Sweetpotato Production, Processing, and Nutritional Quality V
811 35 Sweetpotato Production, Processing, and Nutritional Quality V. D. Truong1, R. Y. Avula2, K. V. Pecota3, and G. C. Yencho3 1 USDA‐ARS Food Science Research Unit, Department of Food, Bioprocessing and Nutrition Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, USA 2 Department of Food Science and Technology, University of Georgia, Athens, USA 3 Department of Horticultural Science, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, USA Introduction dry matter content (18–25%), high β‐carotene level, sweet and moist‐texture after cooking. Sweetpotato, Ipomoea batatas L. (Lam.), is an This sweetpotato type is imprecisely called important economic crop in many countries. In “yam,” which is not the true tropical yam of terms of annual production, sweetpotato ranks Dioscorea species. Historically, African as the fifth most important food crop in the Americans in Louisiana referred this moist‐ tropics and the seventh in the world food pro- sweetpotato as “nyami” because it reminded duction after wheat, rice, maize, potato, barley, them of the starchy tuber of that name in Africa. and cassava (FAO 2016). Sweetpotato fulfills a The Senagalese word “nyami” was eventually number of basic roles in the global food system, shortened to the trademark “yam” popular in all of which have fundamental implications for the United States. Commercial packages with meeting food requirements, reducing poverty, “yam” labels are required by the US Department and increasing food security (El‐Sheikha and of Agriculture to have the word “sweetpotato” in Ray 2017). the label to avoid confusion to the consumers Sweetpotato roots have high nutritional value (Estes 2009). and sensory versatility in terms of taste, texture, Depending on the flesh color, sweetpotatoes and flesh color (white, cream, yellow, orange, contain high levels of β‐carotene, anthocyanins, purple).
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