Lose the Weight Not the Potatoes
Lose the Weight, NOT the Potatoes. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.
The potato industry is roaring back after being considered by many as evil when it comes to the diet but new research is showing that that picture is all wrong. Meredith Myers with the United States Potato Board gives us the details.
MYERS: Over the last few years a variety of fad diets as we all know have created a huge amount of confusion about potatoes and weight loss. Some have questioned the inclusion of potatoes in weight loss regimens due to the vegetable designated as a high glycemic index food and the result is simply that a lot of people eliminated carbohydrates when they’re on a diet.
USPB sought out a qualified group to conduct the study.
MYERS: So what the U.S. Potato Board did was fund research through the University of California –Davis and the National Center for Food Safety and Technology. The research sought to gain a better understanding of the role of potatoes and the glycemic index in weight loss. Researchers took 86 overweight men and women over the course of 12 weeks to measure the effects of a reduced calorie, modified glycemic index diet and the addition of 5 potatoes a week.
They were split into 3 groups. One with a high glycemic diet, one a low glycemic diet and then the control group told to eat a healthy diet and include 5 potato servings a week.
MYERS: The results indicated that all three groups lost weight so this is good news for all the potato lovers and the potato industry and anyone who craves the satisfaction of the wholesome potato and these results absolutely suggest that some popular diets may be leading people into unhealthy directions because those diets urge the consumption of almost no carbohydrates. It’s the calories that count.
Of course you need to increase your burning of calories. Sitting on the couch probably won’t cut it. If you burn more calories than you take in…you lose weight, no matter what you eat. Of course this is what members of the potato industry have been saying for years.
MYERS: The potato has been vilified in many respects. People have said that potatoes are not nutritious. People have said that you can’t lose weight by eating potatoes because they are high GI or because they have carbohydrates and it’s really given the potato a bad rap. For the potato industry this gives the ability to retell the nutrition story about potatoes; it’s at the core a very healthy food.
That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.
