is ambiguous, suggesting a potato that happens to be sweet. As a sweetpotato is an unrelated species, the two words should be combined and are combined in many scientific articles and in at least one style manual. I was able to make the change globally in the text but not in the DISPLAYNAME. My commands intended to change this are still embedded in the page, so you can see how I tried to change the DISPLAYNAME. Please fix it for me if you know how. Thank-you.

I think you need to get consensus for making this change. "Sweet potato" is more common than "sweetpotato"; therefore, per WP:COMMONNAME, that is how the Wikipedia should be titled. Also, simply using find-and-replace throughout the article is the wrong way to go about it. The title and the use throughout the article should be consistent, so before changing the text of the article, please use WP:RM to request moving the article. Finally, if there is consensus to change the title and the article text, you should definitely not change "sweet potato" where it is used in the title of a reference to "sweetpotato". Deli nk (talk) 16:41, 13 April 2015 (UTC)
Thank-you for directing me to WP:COMMONNAME. I was unaware of this policy. In most cases, this policy probably works well, but here it causes inaccuracy and ambiguity. In my experience, the title "Sweet potato" also fails to comply with WP:COMMONNAME, as most Americans, in my experience, say "yam" instead of "sweet potato". Most grocery stores I've been to also say "yam" or "yams" on signs in their produce departments, and I am unaware of any grower that does not use the term "yam" on its packaging. So under WP:COMMONNAME, the title of the article should be "Yam", not "Sweet potato". Also, could you please explain why the article has to be removed to make the changes I attempted to make? I hope I have not come off as disrespectful in replying to you, as no disrespect is intended; I am trying only to explain my perception and reasoning. JRHend (talk) 17:06, 13 April 2015 (UTC)
Ok, I will describe my reasoning more thoroughly. Many Wikipedia articles are about subjects that can be referred to by more than one synonym. Wikipedia uses a consensus of its editors to determine which one to use. When one is chosen, the article's title and the article's text should match. Right now the title of this article is "Sweet potato", so it should use "sweet potato" throughout the text. If Wikipedia editors decide that "Sweetpotato" (or "Yam") is a better, then both the title and the text should be changed to match at the same time. In order to rename an article (in other words, move an article to a different title), a request should be made using the process outlined at Wikipedia:Requested moves. If editors agree to rename/move the article, then the text can be changed as well at the same time. In this particular case, I am simply objecting to switching the text to using "sweetpotato" while the title remains "Sweet potato". If there is consensus that the article should be retitled, then I have no objection to your changes to the text. Deli nk (talk) 17:51, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Why list Per Capita Production?

What is the point of listing the per capita production of sweet potatoes in several countries? Simple example: I live in Australia where we mine a lot of coal, but as a result of mechanisation the coal mining workforce is fairly small. I don't personally mine coal, or even use it, nor do the vast majority of the population, so in this example my inclusion in a "per capita production of coal in Australia" in a Wikipedia article would be quite meaningless. --MichaelGG (talk) 08:48, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Backwards copyvio

A 2014 Springer book has copied from this article. See[10] and [11] and [12] which is where added, sourced to an airline magazine. And now part of a Chapter 25, "Self-Incompatibility System of Ipomoea trifida, a Wild-Type Sweet Potato" by Tohru Tsuchiya. Not good. Doug Weller talk 13:11, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

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Wrong units used in table for RDA

In the "Comparison of sweet potato to other food staples" table the units used for energy are kJ, but in the far right column the RDA is listed as 2000-2500, which is clearly in kcal. Sorry, I didn't fix this as I don't know how and am far too lazy to learn. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.197.243.46 (talk) 00:36, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

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Dubious

The article states: "The first record of the name "sweet potato" is found in the Oxford English Dictionary of 1775." There was no such thing as an Oxford English Dictionary in 1775 however. I would assume that the first citation in the OED is from 1775, but I don't have access to the OED. Could someone with access check and correct this? Gregmchapman (talk) 19:20, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

And there I thought that I'd found something with a 1775 book where it is written. I haven't done an exhaustive search but I would say that the posting at the Library of Congress where the author states:
  • "As far as OED has currently traced back- the first identified written occurrence of sweet potato is the following : 1750 J. Birket Some Remarks Voy. N. Amer. 9 They have..abundance of..the Sweet Potatoe.
  • By 1750 I imagine it was becoming more common to designate sweet from white potato thus this 1750 written account. I also imagine that this designation of sweet potato happened orally before it caught on and was published in Birket’s Some Remarks Voy. North America • 1750. That is, by the time Birket wrote the term sweet potato it was a more accepted term.
  • I feel it is safe to say that the sweet potato designation began to be used after the 1740’s, rather than in the 1750’s. I like to keep it open. But as researchers, like you, continue to dig through the older and older material, we will certainly learn more about the history of the sweet potato."
...is probably closer to the reality. I don't have the OED access myself.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 22:38, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Separately, I just removed a claim that the USDA has labeling requirements for use of the term 'yam'. The source that was provided[1] doesn't seem like a reliable source to me, and such a claim should be verifiable through a primary source. The closest USDA source I could find to supporting this claim was a guide for filling out an inspection form, which notes "It is permissible to report such sweetpotatoes as “Yams” under the “Brands and Markings” section if the packages are marked as such".[2] However, that doesn't seem to actually address consumer-visible (retail) product labeling, nor does it actually make any claim that even the 'Brands and Markings' on the shipment also include the term 'sweet potatoes' or similar.
— Omega drh (talk) 05:49, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "Sweet Potato or Yam? Which is which?". Foodreference.com. 20 March 2007. Retrieved 12 September 2010.
  2. ^ "Sweetpotatoes — Shipping Point and Market Inspection Instructions" (PDF). United States Department of Agriculture. November 2007. Retrieved 2017-11-29.

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Proposed merger

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The result of this discussion was not to merge. --Guculen (talk) 12:57, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

A recently-created aticle, Roasted sweet potato, has content that could easily fit into the "Culinary uses: Asia" subsection of this article. (Indeed, some of it duplicates the material here.) I propose that the content be merged here and the other article become a redirect to the Asia subsection here. NewYorkActuary (talk) 21:22, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Strong support. Seems to be a classic unnecessary fork. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:02, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
Oppose I made the street food articles Roasted sweet potato and Roasted chestnut, and I'm planning to add some paragraphs to them. The Asia section of this article seems already much bigger compared to the other sections (in the Culinary uses of this article), and I'm worried that the merge can make adding difficult, as the Sweet potato is a plant article, not a food one. I think the articles Sweet potato and Roasted sweet potato can co-exist, just like the articles Roast chicken, Chicken as food and Chicken. --MaeveCosgrave (talk) 13:51, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
Qualified support both ways. The SP article is cumbersome already, and tries to deal with both the botanical and culinary uses, both of which are substantial topics. I recommend that the entire culinary portion, with appropriate links both ways of course, be put into a separate article, and that the new roast SP be merged into that. I reckon that MaeveCosgrave should be able to insert it sufficiently conspicuously and clearly to solve all needs. I agree with her that it is not always appropriate to conflate culinary topics with biological themes unless both topics are small. JonRichfield (talk) 10:20, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
Yes, I agree that splitting botany and culinary uses is a good idea. What's not a good idea is splitting "roasted" uses from other culinary ones. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:00, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
Oppose I think it's perfectly fine to have an article covering a specific culinary use of a plant (see for example Category:Potato dishes). This helps focus talk on sweet potato about the history of the plant in general. SFB 23:23, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
Oppose I agree with SFB. --Brett (talk) 02:43, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
Oppose I support the proposal for a separate page for "Culinary uses of the sweet potato" (under a better name, ideally), and then merging "Roasted sweet potato" into that page. For now the status quo is fine. Power~enwiki (talk) 00:12, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
Oppose Street food items tend to have their own articles. (See Roasted chestnut.) Also Egg as food and Boiled egg are two different articles. --Phonet (talk) 20:48, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Nutrition

It's the sweet potato "skin." Is that a useful source of any nutrient? Thanks. Nei1 (talk) 22:28, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Vitamin C

I have removed the following text from the article.

Please check vitamin C info for cooked+raw states - it's unheard of for cooking to increase vit C (as cooking destroys vit C) let alone increase it so dramatically! - perhaps cooked figure has the decimal point in the wrong place

If someone can investigate and verify or fix the data in the article, that would be helpful. Deli nk (talk) 19:52, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

The vitamin C (ascorbic acid) values in the USDA tables for raw and baked sweet potato are correct as shown. The vitamin C value for raw sweet potato, 2.4 mg, seems quite low compared to raw potatoes by about 10x, see this. I agree it's odd for baking to actually increase vitamin C content, but this was also reported in 2011 by Turkish scientists here. --Zefr (talk) 20:15, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
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