Key Points
A record-breaking harvest had flooded the country with so many spuds that the government had to pay farmers to give them away..
I think Ive personally proven that the potato is highly nutritious, no matter how you eatwhether you boil it or fry it, cook it in the oven, or steam it, Voigt says.. Voigt adopted his unusual diet in protest against a recommendation from the National Institute of Medicine to exclude white potatoes from a federal voucher program for women and children on low incomes..
Theyre pretty amazing in my opinion, says Joanne Slavin, a nutrition professor at the University of Minnesota who helped come up with the 2010 federal dietary guidelines for Americans, which counted potatoes in the recommendation that people eat 2.5 cups of vegetables each day...
When a fungal disease wiped out nearly all of Irelands potato harvest in 1845, over a million people died in what became known as the Great Famine, and a similar number emigrated to North America, Australia, or to Great Britainwhere the government continued to export grain, meat, and even potatoes from Ireland despite the raging famine...
Voigt, of the Washington Potato Commission, where frozen french fries are the states top agricultural export, tried to convince me that deep-fried and salted potatoes dont meet the definition of ultra-processed food..
