Just a little fyi to all... Dr Harris says that starches left to return back down to room temperature after being cooked can give you gas because it becomes resistant starch.

Even though this an old thread, I do have possibly relevant information. Even though every "yam" we see in the grocery-mart is really a variety of sweet potato, I react quite differently to them. The orange skin/flesh "yam" gives me horrible gas and general intestinal distress, but the yellow skin/flesh sweet potato digests with no issues at all.

It might be worth doing an experiment to see if you have this same differential reaction.

Do you eat the peels? This is where most of the indigestible stuff resides (as well as the bulk of the phytates and solanine).

If not, chances are it's a digestive intolerance for one of the compounds.

I doubt it's the fructose, since sweet potatoes actually have very little. Most of the sugar that makes them sweet is maltose, which is a glucose-glucose disaccharide. I eat a lot of sweet potato all the time and I don't experience this. I would agree with Jack that it might be the resistant starch that's feeding your microflora, although I eat them cold all the time and it still doesn't happen.

I have this issue too. Do you have problems with fructose/simple sugars? There are a fair amount in sweet potatoes. You could try a "true yam". I like the Japanese varieties and they are mostly starch.

all taters give me gas if eaten everyday

It could easily be an adaptation time period issue. That occurs whenever you increase fiber intake.

Even improperly prepared beans are supposed to not be gassy if you've been having them for a few months in sufficient quantity.

Yes sweet potatoes give me more gas than regular potatoes. It's due to their fructan content I believe. A certain amount of starch from regular potatoes gets through to the colon and is there fermented producing gas. With sweet potatoes, I think the fructans + whatever starch is left over fuel the anaerobes.

if i only eat them PWO I'm fine and gas-free however if i decide to have them again at dinner, then i'll definitely have gas. Poison in the dose for me. White potatoes do not seem to give me this issue at all.

Not sure if I would get gas but I haven't eaten them often after figuring out they were giving me reflux. It's very strange considering very little gives me reflux anymore (used to be everything when I was a grain-aholic), so I don't eat them. I don't eat too many regular tubers but have not noticed any reflux from them. Butternut squash is my stand-in for sweet potatoes PWO (sometimes pumpkin).