Twelve Black Code Monkeys

The U.S. Potato Board seeing a decrease in potato sales, is reacting by starting a new campaign to try to get their numbers back up They attribute the slow sales to new low-carb diets which restrict carbohydrates, the macronutrient that the potato is almost entirely made up of.

I don’t have anything against potatoes There’s nothing inherently wrong with them, at least in their organic state. However, the huge monstrosities served at chain restaurants are so loaded with empty carbs that their skins, with the actual nutrients, are hardly worth all those added calories and carbs from the actual pulp.

The problem lies more in using them as a staple food. It’s fine to have a small potato once in a while, even for someone on the strictest beginning stage of a low-carb diet. But part of the reason so many people are insulin resistant or even diabetic to begin with revolves around the abuse of potatoes and other starches. Huge baked potatoes added on top of a healthy meal just add a lot of extra calories and not a lot of nutrients And the most popular forms of the potato as eaten by Americans (french fries, hash browns, tator tots, etc.) are not only low (or zero) in nutrients, but are often fried in trans fats, making them actually harmful!

The U.S. Potato Board would no doubt love it if we were to eat a large potato (or three - since they are claiming a potato only has 9% of the recommended daily allowance of carbs – whose recommended daily allowance they don’t say, perhaps it is the Potato Board’s?) at every meal. Of course they want people to eat as much of their product as possible - that’s what it’s all about. But how do you reconcile that with what even low-fat advocates would consider to be a food that one should at least limit to some extent?

I know little of farming economics, so my comments may be incredibly naive, but I just wonder - if your market is shrinking in one place, what about trying to find markets in other places? Overseas? What about switching to other crops? Why must a farmer stick only to one plant? Many farmers don’t, they have many different crops. It just baffles me a little that there should be a marketing group for a single plant and I wonder if we will soon see similar announcements from a U.S. Carrot Board, a U.S. Peas Board, a U.S. Lentils Board, a U.S. Corn Board, and a lobbying group for every conceivable individual plant that happens to be going down in sales now that low-carb diets are popular

A Lobbying group for Bread and bakeries I can understand The National Bread Leadership Council is doing something similar, but at least they represent bakers that have one product, and can’t easily change to a completely different one Even so, many smart bakers are actually catering to the trend and offering more whole-grain and low-carb versions of their baked goods Farmers can switch to an entirely new plant Perhaps not easily and with some added expense, but with the same trend that is deemphasizing carby foods like potatoes, other lower carb vegetables will surely see an increase, in particular both cauliflower and turnips both of which can easily be used to make a facsimile of mashed potatoes

Or perhaps farmers could experiment and try breeding new varieties of potatoes or other tubers that are lower in carbs and higher in other nutrients? Maybe creating a potato with a very thick skin (which is mostly nutrients and roughage) that could be used in place of bread for sandwichiches, wraps, etc?

It’s almost as if some electronics manufacturers formed a lobbying group to try to promote VHS tapes despite the onslaught of DVD. Your market is drying up, but instead of understanding the new market realities and catering to them (and perhaps hoping things will eventually come back), you tell people they are wrong for wanting this new thing and that they should really be going back to something they used to use I hardly think you’re going to convince anyone by telling them, directly or indirectly, that they are wrong.