THEY make tasty soups, great pies, and add colour to any roast. But while the colour of a sweet potato is mere aesthetics for well-fed diners, for millions they may be the difference between life and death.
How? Sweet potatoes range from very pale to very orange: the more orange, the higher the level of beta-carotene. Beta-carotene is a precursor of vitamin A, and a diet deficient in the vitamin can lead to blindness, a weak immune system and often death. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, three million children under five suffer from xerophthalmia, a vitamin-A-related eye condition that leads to blindness. Two-thirds of them will…
