Naturally sweet, particularly abundant due to easy cultivation, and delicious tasting, sweet potatoes and sweet potato recipes have been a popular food source in the American South for over three hundred years. A very recent shift in eating habits and a call for natural foods, sweet potatoes are also playing a role as food colorant, replacing the decades long use of carmine, which is made from crushed cochineal insects. Manufacturers using carmine to color their products can't label them as vegetarian or vegan, so sweet potatoes are becoming another coloring option. And in terms of sweet potatoes and their popularity in the south, it just seems to be a food source prevalent to southern states many grew up eating, whether baked into breads or baked sweets, stirred into soups, or eaten as a cooked accompaniment to main dishes.