Why Is My Sweet Potato White Inside? The Taste Of White Sweet Potato

Sweet potatoes are one of the most common vegetables that appear in recipes. It is thick, pliable, and sweet with full of nutrition.

We often know sweet potatoes with beautiful orange color. The orange sweet potatoes are the most iconic image when it comes to this type of tuber.

Sometimes, though, you’ll halve a sweet potato and find it has white flesh or white ooze drip out. This scene will make you confused and don’t know if you can eat this white sweet potato or not. Why is my sweet potato white inside?  

So, what is the white stuff coming out of sweet potato? The white residue that comes out of sweet potatoes is a mixture of sugar and milky starch. It is entirely harmless to human health.

With white sweet potatoes, it is normal because there are always strange individuals in the wild. To understand more about that, read this article with Battersby.

What Are The Reasons For White Stuff In Sweet Potato?

When you cut squash, chayote, or cucumber, they often ooze a latex. But for orange sweet potato, this situation doesn’t happen too often. It raises questions about their potential causes and health concerns.

Sweet potato with white latex 

Some of the reasons for that condition include:

• That latex-like residue layer is a mixture of starch and sugar. The sweeter the sweet potatoes, the easier it is to appear pus because the sugar flows out.
• For organic sweet potatoes, this wax will also be milky white. Many argue that the main reason is that this type of sweet potato has more starch than those produced in bulk.
• That white discharge also often appears in the fresher sweet potatoes. The older and older the sweet potato is, the more the intestines will wither.

For that reason, you can rest assured that sweet potatoes that secrete white fluid are harmless to health. It is also much sweeter and fresher than other sweet potatoes.

Well, now everyone would want to see that milky residue when they cut their sweet potato in half.

How About The Sweet Potato White Spots Inside?

Sometimes, we will not see white substance on sweet potatoes in the form of latex. Depending on how you prepare and prepare it, you may see it in a different shape.

Another typical appearance is small white spots that appear speckled on the orange flesh of a sweet potato. It also creates a thin opaque white film around the potato. You can recognize them if you peel them.

Handling these starchy potatoes is very easy. Just rinse with water, and you can use it as usual.

When cooked or baked, these white spots should disappear, and you can enjoy your sweet potatoes as usual.

View more: Fruit That Isn’t Round

Why Is Your Sweet Potato White Inside? 

If you don’t recognize the sweet potato white liquid but instead have a completely white inner layer, it’s a white sweet potato. Unlike the orange sweet potato, which we are used to seeing, this sweet potato has a distinctive appearance and taste.

This section below will help you explore more about them. If you need a more visual explanation, check out this video!

What Are White Sweet Potatoes?

For white sweet potatoes, another name for them is yam. It is essentially a soft sweet potato. Some types of yam even go with reddish flesh. When you shop at a grocery store, sellers may confuse and mislabel them.

Yam is usually accompanied by brown skin and white or purple flesh. If compared with the sweet potato we typically see, it is completely different.

What Is The Taste Of White Sweet Potatoes?

The texture of white sweet potato and orange sweet potato is quite similar. You can completely use them to replace back and forth when baking or cooking. Even so, their taste is different.

The first difference lies in the sweetness. White sweet potatoes are usually much less sweet than orange sweet potatoes. It also has a crumbly texture, while the orange sweet potato has a smoother texture.

In terms of nutritional value, the famous orange sweet potato contains a very high beta carotene content and is good for health. White sweet potatoes do not boast as many nutrients as orange ones. It’s also not as fresh and loses its firmness more easily

White sweet potato is delicious

How To Cook White Sweet Potatoes?

You can find thousands of recipes involving white sweet potato because it can be combined with both sweet and savory dishes. Its milder flavor will be suitable for those who do not like to overeat sweets.

White sweet potatoes are suitable for all kinds of cooking, from baking, roasting, or mashing like the orange one. It still offers more health benefits than regular potatoes.

With the crisp texture of white sweet potatoes, you can add a little butter or mayo to transform the sweetpotato flesh into a creamy smooth texture. A few other recipes we can recommend are fried sweet potatoes, beef stewed sweet potatoes, or slow cooker sweet potatoes.

How To Identify Bad Sweet Potatoes?

After reading this far, you have understood that sweet potatoes with white juice or white sweet potatoes are harmless and taste great.

Now you will be curious, when do sweet potatoes go bad? Root vegetables usually have a very long shelf life, but not forever. They will slowly rot and deteriorate over time. There are a few signs that will help you figure it out.

How to tell if your sweet potato has gone bad 

Mold

Mold is the first sign that your sweet potatoes have gone bad. It is white or green around holes or cuts. If you smell them, they smell rotten. In contrast, dark spots on a sweet potato’s golden skin are not necessarily a sign of mold.

Mold is hazardous if ingested. It can cause food poisoning. You need to carefully inspect sweet potatoes before cooking, especially with cooked or mashed sweet potatoes.

Root Growing

If left for a long time, the sweet potatoes will gradually show signs of rooting. You can totally recognize them just by looking at the skin and in the eyes of the sweet potato.

These sweet potatoes are still edible. Cut the rooting part clean, and you can eat the rest. They are still delicious and safe for health.

One piece of advice to avoid such a situation is not to buy sweet potatoes in mass quantities.

Related: Bananas In Fridge

Dry Texture

Sweet potatoes with too many dry holes inside indicate old and not in their prime anymore. Indeed its taste will be affected and not as sweet as before.

You can still eat this sweet potato if you cook it skillfully, such as mashed or pureed to make cakes. With sweet potatoes that have too much dry space, it’s best to discard them.

Pithiness

Pithy sweet potatoes often have a characteristic porosity. You can tell it more definitely if you see the holes in the inside of the surface. The main reason for the appearance of these holes is because the climate is too warm.

You can still safely eat this sweet potato, but it won’t taste as good as before.

Frequently Asked Questions

This section is for those who still have questions about sweet potatoes. Find the answer to your question here.

How to store your sweet potato

Can you freeze sweet potatoes?

You can ultimately preserve sweet potatoes by freezing them. However, you can’t do this with raw sweet potatoes. You have to bake it first. Raw sweet potatoes have a very high water content, so freezing is almost impossible.

If frozen and stored correctly, you can keep sweet potatoes edible for 1 to 3 months.

Can you eat sweet potatoes every day?

Unlike what you imagine, you can’t eat sweet potatoes every day. This vegetable is very starchy and is not a low-carb vegetable. Each medium sweet potato contains about 20 net carbs.

For those looking to cut carbs, this is not a dish that you should eat every day.

Final Thoughts

Nature is extraordinarily magical, and sometimes you can realize it just through the sweet potato you usually eat every day. 

Having a white liquid in a sweet potato is just indicative of a sweet and starchy potato. With white sweet potatoes, you can also eat and process them into many delicious dishes.

Just watch out for a few signs to ignore or throw away spoiled sweet potatoes, and that’s it. We hope that our article here has helped you gain more knowledge about this vegetable.

Thank you for reading!