From school cafeterias to healthy cooking courses for low-income families, from gourmet restaurants in California to a San Antonio private supper club, people are weaving sweet potato into their lives.

Some are taking it to pretty lofty heights. Here’s a quote about a NC chef competition focusing on sweet potatoes:

The six dishes created from the sweet potatoes included a ravioli stuffed with goat cheese and purple sweet potato with red pepper sauce, vegetable slaw, grilled shrimp and fresh thyme; a braised pork belly with sweet potato maple sauce, apple bacon and sweet potato hash; seared leg of lamb with sweet potato sauce over a polenta cake; pork tenderloin with sweet potato hash and a rosemary-infused sweet potato bourbon butter; bread pudding with sweet potato ice cream with cranberries and chocolate-coconut sauce; and a sweet potato chocolate torte with a salted rum caramel and sweet potato gelato.

Whew! Sounds delish, doesn’t it? …

Remember, you can always just bake ‘em and eat ‘em.
A little butter on top.
Or steamed kale, or feta, or cheddar, or bacon, or salsa, or a poached egg.
Simple. Hearty.
Peasant food that makes you feel wealthy.

Y’Ammily yours,
Lisa Johnson, Y’Ambassador, Yummy Yammy

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And among many strategies, changing from potatoes to sweet potatoes is one way she is doing it.

Glycemic load can make a huge difference in how our bodies process the food we eat.

And a sweet potato is loaded with so many vitamins and minerals, that it’s a superfood in anybody’s book.

When changing foods on our way to a health goal, I’ve found it’s important to have food that tastes really great and is satisfying. Sweet potato certainly does both of those.

Look around and see all the people making good changes for their health… you can do it, too. You can.

Y’Ammily yours,
Lisa Johnson, Y’Ambassador, Yummy Yammy

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The solution? Sweet potato, of course!

Here’s a recipe for a chili with sweet potato: http://www.washingtonian.com/blogarticles/health/wellbeing/22548.html

It’s a good soup.
But if you are really in a hurry and want to  thicken up your soup (without adding a bunch of gluten-containing flour, or cornstarch, etc), add a roasted sweet potato or two, the whole thing, scooped in with a spoon, and it will add a delicious sweet body to your fledgling soup. And never mind how much nutrition it will add!  And, of course, the gorgeous color, sunshiney orange, which always gives me the optimism of morning.

Happy soup making this winter!

Y’Ammily yours,
Lisa Johnson, Y’Ambassador, Yummy Yammy

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Lamb-Weston is ConAgra’s line of food service products, including many of the delicious sweet potato fries that we all love in restaurants.

What’s in their frozen fries for restaurants?
Sweet Potatoes, Canola Oil, Modified Food Starch*, Sugar, Rice Flour, Cornstarch, Dextrin*, Salt, Dextrose, Xanthan Gum, Leavening (Disodium Dihydrogen Pyrophosphate*, Sodium Bicarbonate), Colored with Turmeric and Oleoresin Paprika.*

I’m sure they have their reasons.
I mean, poor Con-Agra, they have to get their fries to restaurants all over the country (world?), and they’ve got to do it somehow…

To their credit, I appreciate that they have full disclosure right on their website. I honestly expected that I’d have to register first as a bona fide food service establishment to even see the products. Probably they see nothing wrong with their ingredients. In that line of business, this is pretty normal. (Leavening on fries? What for?)

But wouldn’t it be great if they put their considerable food expertise toward creating a way to get cleaner foods to people?

Con-Agra also has an Alexia brand, but oddly enough, the website doesn’t give the nutritional info for these more natural consumer products.

*** I guess they’ve figured out that:

When eating out in restaurants, we want it to taste good.
We don’t want to know the ingredients or the nutritional info.
So, in restaurant packs they give us what tastes great and is cheap enough for restaurant profit.

But when we shop in stores, we want it to be nutritious.
We read nutritional panels, ingredients, check for allergens, compare quality and value.
So, in stores, they give us what tastes good and has better nutrition.

And I’ve just figured that out, too.

* ACCORDING TO WIKIPEDIA: “Modified starch is added to frozen products to prevent them from dripping when defrosted.”  ”Disodium pyrophosphate … is found in frozen hash browns and other potato products, where it is used to keep the color of the potatoes from darkening.”  Dextrin is a “crispness enhancer for food processing, in food batters, coatings, and glazes“. Oleoresin paprika: “an oil soluble extract from the fruits of … Indian red chillies…. Extraction is performed by percolation with a variety of solvents, primarily hexane, which are removed prior to use.”

Best,
Lisa Johnson, Y’Ambassador, Yummy Yammy

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I ran natural food coops for 12 years, and met many people who were avoiding wheat and/or gluten, either on doctors’ orders, or voluntarily to improve their overall health. I’ve heard delight and amazement from people who no longer have stomach trouble, no longer have painful joints, and more. Have you had friends or family with this experience?

Her suggestion is to replace wheat with sweet potato, quinoa, millet, rice, and other grains.

I’ve been almost entirely wheat-free for a couple of months and I’m feeling pretty great.
I’d love to hear your experience!

Best to you,
Lisa Johnson, Y’Ambassador, Yummy Yammy

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But last time someone said to you, “small” or “large”, did you know what they meant?
How about “close” and “far away”?
What about “a little” or “a lot”?

Well, that’s exactly why the UK Dept of Education has come up with this fabulous visual chart, showing exactly how much food to give toddlers.

Nanny state? I don’t think so, and neither do a lot of the commenters on the site. Instead, I think it’s quite helpful. Visuals always help me, and I don’t feel compelled to conform with a chart — I feel like it’s a resource to lean on. What do you think?

My opinion:
We don’t crave huge servings of food that is bad for us because  we are greedy.
We crave more than we need, and we crave empty calories, because our bodies aren’t nourished.
Eating the foods on this chart, and leaving off what’s not on there, could be a start to getting our bodies more nourishment (don’t forget the kale!).

Best to you,
Lisa Johnson, Y’Ambassador, Yummy Yammy

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Ever since I was a kid, I knew I wasn’t going to learn shorthand and be a secretary.
My shorthand teacher was disappointed in me. Thank goodness I was willing to let her down.

I’ve always been cut out for something else. But it was hard to know what, exactly.

But now I know.
I’m a serial entrepreneur.

I’ve known it for about 20 years now, since I saw my fellow general managers at natural food coops fall into two categories: those who didn’t last two years, and those who made it a career. I went 12 years, but only because the coops I ran were growing dynamically (one coop went from $300,000 annually to $1.5 million – growing to 5 times its size in eight years … that’s the kind of growth I LOVE), so it was constantly interesting to me. I wanted to stay around long to enough to make an impact, but I knew I’d be moving on.

I love being around entrepreneurs, and take every opportunity to join in conversation with them. Something about the inherent risk factor and the feeling that you’re constantly bushwhacking through uncharted territory. Love it!

Which is why I really enjoy this great definition I just saw from the editor of Inc.com, about people like me:

Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled.

Is this you, too?
Or do people like us make you thankful for your steady employment?

I always feel guilty because “I get to have the great job” when I’m running a project.
But it turns out there are people who LIKE tending to the details, who LIKE to organize the office, who LIKE to do the bookkeeping.

And thank goodness! Without these people on the team, my ideas would never be more than ideas.

Who are you in the mix? Out front? Or beside, in the wings? Or cleaning up and setting things right again?  Do you really know where you WANT to be?  Are you giving yourself the training and resources to be sure you can be there?

Y’Ammily yours,
Lisa Johnson, Y’Ambassador at Yummy Yammy

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People are catching up to us.

There are now dozens of recipes for sweet potato dips (honestly, none as good as mine – what do you think?) on the internet that people have come up with at home and that some magazines have published. And I’ve seen a couple of grocery soups including sweet potato.

And now, Popchips has a new flavor… you guessed it! Sweet potato.

All confirmation that we’re on to something.

So stay tuned, as we continue our quest to bring this humble tuber to you in a way that is delicious, fun, innovative, and healthy.

Y’Ammily yours,
Lisa Johnson, Y’Ambassador at Yummy Yammy

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Are you traveling this holiday season?
Going to stop at a Dean & Deluca?
Or an east-coast Whole Foods?
Or a Wegman’s?

I know you’ve been searching for just the right holiday gift for us hard-working Y’Ambassadors, and I’m going to give you a tip on the best present you can offer:

Take 10 seconds in any of those stores and ask for Yummy Yammy.
Either ask the buyer in person or (even better) write it on a comment card.

 That’s it. We’ll take it from there.

I used to run stores, and I can tell you, that if just three people asked for a product, that qualified as a movement, and I couldn’t wait to order it.

So if you let these stores know that you love our food and want it there, it will help those buyers decide to carry Yummy Yammy. And that will benefit all of us!

Wishing you safe travels and a warm and loving time with your loved ones.

Y’Ammily yours,
Lisa Johnson, Y’Ambassador

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We cook a lot of sweet potatoes in our house, of course, and our family has come up with several favorites that we want to share with you.

It’s a short selection of our favorite family-friendly sweet potato recipes, and we hope you will enjoy your free copy.  Just sign up on Yummy Yammy’s homepage, and you’ll immediately get a link to download “Simplest Sweet Potato Recipes”.

It’s our way of saying thank you to our early supporters, and of sharing some of the fun we have with yams.

Much love to you all,
Lisa, Y’Ambassador, Yummy Yammy

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