Five Food Facts about Sweet Potatoes

1. Sweet potatoes are the 6th most important food crop in the world.

2. Asia accounts for 90% of the world consumption of sweet potatoes.

3. George Washington Carver helped to develop the primary adhesive used for postage stamps from the mucilage(sticky film) of  sweet potatoes.

4. Sweet potatoes are actually tuberous roots which are considered one of the worlds most nutritious foods in the vegetable kingdom.

5. Despite the physical similarities of yams and sweet potatoes. They actually are not even closely related. Yams are actually closely related to grasses and lilies.

Daily Quote:

“A man who can cook a baked sweet potato is the kind of man you should keep around“~Maya Angelou

Events of February 22

Today’s Food History

on this day in…

  • 1630 Supposedly, Quadequina, an American Indian, introduced English colonists to popcorn.
  • 1879 Woolworths, the first chain store, opened in 1879 in Utica, New York. Woolworth’s diners were the first to introduce the Frito Chili Pies and helped to popularize grilled cheese sandwiches and BLT’s,bacon ,lettuce, and tomato sandwiches.
  • 1920 The first artificial rabbit is used at a dog racing trace in Emeryville, California.
  • 1925 RIP Sir Thomas Clifford Allbutt, English physician, he invented the short (6 inch) clinical thermometer, before then they averaged over 18″ in length.
  • 1987 RIP Andy Warhol,American painter of the pop art movement. In the  1960s he made paintings of Campbell’s Soup cans.