Save our spud

Jul 15 2003

Madeleine Brindley, The Western Mail

link to article

They are the bedrock of the British diet and the foundation of every Sunday roast. But the king of vegetables is suffering from an image problem born from the ashes of the explosion in faddy dieting. Health Editor Madeleine Brindley reports on why it's time to ...

There was a time when every shopping basket contained a bag of potatoes, when a meal plate was not complete without a side serving of mashed, boiled or chipped spuds.

This was the time when the humble potato was regarded as a staple ingredient in our daily lives and the basis of a healthy diet.

Our centuries-old love affair with the potato has spawned children's rhymes and children's toys - who can forget Mr Potato Head in the Toy Story films? - and has survived the threat of blight that led to the death of a million people in Ireland more than 150 years ago.

But today it would appear our love of spuds is waning as the king of vegetables stands (falsely) accused of masquerading as a healthy option.

The calorie-conscious are now studiously avoiding the spud in their quest for ever-decreasing waistlines, as they bow to the mighty dieting industry and its plethora of get-thin-quick fad diets.

The humble potato has been spurned in favour of high-protein, low-carbohydrate diets that omnipotent celebrities promote as they show off their impossible-to-achieve figures on every red carpet in the land.

Where once we boiled and roasted our friendly potato now, brainwashed by diet regimes that offer quick results by excluding the spud, we question its fat content, its calorie levels, its very presence on our plate.

Expert opinion is still divided on the success of these diets, particularly Atkins, but it is undeniable that their ability to promote significant weight loss in such a short space of time has captivated the nation in the grip of an obesity epidemic.

Our obsession with fad diets - such as Atkins which bans potatoes in favour of meat and eggs - is altering the way we think about food and the staples of a healthy balanced diet that experts argue is essential for weight-loss.

The potato has been the biggest loser.

"We're bombarded with these types of faddy diets that promise fantastic results," said Ebbw Vale dietician Susan Doyle. "And for those people who are desperate to lose weight, they will do anything.

"We have lost sight of the basic principles of healthy eating. In trying to get a quick fix or a quick solution to our weight issues we're creating huge problems."

Tony Young, who grows potatoes in the southern Pembrokeshire spud basket between Haverfordwest and Milford Haven, speaks of an industry in decline and a gradual reduction in the amount of acreage planted year on year.

"The supermarkets don't want the early potatoes; they want washed potatoes trussed in plastic and in a way they are lowering demand.

"It's also these new diets, the ones that tell you what you can and can't eat, isn't it?

"But if you look at our old age population - people who are now in their 70s and 80s and are living longer - and then look at their diets, they ate a balanced diet that included potatoes.

"We don't have to have potatoes just as chips, but with the amount of fast food around maybe we have moved away from other ways of cooking and eating potatoes."

In shunning potatoes we are shunning a vitamin-rich food source that contains less fat than its starchy counterparts of rice and pasta.

Potatoes themselves are not a fatty food - it is the way we cook them, particularly as chips, that contribute to this unfair reputation.

While our actual consumption of potatoes is not falling at the moment - it is holding steady at 103kg per person every year - the perception of the potato is changing for the worse and it is feared if this continues it will lead to a decline in potato-eating.

Such is the concern about the fatty reputation the potato is developing, as a result of being excluded from the wave of controversial diets fanning their way across the Atlantic, that the British Potato Council is hitting back with a campaign specifically designed to put the spud at the heart of our healthy eating consciousness.

A spokeswoman said, "We want to reassure people that potatoes can be part of a healthy diet, as they are fat free and low in salt. Now is the right time to push their health benefits. It's what we put on them that matters."

As we continue to put on weight - one in five men and women in Wales are now classed as overweight - and continue to seek solutions to our expanding waistlines, the potato must not be allowed to become a victim of the dieting industry.

Instead it must remain the bedrock of our diets and reclaim its place as a staple ingredient of a healthy and active lifestyle.

I wrote and sent this objection to the contact listed on the newspaper the link pointed to at:

peter.gill~wme.co.uk

I was concerned to read the sloppy misreporting by Madeleine Brindley in her article Save our spud of Jul 15 2003.

The Atkins diet is not high protein, as she claims. It is moderate protein.

Further, the basic principles of the Atkins Diet aren't some recent fad, as she also mistakenly claims. If you go back far enough, you will see it was followed for the majority of human existence... hardly a fad. People are merely returning to a diet which is lower in sugar and starchy carbohydrates than the recent couple of centuries have dramatically altered our diets.

She also misreports that Atkins bans potatoes in favor of meat and eggs, implying a shunning of vegetables on the Atkins Diet. Yet again, she's quite wrong. Many Atkins Dieters report their *increase* in vegetable intake when switching from their typical fast-food diet (which includes potato-related french fries, etc.) to the Atkins Diet. Vegetables are an essential component of the Atkins Diet. Period. We wonder if Ms. Brindley bothered to read even the first chapter of the book she is so confused about.

As far as health issues are concerned, potatoes are made all too often into unhealthy junk food products, yet she curiously omits this and touts the potato is nearly the cure-all for modern health woes. We'll spare her numerous health-related studies showing the benefits of reducing one's sugar-insulin intake, since she can't even get the most basic ABC's about which diet she thinks she's talking about in the first place, much more advancing to clinical studies instead of parroting some potato-industry spokesperson as her evidence.

It is strongly urged she do her homework before again mixing up matters when reporting on said diet, or any other diet, for that matter.