The Potato Museum Blog: Potatoheads Talking

World Cup: Full of Couch Potatoes

The World Cup arrives but once every four years and for most fans it means bouts of lying about, snacking, interspersed with attempts to work. The government health folks of Hong Kong are so concerned about the slothful ways and poor eating bound to crop up during the Cup they felt compelled to issue a "couch potato" warning.

In addition to suggesting we avoid the usual snacks, the department offers the following tips:

"* stretch and move around while watching matches, and ensure there is good ventilation;

* sit properly while watching matches to avoid muscle aches afterwards;

* get enough sleep. Insufficient sleep can lower your immunity and make you more prone to illnesses, affect your working performance and may make you prone to accidents and injuries; and

* strike a balance between watching matches and fulfilling your social commitments."

Image credit: http://members.aol.com/iicouchpotatoes/soccer.html

Bill Gates & Sweet Potatoes

HarvestPlus has received a US$ 6 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to introduce a nutritionally improved staple food -orange-fleshed sweetpotato- into the diets of the undernourished in East Africa.

The grant will significantly advance HarvestPlus’ efforts to grow and distribute high vitamin A sweetpotato and communicate their health benefits widely among the poor.

“Agriculture can be a tool for public health, although developing new technology is only half of the solution. The other half lies in effectively getting biofortified foods to the undernourished,” said Howdy Bouis, Director of HarvestPlus. “With the Gates Foundation’s assistance, we will be able to significantly advance our efforts to disseminate high vitamin A sweetpotato developed by the International Potato Center (CIP) and African partners much sooner than expected.”

Originating in the Americas, orange sweetpotato is rich in beta-carotene, an essential building block of vitamin A. However, the crop is not widely grown or consumed in East Africa, where white sweetpotato is preferred. Since the mid-1990s, CIP has been breeding sweetpotato varieties that are rich in beta-carotene and match local growing conditions and cooking preferences, but that was only part of what was needed. “The Gates Foundation grant will allow HarvestPlus, CIP, and other partners to improve our understanding of markets and how to shift consumer preferences in order to more effectively reach end-users with biofortified sweetpotato and enhance our impact on reducing child and maternal mortality,” said Pamela Anderson, Director General of CIP.

HarvestPlus will apply the Gates Foundation grant in pilot areas throughout East Africa, including Uganda where vitamin-A deficiency affects 38 percent of all children, and in Mozambique where the proportion is even higher at 68 percent.

More than 500,000 children are blind because of vitamin A deficiency and many more suffer from weakened immune systems due to a lack of this essential nutrient, according to World Health Organization estimates. Vitamin A deficiency has been shown to increase child mortality by 23 percent. Read more here.

International Year of the Potato announced

The potato is the fourth most important food crop in the world, with great potential as a food source for future generations. The United Nations (UN) has declared 2008 as the International Year of the Potato, in Resolution 4/2005 of the Conference of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, adopted on 25 November 2005.

This major event will present many opportunities to raise the profile of potato among civil society as an important world food staple, and to raise the profile of the potato as a contributor to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The UN Resolution notes that the potato is a staple food in the diet of the world’s population. It affirms the need to focus world attention on the role that the potato can play in providing food security and eradicating poverty in support of achieving internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals.

Read more about this and The International Potato Center based in Lima, Peru.

Previous Interntional Years:

2002 International Year of Mountains
2003 International Year of Freshwater
2004 International Year of Rice
2005 International Year of Microcredit
2006 International Year of Deserts and Desertification

French Fries in Youth Tied to Breast Cancer?

WebMD Medical News article by Miranda Hitti, August 15, 2005

In a new study, women were more likely to get breast cancer if they had regularly eaten french fries decades earlier as preschoolers.

The report appears in the online edition of the International Journal of Cancer. It's based on the Nurses' Health Study, a long-term health study of a large group of nurses.

The study focused on 582 nurses who had breast cancer and more than 1,500 who didn't have breast cancer in 1993. Their mothers were asked how often the nurses had eaten 30 different foods as preschoolers.

French Fries Stood Out

The findings:

• French fries were the only food associated with higher risk of breast cancer.
• Foods that were not linked to an increase in breast cancer include cheese, butter, eggs, ground beef, and cookies.
• Whole milk was linked to a slightly lower risk of breast cancer, the study shows.

For every extra weekly serving of french fries that the women reportedly ate as preschoolers, their risk of breast cancer as adults rose 27%, write Karin Michels, ScD, PhD, and colleagues.

Michels is an associate professor of epidemiology at Harvard Medical School and Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital.

View Results With Caution

Keep in mind:

• French fries weren't tested for any cancer-causing properties.
• People's memories of long-ago diets aren't perfect.
• The moms were in their 60s, 70s, and 80s when they were interviewed about what their kids ate decades earlier.
• The moms knew if their daughters had had breast cancer, which could skew their views of foods.

"We have to interpret this very cautiously," Michels tells WebMD. "We really would very much like other studies to confirm our findings before we go out to make public health recommendations."

Image of French fries sunning at the beach from The Potato Museum collection