Potato Facts

How I came about writing facts about Potato? This was very famous for cooking in France during my stay over there. It was also used as fashion accessory, which I noticed in one of the painting in the Château de Versailles. Potatoes available there were much fresh and so clean with no sand on it. I can hear somebody saying OK, Stop It. So, Let us head straight to the facts now.

• This nutritious, tasty tuber - now eaten all over the world and the main ingredient in over 406,000 recipes on the Internet - was first cultivated in the South American Andes mountains over 4,000 years ago.


• The potato consists of about 80percent water and 20percent starch.


• One medium-size potato (about 150g) contains 100 calories if you boil it or bake it without fat.


• Website www.thehotpotato.com lists these nutrients in a medium-size potato: 3g protein; 0g fat; 22g carbohydrates.


• Apart from being fat and cholesterol-free, the potato is also high in vitamin C, potassium and a good source of vitamin B6 and dietary fibre.


• The sweet potato belongs in the same family as morning glories while the white potato belongs to the same group as tomatoes, tobacco, chilli pepper, eggplant and the petunia.


• Despite the popular notion, the majority of nutrients are not found in the skin, but in the potato itself. Nonetheless, leaving the skin on the potatoes retains all the nutrients and the fibre in the skin. It also makes potatoes easier to prepare.


• This is the United Nations' International Year Of The Potato which will focus on the importance of the potato in providing food security and alleviating poverty.


• The potato as a fashion accessory? Don't laugh. France's Louis XVI and his queen, Marie Antoinette , liked to wear potato blossoms. He in his buttonhole, she in her hair.