Are sweet potatoes the same thing as yams?

Although technically different, for most cooking one can treat them the same.

Yes, they are technically different. Yams are sweeter than sweet potatoes, and sweet potatoes are a bit more "starchy". Me and my family have been making sweet potatoe pie "semi-scratch" every year for years for the holidays and we always use canned yams, mash them up add ingredients and pour into cooked pie shells and thats it. Simple as 1,2,3...Good Luck!!

The orange potato-like vegetable we eat are actually sweet potatoes. But we call them yams or sweet potatoes interchangably. So yes, you can go into the grocery store and buy canned or fresh, sweet potato or yams, it's the same thing. **REAL** yams are hard to find around here. They're from Africa and South East Asia; they are dark, hairy, and reddish. They don't look anything like our sweet potatoes. YOu would have to go looking for them at specialty shops as grocery stores don't generally carry them.

Yes they are

Not all Sweet Potatoes are Yams, but all Yams are Sweet Potatoes

They are the same thing.

no they are different

yes

One in the same