Purple skin with white flesh yams/sweet potatoes have black/green spots after I boil them. Can I still eat them? [duplicate]

Our local food distribution site gives what they call sweet potatoes. They are purple looking on the outside with white inside. When I boiled them they got kind of black or green streaks in them. Am I cooking them wrong and are they safe to eat this way? I peel and cut into cubes and boil till fork tender.

vegetables

Best Answer

A couple of years ago we got some sweet potatoes from an Amish market that we visit whenever we travel along the Eastern Shore of Virginia and Maryland. They were simply labeled "Japanese sweet potatoes". They were as you describe with a purple skin and white flesh. We almost always bake our sweet potatoes and were quite delighted with them as they were very sweet. On a few future visits we asked workers at the market but no one knew the actual variety.

To your question about the color, we mostly buy white flesh sweet potatoes as we find them to be tastier. (Each year around this time we make trips to the Eastern shore to buy boxes of the Hayman variety and some Jersey Whites.) When cooked, white fleshed sweet potatoes do look quite off putting, with varying greenish and grayish coloring. Honestly, if I didn't know what they were supposed to look like I would have asked the same question as you did.

Bottom line is that the color is not so pretty, but a worthwhile trade-off for the flavor!

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Can you eat sweet potatoes with black spots?

If your sweet potatoes have small black dots, they are still safe to eat. These can mean anything from bruising and oxidization to chemical reactions from cooking. However, if your sweet potato has deep black pits, that is a sign of rot and you should discard it.

Why do sweet potatoes get black spots when cooked?

One of those phenols, called chlorogenic acid, is the culprit that makes sweet potatoes -- and sometimes, regular potatoes -- darken when they're cooked. The chlorogenic acid combines with iron ions in the potato and oxygen absorbed from the atmosphere and cooking water, creating the dark pigment.

How can you tell if purple sweet potatoes have gone bad?

Texture. Once sweet potatoes turn mushy, you can be sure that they have gone bad. Usually, their ends become soft before turning brown or black. As soon as these parts spoil, the flavor of the whole tubers will be affected.

Why does my sweet potato have green spots?

"The greenish colour can be due to a natural occurrence, when the water soluble pigments in the cooked sweet potatoes are exposed to air," AVA said. "If the cooked sweet potatoes are handled and stored properly, they should not pose a food safety concern."

Difference Between Yams And Sweet Potatoes

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Images: Artem Beliaikin, Brett Sayles, Karolina Grabowska, Karolina Grabowska