Saving The World One Potato at a Time
Licking your lips after eating those chunky chips with lashings of salt and vinegar; enjoying soft melt-in-your-mouth mash or freshly cooked new potatoes oozing with butter - we all enjoy our spuds. Now that I've got you all salivating and wondering how long it is before you can dash out for some fried, baked, grilled, diced, sautéed or mashed potato - here is some interesting information about the humble spud.
Story Highlights:
- The Potato's Place in Preventing World Poverty?
- Spud Facts
- Food Miles
- How to Help
The Potato's Place in Preventing World Poverty
2008 is the International Year of the Potato - a celebration outlining the spud's role in improving food security and alleviating poverty. The world's population is steadily increasing and is set to swell by about 100 million people a year over the next two decades.
With 95 per cent of the increase expected in the developing world, the potato will be a major factor in providing nutritious food for the poor and hungry. Quickly produced, resistant to harsh climates and with most of the plant being edible, the potato is a natural food which is being grown more and more in developing countries.
Spud Facts
- It is thought that potatoes originated in Peru
- China is currently the world's top potato producer
- More than half of the 315 million tons of spuds made each year are now farmed in developing countries
- Mature potato plants produce toxic fruit
- The Great Irish Potato Famine (which devastated the country between 1845 and 1852 and forced thousands of people to emigrate) was caused by a fungus from Mexico that contaminated potatoes
- The UN backs research into combating mutating diseases that affect the potato, in order to prevent a disaster as destructive as the Irish Famine from happening again
Food Miles
Ron Mader is the founder of Planeta – an ecotourism website. This site tells us about Food Miles, Slow Food and Localvores.
The debate of the carbon footprint triggered: "Food Miles" – a concept which consumers are starting to hear more about as they buy exciting edibles and favourite foods from abroad.
Regulars of this page will know that your carbon footprint is the amount of CO2 you produce when you expend energy to get from A to B. To cut down on the environmental pollution you create, you can use public transport, rather than travelling alone in a car. In terms of food, you need to think about the means of getting the food from one place or one country, to another and the environmental consequences of this trade. For example it is more eco-friendly to buy local produce.
Take a look at the label on your food when you next buy it. It's likely that your product wasn't farmed and cultivated in the country where you are buying it. Most food products now have a label showing the country of origin – which sparks much debate about the environmental pollution caused by the production and the travel involved.
There are some: "foodie" terms coined around this debate. For example Localvores are people who only eat food produced within a 100 mile radius of where they live and Slow Food refers to local, seasonal produce, prepared using traditional methods.
Ron Mader from Planeta said: "Foodies play a critical role in promoting responsible travel and eco-tourism. Choosing what we eat and where we eat goes a long way in building communities and improving the health of travellers and locals alike." See his website.
How to Help?
Here are some thoughts:
- Buy local food products to support local farmers and cut down on environmental pollution
- Ask where the food is from before you buy it
- Encourage others to follow your example
- If you can't buy local food buy Fair Trade
- Don't eat food produced from endangered animals (shark sushi for example) or plants
- Tell people it's the International Year of the Potato, and tell them why!
- Jen Page
