Posted on April, 8, 2024 at 09:36 am
A debate over the classification of spuds in America, which has simmered on the back burner for several years, has become a hot potato.
There’s a renewed effort underway to classify America’s most consumed vegetable as a grain, according to media reports.
The reports speculate that the 2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans could recategorize potatoes as a grain. The U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services publish guidelines, which provide food-based recommendations to update nutrition standards every five years.
A heated debate over the nutritional benefits of potatoes that occurred a decade and a half ago when the National School Lunch Program was being overhauled, boiled over in 2020. That year a produce organization that wanted to gain more market share for their vegetables pushed to reclassify potatoes as a grain, said Kam Quarles, National Potato Council CEO.
Potatoes are the most commonly consumed vegetable in the United States, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department Economic Research Service. In 2019 49.4 pounds of vegetables per person were available for consumption, after adjusting for losses, the USDA website said . Forty-one percent of the loss-adjusted potato availability was frozen — French fries contribute to the highest consumption.
A debate over the classification of spuds in America, which has simmered on the back burner for several years, has become a hot potato.
There’s a renewed effort underway to classify America’s most consumed vegetable as a grain, according to media reports.
The reports speculate that the 2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans could recategorize potatoes as a grain. The U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services publish guidelines, which provide food-based recommendations to update nutrition standards every five years.
A heated debate over the nutritional benefits of potatoes that occurred a decade and a half ago when the National School Lunch Program was being overhauled, boiled over in 2020. That year a produce organization that wanted to gain more market share for their vegetables pushed to reclassify potatoes as a grain, said Kam Quarles, National Potato Council CEO.
Potatoes are the most commonly consumed vegetable in the United States, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department Economic Research Service. In 2019 49.4 pounds of vegetables per person were available for consumption, after adjusting for losses, the USDA website said . Forty-one percent of the loss-adjusted potato availability was frozen — French fries contribute to the highest consumption.
A debate over the classification of spuds in America, which has simmered on the back burner for several years, has become a hot potato.
There’s a renewed effort underway to classify America’s most consumed vegetable as a grain, according to media reports.
The reports speculate that the 2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans could recategorize potatoes as a grain. The U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services publish guidelines, which provide food-based recommendations to update nutrition standards every five years.
A heated debate over the nutritional benefits of potatoes that occurred a decade and a half ago when the National School Lunch Program was being overhauled, boiled over in 2020. That year a produce organization that wanted to gain more market share for their vegetables pushed to reclassify potatoes as a grain, said Kam Quarles, National Potato Council CEO.
Potatoes are the most commonly consumed vegetable in the United States, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department Economic Research Service. In 2019 49.4 pounds of vegetables per person were available for consumption, after adjusting for losses, the USDA website said . Forty-one percent of the loss-adjusted potato availability was frozen — French fries contribute to the highest consumption.
How could potatoes, which are botanically a vegetable and referred to on USDA’s website as a vegetable, be a grain?
“I think we ask ourselves that 10 or 20 times a day,” Quarles said. “It’s bizarre on its face.”
Potatoes, like grains, do contain starch, he acknowledged. But they also contain many other nutrients, such as Vitamin C and potassium, he said.
“When we look at it in totality, it’s a vegetable,” he said.
The potential reclassification of potatoes concerned a bipartisan group of 14 U.S. lawmakers, including Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., and Sen. John Hoeven, R.N.D., who last week sent a letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack and Health Human Services Secretary Xavier Beccerra to express their opposition.
The reclassification of potatoes from a vegetable to a grain also has been the topic of television and print media reports and at least one late-night comedy show during the past few weeks.
But the ramifications of the reclassification could be serious because confusion about its nutritional benefits has the potential to reduce its consumption, which would affect people from consumers to schoolchildren to the farmers who grow the produce, Quarles said.
One of the concerns about the reclassification is that the federal nutrition program relies on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans to ensure that its beneficiaries receive well-balanced, nutritious food, the letter from the U.S. senators said, and changing the classification could come at a cost for those programs.
That’s because schools already struggle to meet, at a reasonable cost, the National School Lunch and National School Breakfast programs' vegetable consumption recommendations, the letter said, noting that often potatoes are the most affordable vegetable.
The National Potato Council respects the opinions of individuals and organizations that want to change the classification of potatoes to a grain but there’s too much at stake for the industry to not continue to fight it, he said.
“We vehemently disagree with it, and we want to make sure that the industry continues to be able to distribute it to the people who want it,” Quarles said.
Source: INFORUM