Potatoes R Vegetables Pt 1
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson. As the Dietary Guidelines are put together for 2025, as they are every five years, a question has come up that has many baffled; are potatoes a vegetable?
Food Direction CEO Beth Johnson says it’s a question activist are raising, but she’s not sure why …
JOHNSON … “Potatoes are absolutely a vegetable. There’s no question whatsoever when you look at horticulturally, nutritionally, they are just a vegetable at, it’s a fine point.”
But Johnson says some of the folks on the advisory committee are looking at how potatoes are eaten in different settings …
JOHNSON … “When they look at that, they say often, potatoes at a lunch or a dinner or a supper may be swapped with a rice or a pasta or some sort of grain. So therefore, they’re saying should potatoes be considered a vegetable in that situation or should they be considered something else?”
Which, National Potato Council CEO, Kam Quarles, views as absurd …
QUARLES … “I guess if they were substituted for a glass of milk, we would be in the dairy program. It’s kind of the comic absurdity of this I’ll call it post-factual world that we’re living in.”
Tune in tomorrow for more on the latest question: Are potatoes a vegetable or grain? And when that decision should come down.
