Websites and Resources: GLKS Potato Database The International Potato Center in Lima Wikipedia article Wikipedia World Potato Congress Potato Research One nutritionist told the Los Angeles Times that potatoes are “a great way of turning the ground into a calorie machine.”īooks: “Potato, A History of the Propitious Esculent” by John Read (Yale University, 2009) “The Potato, How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World” by Larry Zuckerman (Faber & Faber, 1998). An acre of these tubers yields twice as much food as an acre of grain and matures in 90 to 120 days. They produce a lot of food don’t take long to grow do well in poor soils tolerate bad weather and don’t require much skill to raise. The United Nations declared 2008 to be the International Year of the Potato. Potatoes are regarded as the world’s forth most important food after corn, wheat and rice. They belong to the “Solanum”, genus of plants, which also includes the tomato, pepper, eggplant, petunia, tobacco plants and deadly nightshade and more than other 2,000 species, of which about 160 are tubers. Roots absorb nutrients, tubers store them. They are underground stems that serve as food storage units for the green foliage above the ground.

Contrary to what many people think tubers are not roots.

Potatoes, cassava, sweet potatoes and yams are tubers. Charles Crissman of the International Potato Center in Lima told the Times of London, “On mashed potatos alone, you would be doing pretty good.” They are packed with protein, carbohydrates and numerous vitamins and minerals - including potassium and vitamin C and important trace minerals - and are 99.9 percent fat-free The are so nutritious it is possible to live solely on potatoes and one protein-rich food such as milk. Even though they are 80 percent water potatoes are one of the most nutritiously complete foods.

The Potato by Larry Zuckerman