Sweet Potato

vegetables · root crops · colorful · world staple

Not actually a potato. Sweet potatoes are in the morning glory family, while regular potatoes are only distantly related. They're completely different plants that just happen to grow underground.

Rainbow of colors. Sweet potatoes can have orange, purple, white, or even red flesh and skin inside, depending on which variety farmers grow. The darker purple ones taste just as sweet as the orange ones.

Leafy greens too. You can eat more than just the roots. Young shoots and leaves of the sweet potato plant are sometimes cooked and eaten as greens, kind of like spinach.

Feeds the world. In many parts of the world, sweet potatoes are a super important food that helps feed millions of people because they're easy to grow and packed with nutrition.

Morning glory cousin. Sweet potatoes are actually related to morning glory flowers, which is why scientists call them part of the Convolvulaceae family. They don't look like flowers at all, but they're distant cousins.