{"id":7026,"date":"2010-01-29T20:16:06","date_gmt":"2010-01-29T20:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/potato-identity-crisis-am-i-a-vegetable-or-supercarb-or-both-discoblog\/"},"modified":"2010-01-29T20:16:06","modified_gmt":"2010-01-29T20:16:06","slug":"potato-identity-crisis-am-i-a-vegetable-or-supercarb-or-both-discoblog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/astronomy\/potato-identity-crisis-am-i-a-vegetable-or-supercarb-or-both-discoblog.php","title":{"rendered":"Potato Identity Crisis: Am I a Vegetable or Supercarb or Both? | Discoblog"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-6300\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/4584a_potato-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"potato\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" align=\"left\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\">The poor potato seems to be suffering from an identity crisis. Particularly in the United Kingdom, where there seems to be a great deal of confusion among consumers over whether the potato is a vegetable or just a starchy carbohydrate or both.<\/p><p>In order to vanquish this confusion and get people to pile on the potatoes, <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.lovepotatoes.co.uk\/\">The Potato Council<\/a> in the U.K. has put forth a petition to Downing Street to re-classify the spud as a &ldquo;supercarb&rdquo;&ndash;a new food group that, according to the council&rsquo;s <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.lovepotatoes.co.uk\/supercarb\/\">website<\/a>, would help highlight &ldquo;how much goodness potatoes contain.&rdquo;<\/p><p>The Council hope this re-branding restores the potatoes tattered image that has suffered in the hands of those health-conscious folks who believe that a carb is a four-letter word.<\/p><p><span><\/span>The <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/health\/8483779.stm\">BBC<\/a> reports:<\/p><blockquote><p>Spurned by dieters on low-carbohydrate regimens such as Atkins, the vegetable also appeared to score poorly on the Glycaemic Index (GI) &mdash; which measures how quickly foods are broken down. The slower, the better &mdash; and the potato was quick. And then it seemed it was no longer a vegetable at all, passed over by the Department of Health when it compiled its list of &ldquo;<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/sport2\/low\/health_and_fitness\/4287990.stm\">five-a-day<\/a>.&rdquo;<\/p><\/blockquote><p>In the United Kingdom, the potato is classified a starchy carbohydrate. But while it is starchy, research published in the <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nutritionsociety.org\/node\/236\"><em>British Nutrition Journal<\/em><\/a> argued that the vegetable had been subject to &ldquo;unjustified generalization&rdquo; and pointed out that the potato&rsquo;s nutrition was entirely dependent on the way it was cooked, pointing out that an overcooked french fry was quite different from a boiled new potato.<\/p><p>So should we or not scarf down that order of fries?<\/p><p><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.kcl.ac.uk\/schools\/biohealth\/research\/nutritional\/staff\/tsanders\">Tom Sanders<\/a>, professor of nutrition and dietetics at King&rsquo;s College, London told the BBC that potatoes are an important source of Vitamin C and several other important nutrients, and noted that they&rsquo;re healthiest when baked or boiled. He added that big, freshly cut fries only take up about 7% fat because of their relatively small surface area, and fries baked in the oven are even better with just 5 percent fat.<\/p><p>We&rsquo;ll take that as a yes.<\/p><p>Related Content:<br>Discoblog: <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/discoblog\/2009\/02\/10\/the-secret-to-why-french-fries-smell-so-good-ironing-boards\/\">The Secret to Why French Fries Smell So Good: Ironing Boards?<\/a><br>DISCOVER: <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/discovermagazine.com\/2005\/jan\/low-carbs-squeeze-farmers\/?searchterm=french%20fries\"><span>8: Low Carbs Put Squeeze On Farmers<\/span><\/a><br>80beats: <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/80beats\/2009\/07\/13\/fungus-behind-the-irish-potato-famine-strikes-the-us\/\">Fungus Behind the Irish Potato Famine Strikes the U.S.<\/a><\/p><p><em>Image: iStockphoto<\/em><\/p><p><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/29BPQexy5VxP4BOMeLVBWg5cqIU\/0\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/339e8_di\" border=\"0\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/a><br><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/29BPQexy5VxP4BOMeLVBWg5cqIU\/1\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/339e8_di\" border=\"0\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/a><\/p><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/339e8_YGBDp6oel30\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The poor potato seems to be suffering from an identity crisis. Particularly in the United Kingdom, where there seems to be a great deal of confusion among consumers over whether the potato is a vegetable or just a starchy carbohydrate &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/astronomy\/potato-identity-crisis-am-i-a-vegetable-or-supercarb-or-both-discoblog.php\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7026"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7026\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}