YOU know the drill. Popular public figure falls from grace, loses wholesome image, seeks redemption through rehab. So who is it this time? The potato.
Back in the day, potatoes were considered perfectly respectable. Then came low-carbohydrate fad diets and word of perilous, potato-provoked spikes in blood sugars. And that was before news broke in 2002 about a possibly unhealthy relationship with the toxic chemical acrylamide.
Potatoes have had some very bad press of late, but now, in labs across the country, those spunky spuds may be staging a comeback.
A low-carb breed is already on the market; researchers have produced a low-acrylamide variety; and work is underway to try to solve the blood sugar problem too. But scientists aren't just patching up holes in the potato's resume. They're also working to give it some new assets.
The potatoes most of us eat are naturally high in vitamin C and potassium, but researchers hope to add other vitamins and minerals to the mix by taking advantage of the potato's huge gene pool.
"Modern domesticated potatoes use less than 1% of the diversity in the wild," says Roy Navarre, a research geneticist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service in Washington.
"Lots of traits in potatoes aren't developed," adds Caius Rommens, director of plant sciences at J.R. Simplot, an agribusiness company based in Idaho. "We want to try to unleash their potential."
That potential may include warding off cancer and heart disease, among other threats to our well-being. Down the road, shoppers may even find specialty potatoes in their grocery bins -- for pregnant women, men with prostate cancer or anybody worried about their vision. In fact, many believe that healthified potatoes could play a significant role in curing some of the world's ills -- in large part because they're so popular.
Per capita, Americans eat about 135 pounds of potatoes a year, according to the National Potato Council, far more than any other vegetable. "People eat so many, you can get a disproportionate effect by improving the nutrient value," says Walter De Jong, an assistant professor of plant breeding and genetics at Cornell University.
Less carbs, less toxic?
The first in the new wave of potatoes -- the low-carb SunLite -- made a big splash when it went on the market in 2005. It's sold as an all-purpose potato -- "You can bake it, boil it, slice it, dice it," says Tom Campbell, owner of the distributor, Tri-Campbell Enterprises in North Dakota -- but fries-wise, it leaves much to be desired.
