That’s what young trick-or-treaters were asked at the recent Brunswick County Fall Festival. What would you pick? Candy or Potato? Believe-it-or-not about 50% picked the potato.

While all the other booths were passing out loads of candy, we passed out
nature’s “dirt candy” -- sweet potatoes. There were lots of surprised faces from
both parents and children. Some folks were baffled and others were amused.
But a lot of families selected sweet potatoes with delight.

The Fall Festival is an annual community event hosted by the Brunswick County
Sheriff’s Department at the Government Center in Bolivia. There were lots of
things for families to do including costumes, scary tours, exploring emergency
vehicles and other fun Halloween activities. Each of the county departments are
encouraged to have a booth to pass out information about their services and (of
course) candy.

When our N.C. Cooperative Extension team began planning how we could
participate in this event, we wanted to showcase all of the many opportunities our
office offers county residents. These include 4-H and youth programs, nutrition
and healthy eating, horticulture and agriculture.

Our staff decided to do this by giving out a healthy agricultural product at our
booth. Sweet potatoes became the obvious choice. North Carolina is the top
producer growing over 60% of all sweet potatoes in the US and it’s our official
state vegetable. In 2022, NC grew 87,000 acres of sweet potatoes, that’s 1.6
billion pounds! That’s over $350,300,000 value to our farmers.

The Food Bank of Central and Southeastern North Carolina donated the locally
grown sweet potatoes. N.C. Cooperative Extension passed out over 360 pounds
of “dirt candy” at the Fall Festival.

Our 4-H youth got involved in passing out and sharing information about the
sweet potatoes. Of course, healthy eating was a part of our discussion. Sweet
potatoes are very nutritious. It's fun to note that 1 cup of sweet potato has only 6 grams of sugar compared to 1 chocolate bar that has 17 grams. Sweet potatoes
are a great source of potassium, fiber, iron, manganese and vitamins A, C, E and
B6. We also had some healthy recipes ideas to share so families could go
home and try them. Some people said they’d never had a sweet potato before
and this gave them the chance to try them.

We shared an easy recipe for make-your-own Sweet Potato Fries from our
Expanded Nutrition Education Program’s Cooking with EFNEP Cookbook.
These fries can be seasoned with salt and pepper after baking or you can add
your favorite combination of seasonings when tossing with oil in the bag.
Seasonings to try could be garlic, onion or chili powder or you go sweet by
adding cinnamon or nutmeg. This is time to experiment.

Sweet Potato Fries
Non-stick cooking spray
4 medium sweet potatoes (about 3 pounds)
2 Tablespoons olive oil

Preheat oven to 475°F. Lightly spray a baking sheet with the non-stick cooking
spray. Wash the sweet potatoes thoroughly and dry. Cut the sweet potatoes into
long strips about ½” thick. Put oil in a plastic bag. Add the cut sweet potatoes to
the bag and toss to evenly coat with oil. Spread the strips in a single layer on the
baking sheet and place in the preheated oven. After 20 minutes take the baking
sheet out of the oven and turn the sweet potato strips over. Immediately return
the baking sheet to the oven and bake for 15 more minutes. Makes about 6
servings of 10 fries each. Nutrition information: 120 calories per serving, 3 grams
dietary fiber and 17 grams carbohydrates.

Our 4-H team also passed out Monster Bags that contained craft supplies to
encourage kids to make their own “monster” to promote creativity (and perhaps
eat less candy). If you got a Monster Bag, please share a photo of your creation
using

the QR code that was included with the instructions so we can see your
monster. We’re posting these on our Facebook page.

We felt so good about this event, in addition to having Halloween fun we were
able to share some great information about our N.C. Cooperative Extension here in Brunswick County and North Carolina agriculture. We’re already planning for
next year’s Fall Festival…so don’t be surprised if someone asks you…candy or
potato?

Syracuse is a Family and Consumer Science team member and can be reached
at N.C. Cooperative Extension, Brunswick County Center 910-253-2610 or by
email at clsyracu@ncsu.edu