Potatoes

     I have been doing a lot of reading on potatoes.  They are an amazing vegetable.  When I think about people eating nothing but potatoes, I think of the Jews in concentration camps.  The people did get maybe a potato skin in their watery soup, but they starved from lack of nutrition and hard labor.

        As you can see from this picture, potatoes have a lot of nutrients in them.      

  I asked a question on another blog I'm on about how could
you get everything you need from a potato.  I love potatoes,
but I wasn't sure I should eat too many of them.  A man by
the name of John McDougall wrote a book called
The Starch Solution.  In this book is a quote.

"Many populations, for example people in rural Poland and Russia at the turn of the 19th century, have lived in very good health doing extremely hard work with the white potato serving as their primary source of nutrition. One landmark experiment carried out in 1925 on two healthy adults, a man 25 years old and a woman 28 years old had them live on a diet primarily of white potatoes for 6 months. (A few additional items of little nutritional value except for empty calories—pure fats, a few fruits, coffee, and tea—were added to their diet.)11 The report stated, “They did not tire of the uniform potato diet and there was no craving for change.” Even though they were both physically active (especially the man) they were described as, “…in good health on a diet in which the nitrogen (protein) was practically solely derived from the potato.”

The potato is such a great source of nutrition that it can supply all of the essential protein and amino acids for young children in times of food shortage. Eleven Peruvian children, ages 8 months to 35 months, recovering from malnutrition, were fed diets where all of the protein and 75% of the calories came from potatoes. (Soybean-cottonseed oils and pure simple sugars, neither of which contains protein, vitamins, or minerals, provided some of the extra calories.)12 Researchers found that this simple potato diet provided all the protein and essential amino acids to meet the needs of growing and small children."  Check out the video.

     There are several people in the vegan community that will eat nothing but potatoes for 6 months at a time.  Now I don't think I would ever do that as I really like variety.    I do have fries made up of 3-4 potatoes seasoned with garlic and onion powder, baked at 450 until they are crispy though, and they are savory, and satisfying.  Oh and it makes for a cheap lunch!  Little ketchup on the side, and I'm good until dinner.  

     Next time you are looking for a snack reach for a potato!  Yum