Why do sweet potatoes float

Last but not least, cooked sweet potatoes. These can last about 3 to 5 days in the fridge. If you need to store them for longer, transfer them into the freezer and make sure you wrap them properly. Like all root vegetables , sweet potatoes will spoil after a period of time. It is not a sign of spoilage, and the sweet potato still edible at this point. If you notice sprouts on your sweet potato, just cut off the growths and cook as soon as possible. Similarly, small brown or black spots on your sweet potato do not necessarily indicate that it has spoiled.

You can remove the spots, and cook and enjoy the rest of the sweet potato. The exception is mold spots ; if a sweet potato has begun to mold, throw it away. When it comes to pithy sweet potatoes , as long as the inside of the potato has only a few holes here and there, it should be perfectly safe to eat. If the holes are all over the place, throw it away to be safe.

As sweet potatoes begin to spoil, they will shrivel like the one on the photo above as they lose moisture. The veggie will then become mushy and turn brown or black.

Do not eat sweet potatoes once they have begun to shrivel , and certainly not past this point. Left: Credit: Karla Conrad. Right: Credit: Karla Conrad. Boiling sweet potatoes. Credit: Karla Conrad. Cranberry-Marshmallow Sweet Potato Casserole.

Credit: Con Poulos. Comments 2 Add Comment. View Comments. October 25, September 3, Back to story Comment on this project. Tell us what you think In beaker 2, the potato floats in sugar-water; therefore the potato is less dense than the sugar-water solution. Boiling may actually retain most of the antioxidant power of sweet potatoes, compared to roasting and steaming. Therefore, from a nutritional standpoint, boiling rather than baking should be recommended for cooking sweet potato.

Cut in similarly sized pieces, tossed with oil, salt and pepper and roasted at F, russets take about 40 minutes, while sweet potatoes cook in about 25 minutes. Steaming or Boiling on the Stovetop Place washed sweet potatoes into the steamer basket. Fill the pan with water up to the bottom of the steamer basket.