Facts You Probably Didn’t Know About Potato

What is a potato? Wikipedia states that it is a starchy tuberous vegetable native to the Americas which is consumed as a staple food in many parts of the world. In reality, a potato is so much more. Here’s a few facts for which you might not be aware.

What is a potato? Wikipedia states that it is a starchy tuberous vegetable native to the Americas which is consumed as a staple food in many parts of the world. In reality, a potato is so much more. Here’s a few facts for which you might not be aware.

• Potatoes became the first vegetable to be grown in space. In 1995, the University of Wisconsin joined NASA in an attempt to grow potatoes in space. NASA acquired clippings from a potato plant and sent half into space with the Columbia space shuttle while the other half was grown on Earth.
  The experiment produced five small “space” potatoes with no clear difference from the ones grown on Earth.
  
• August 13 is National Potato Day. Don’t forget to celebrate!
  
• Potatoes traveled to the American colonies in 1621 when the Governor of Bermuda, Nathaniel Butler, sent two huge cedar chests filled with potatoes to Jamestown colony.
  
• Archaeologists remarked in a 2016 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science that they discovered micro-remains of a potato on primeval tools unearthed in southern Peru dating back to 3400 BC. That means potatoes have been grown as a crop for at least 5,400 years.
  
• We’ve mentioned in a previous blog post how crucial potatoes were in various societies throughout history, but it still may come as a surprise to learn that at times they were used as a form of currency. For example, they were employed as part of a bartering system before they even departed South America.
  
• The Potato Museum in Washington, DC includes 2000 potato artifacts.
  
• Mr. Potato Head toys initially used a real potato. The inventor of Mr. Potato Head, George Lerner, designed a set of point-backed facial features (think thumbtacks) as a way to get kids enthused about vegetables. When it was introduced in 1952, it was the first toy to get its own TV commercial, and it sold like gangbusters. The plastic potato didn’t appear until 1964.
  
• In 1903, Parker Brothers, the inventors of Monopoly, had a game called “The Potato Race.”
  
• Did you know that potatoes are alive when you buy them? Have you ever questioned why your potatoes start to sprout little buds all over? It’s because they are still alive during harvest and if they’re kept in a warm, moist environment, spuds will begin to sprout. Keeping them in a cool dry space will help prevent this.
  
• On average, Americans consume about 150 pounds of potatoes per year. Europeans consume about twice that amount.
  
• Each acre of a potato crop can feed ten people.
  
• Were you raised to believe that all the potato’s nutrients were in the skin? This
  is a myth. True, some of the valuable nutrients in potatoes are in the skin, but there are numerous nutrients that are found only in the flesh. For example, the majority of the potato’s valuable vitamin C and potassium are found in the flesh. Concerned about missing out on nutrients? Eat the whole potato!
  
• According to the Guiness Book of World Records, the world’s largest potato weighed 18 pounds, 4 ounces. A potato of that size is enough to
  cook 73 medium fires at McDonald’s.
• In 1974, an Englishman named Eric Jenkins grew 370 pounds of potatoes from a single plant.
• Potatoes were popularized in France in the 18^th century. King Louis XIV and Antoine Parmentier hosted a dinner that included only dishes with potatoes. Benjamin Franklin was said to have attended the 1767 dinner, where 20 different dishes were served.
  
• The potato contains approximately 80 percent water and 20 percent solids.
  
• Are Pringles potato chips? Initially, Pringles, a Proctor & Gamble product, weren’t made from sliced and fried potatoes. Rather, they are made from a mixture of rice, wheat, corn and potato flakes, which is then pressed into their distinct shape. In the 1960’s, P&G began to market their creation as potato chips, which infuriated a group of smaller potato chip companies who took P&G to court to stop using the phrase ‘potato chips.” In 1975, the FDA ultimately ruled that P&G could label Pringles as “potato chips” but they had to add “made from dried potatoes” to the label and it had to be written in a font that was at least half as large as the size of the largest font used to write “potato chips.”
  
• H.W, Lay, the inventor of Lay’s potato chips, was a traveling salesman during the 1930s. In order to make money, he started selling chips out of his car in 1931.
  
• An 8-ounce baked or boiled potato has only about 100 calories.
• Among the most usages of potatoes, 35 percent of the potato crop goes into French fries, 28 percent is used for fresh, and 13 percent goes to chips.
  
• The Irish potato famine occurred in the 1840s, brought on by the oomycete, Phytophthora infestans, meaning “plant destroyer.” Prior to the disease, Irish families ate nearly 10 pounds of potatoes a day. Nearly one million people died of starvation or diseases during the famine.
  
• Vincent Van Gough painted four still-life paintings featuring potatoes.
  
• Potatoes are not a relative of sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes come from the Convolvulaceae family, while potatoes are from the Nightshade family; sweet potatoes are not tubers, rather they are the root of the sweet potato plant.
  
• One of the most famous literary potatoes comes from James Joyce’s masterpiece, Ulysses. The main character, Leopold Bloom, has a potato in his pocket for much of the novel, and the book included the phrase, “Potato Preservative Against Plague and Pestilence, pray for us” in one chapter.

And you thought the potato was merely a vegetable!