That most unpretentious vegetable, the potato, deserves a better place in the national diet, researchers say.
They say the Irish were a lot healthier when, in the 1830s, nearly three- quarters of their food intake was potatoes.
Potatoes were devoured in prodigious quantities, with adult laboring men demolishing 10 to 12 pounds a day, says a report on diet in Ireland from the 17th to the 20th Centuries.
After the potato famine of 1845-49, the Irish varied their diet and nutritional standards declined, said the report by Professor Leslie Clarkson and Dr. Margaret Crawford of Queens University, Belfast.
Life expectancy fell. The incidence of certain diseases such as diarrhea and dysentery increased.
Diets before the famine may have been monotonous, but they were rich in protein, carbohydrates, energy value, calcium and iron.
Crawford, a nutritionist turned historian, commented: ”The best protein is in the potato jacket, but the Irish in the time before the famine did not always eat it because the skin was used as pig food–and the pig was used to pay the rent.”
In advising people to eat more potatoes, Crawford said the vital consideration is in how the vegetable is prepared. Baking and boiling are best.
She added, ”If they are deep fried in animal fat, it could be a factor in increasing the risk of coronary heart disease–which was where the Irish started going nutritionally wrong in the post-famine prosperity of the late 19th Century.”
