Are potatoes really a complete food?
Here's something I have seen bandied about various social media outlets recently: the claim that potatoes are a complete food. That if you eat nothing but potatoes along with some dairy (like butter), you will be AOK indefinitely. As much as I love a good mash or tot, I was skeptical of these claims, to say the least.
First of all, you have to wonder, how well, and how long? People can survive for a long time on practically nothing. Heck, an entire soccer team once survived two months with nothing but each other to eat. But that hardly means that human flesh is a complete food.
(Has this conversation taken a really weird turn? I feel like it's taken a really weird turn. I'm sorry. Let's move on.)
Historically, the Irish survived for a long time on potatoes, but they hardly ate potatoes alone. The spuds were supplemented with the occasional bit of salt fish, locally gathered greens, oats, and other things. And it should be pointed out that only the poorest Irish ate potatoes almost exclusively, and they weren't too happy about it, and there was no medical data on their average health, which could have been in fact quite bad.
It's important to emphasize that the Irish potato-heavy diet was not voluntary. They would have been thrilled at the chance to eat (say) steak or roast chicken.
Potatoes do have quite a lot of nutrition, for a starchy tuber. They include potassium and vitamin C for one thing, both of which are crucial elements for health in both the short term and the long term. If you had to eat only one thing for an extended time, potatoes would be a pretty good choice.
However, it's a long way from "you could do this and not die" and "this is a nutritionally complete food."
Image courtesy Flickr/lindstromORG