Sweet potatoes are a delicious and nutritious staple food for many people. However, not all sweet potatoes are created equal. When shopping for sweet potatoes, it’s important to know what to look for to get the best quality spuds for your recipes. Avoiding certain things can help you pick sweet potatoes that will be flavorful, hold their shape when cooked, and provide maximum nutritional benefits.
Avoid Sweet Potatoes with Cuts, Bruises or Mold
When inspecting sweet potatoes at the grocery store or market, you’ll want to avoid any that have bruises, cuts, breaks in the skin or soft spots. Cuts and bruises happen during harvesting, packaging and transport. Although superficial bruises or scrapes won’t affect the inner flesh, deeper bruises or cuts may mean the spud is damaged or rotting underneath. Steer clear of sweet potatoes with these issues.
You’ll also want to avoid sweet potatoes showing any signs of mold growth. Mold on a sweet potato indicates spoilage. The spud likely experienced damage that allowed mold spores to take hold. Mold can quickly spread to infect the entire vegetable. Pass on any sweet potatoes with fuzzy gray, white, green or black mold.
Why to Avoid Bruised, Cut or Moldy Sweet Potatoes
- Indicates internal damage or rot
- Allows decay-causing bacteria to enter
- Mold can spread quickly and spoil the entire potato
- Damaged, rotting or moldy potatoes will have poor texture
- May not taste good or be safe to eat
Don’t Buy Very Large or Misshapen Sweet Potatoes
When it comes to sweet potatoes, sometimes bigger is not necessarily better. Overgrown sweet potatoes and extra large spuds tend to have more issues. Very large sweet potatoes are more likely to have developed voids, growth cracks, woody areas or internal bruising during their maturation. These defects affect texture and flavor.
Misshapen, deformed or unevenly lumpy sweet potatoes should also get a pass. Odd shapes and lumpy bumps indicate improper development underground. Though still safe to eat, these abnormal sweet potatoes are less visually appealing, don’t cook evenly and have a higher chance of textural defects.
Downsides of Extra Large & Misshapen Sweet Potatoes
- Higher incidence of internal defects
- Prone to voids, cracks and bruising
- Can develop woodier, stringy texture
- Cook unevenly and have poor texture
- Abnormal lumps and shapes less visually appealing
Avoid Wrinkled, Shriveled or Soft Sweet Potatoes
When examining a sweet potato, you’ll want it to have smooth, taut and evenly shaped skin. Wrinkled, loose skin or shriveled, puckered indentations are not ideal. These defects indicate dehydration and nutrient loss after harvest. The flesh underneath wrinkled or shriveled areas also tends to become mealy in texture.
Avoid sweet potatoes that have any soft, mushy or squishy spots. This indicates wet or dry rot decay has begun to set in. The water content in the spud seeps out causing the sweet potato to lose structural integrity. Softness or indentations mean the sweet potato should be avoided.
Why to Pass on Wrinkled, Shriveled or Soft Sweet Potatoes
- Indicates dehydration and nutrient loss
- Skin and flesh will have diminished quality
- Prone to mealiness and poor texture
- Softness signals rotting has initiated
- Structural integrity of the spud is compromised
Don’t Buy Sweet Potatoes with Green Patches
Sometimes sweet potatoes develop greenish patches or chlorophyll-infused streaks on the skin. This happens when the sweet potato gets exposed to light during growth or after harvest. The green color comes from increased chlorophyll production. Green areas should signal you to choose another potato.
The green patches themselves are not toxic or harmful. However, they indicate the sweet potato may have a higher concentration of solanine. This is a bitter, mildly toxic alkaloid that develops with light exposure. Eating a very green portion of a sweet potato could make you sick.
Reasons to Avoid Sweet Potatoes with Green Areas
- Caused by light exposure before or after harvest
- Indicates increased solanine, a potentially toxic alkaloid
- Green portions will taste bitter and be less palatable
- Better to be safe than sorry and avoid
Don’t Purchase Sprouted Sweet Potatoes
Sweet potato roots you find sprouting tendrils should stay in the bin. Sweet potato roots sometimes start to sprout if stored in conditions that are too warm and humid. Sprouting signals the sweet potato is past its prime and old.
Although not dangerous to eat, sprouted sweet potatoes will have inferior taste and texture. The sugars have started converting to starches. The flesh tends to be woody and fibrous instead of smooth. You’re better off finding unsprouted spuds.
Why Sprouted Sweet Potatoes are Less Desirable
- Indicates storage in hot, humid conditions
- Signals the potato is over the hill and aging
- Conversion of sugars to starches negatively impacts flavor
- Develops woody, fibrous and stringy flesh
Avoid Buying Frozen Sweet Potatoes
You’ll typically find sweet potatoes sold loose or in bunches at the grocery store. Sometimes they are packaged while still fresh to extend shelf life. But steer clear of frozen sweet potatoes.
Sweet potatoes don’t hold up well to commercial freezing used for distribution and retail sale. The ice crystals rupture the internal structure, leading to cellular damage. Thawing also causes moisture loss. Frozen sweet potatoes end up mushy and mealy in texture.
Downsides of Commercially Frozen Sweet Potatoes
- Freezing process damages cell structure
- Thawing leads to excess moisture loss
- Results in mushy, mealy texture
- Significantly inferior flavor and mouthfeel
- Fresh sweet potatoes are widely available
Avoid Sweet Potatoes with Excessive Dirt
It’s common for fresh sweet potatoes to come with a light coating of dirt still clinging to the skin. However, you’ll want to avoid sweet potatoes that are excessively dirty with packed-on soil.
Sweet potatoes grow underground, so some earth clinging to the skin is to be expected. But if a spud is caked with dirt, it signals carelessness during harvesting or packing. Excess dirt can also harbor microbes that cause the sweet potato to deteriorate faster.
Drawbacks of Buying Very Dirty Sweet Potatoes
- Indicates carelessness in harvesting and packing
- Trapped dirt can introduce pathogenic bacteria
- Soil clinging to skin can lead to faster decay
- Excess dirt is visually unappealing
- Harder to scrub off dirt than starting with a lightly soiled potato
Avoid Sweet Potatoes Treated with a Wax Coating
Some commercially grown sweet potatoes undergo a post-harvest treatment where they are coated with a thin edible vegetable wax. This waxing is done to help seal in moisture and extend the spud’s shelf life.
However, waxed sweet potatoes should be avoided. The wax coating traps in gases given off as the sweet potato ages. This degrades the flavor. Wax coatings also give the sweet potato skin an unnatural plastic-like texture.
Why to Avoid Waxed Sweet Potatoes
- Wax coating gives unnatural plastic-like texture
- Traps gases that degrade flavor over time
- Indicates a commercially mass-produced food system
- Waxed potatoes don’t taste as fresh or flavorful
Don’t Buy Pre-Washed Sweet Potatoes
Some grocery stores now sell pre-washed and prepared produce for convenience. But pre-washed sweet potatoes are not the best choice. Washing sweet potatoes right after harvest removes their natural protective coating.
Sweet potatoes form a protective layer of periderm tissue during the growth and maturation process. Washing them straight away erodes this protective film. Periderm helps seal in moisture and nutrients and guards against microbial decay.
Downsides of Buying Pre-Washed Sweet Potatoes
- Washing right after harvest removes protective periderm
- Leads to faster moisture loss and nutrient degradation
- Periderm helps prevent decay from bacteria and fungi
- Pre-washed sweet potatoes don’t store as long
Avoid Purchasing Older Stock Sweet Potatoes
When buying sweet potatoes, you want the freshest, youngest available stock. Choose sweet potatoes from the latest harvest batches over ones that have been sitting in storage for months.
Sweet potatoes are cured for around 5-7 days immediately after digging up. This helps heal any harvesting wounds. But after curing, their quality slowly declines during storage and distribution. Fresher sweet potatoes taste sweeter and have better structural integrity.
Why Newly Harvested Sweet Potatoes are Better
- Time in storage leads to natural sugar breakdown
- Starch conversion affects taste and texture
- Older sweet potatoes don’t keep their shape as well when cooked
- Increased likelihood of shriveling and sprouting
- Fresher potatoes have more nutrients and flavor
Don’t Buy Sweet Potatoes Displayed in the Refrigerator
Proper storage is important for keeping sweet potatoes fresh. You may find sweet potato bundles refrigerated in the produce section. But sweet potatoes fare better stored at room temperature.
Cool refrigerator temperatures negatively affect sweet potatoes. Chilling causes the potatoes’ starches to convert to sugars faster. This increases their glycemic index and gives an unpleasantly sweet taste. Refrigeration also causes faster spoilage and textural defects.
Why Refrigerated Sweet Potatoes are Not Ideal
- Cold temperatures speed up starch-to-sugar conversion
- Increases glycemic index and overly sweet flavor
- Causes texture to become grainy and dry
- Leads to faster spoilage and decay
- Best stored loose at room temperature
Avoid Conventionally Grown Sweet Potatoes
Sweet potatoes labeled as conventionally grown should be passed over for organically grown varieties when possible. Conventionally grown sweet potatoes are treated with various chemical pesticides, fungicides and fertilizers during growth.
These chemical inputs can remain as residues on and in the flesh of conventionally grown sweet potato roots. Choosing organically grown sweet potatoes can help avoid excessive chemical exposures from the eating the peel or flesh.
Downsides of Conventionally Grown Sweet Potatoes
- Treated with synthetic fertilizers and chemicals
- Chemical residues can remain on and in the flesh
- Higher toxicity and environmental impact
- Organic sweet potatoes have more natural cultivation
Don’t Buy Sweet Potatoes Grown with Plastic Mulch
Some commercial sweet potato fields use polyethylene plastic mulch sheets. But plastic mulch comes with environmental tradeoffs. Consider choosing sweet potatoes grown without plastic covering.
The plastic mulch is used to warm the soil, retain moisture and reduce weeds. However, it’s made from polyethylene that can end up polluting soil and waterways. Plastic mulch must be removed and disposed of after harvest as well.
Downsides of Plastic Mulch Sweet Potato Production
- Polyethylene plastic mulch raises soil temp and reduces weeds
- Plastic sheeting must be disposed of after harvest
- Can pollute soil and water if not disposed of properly
- More eco-friendly to use compost or straw mulch instead
Conclusion
Finding the freshest, healthiest sweet potatoes involves being picky and avoiding certain defects and production methods. Carefully check each sweet potato and pass on those with bruises, cuts, mold, soft spots or wrinkles. Avoid extra large or misshapen potatoes as well as ones with green patches or sprouting.
For best flavor and nutrition, source organic, non-waxed sweet potatoes stored at room temperature. Sweet potatoes freshly harvested and minimally handled have the best taste, texture and nutritional quality. Avoiding refrigeration, dirt, commercial waxing and cosmetic defects helps you pick the most flavorful spuds.