How the

Patato

change the

World

Thepotatowas first domesticated in

the region of modern-day southern
Peruand extreme northwestern
Bolivia between 8000 and 5000
BCE.It has since spread around the
world and become a staple crop in
many countries. In South America,
potatoes provided the principal
energy source for theInca Empire, its
predecessors, and its Spanish
successor.

Patato in Europe
The Spanish brought
potatoes to Europe in
the 16th century.
European consumers
were reluctant to adopt
the potato. However,
due to the sheer
practicality of the
potatoadaptability,
generally plentiful crops
and relatively long shelf
life, combined with the
nutritional valueit was
soon widely accepted
and consumed. When
potato plants bloom,
they send up five-lobed
flowers that spangle
fields like fat purple
stars. By some

Her husband,
Louis XVI, put one
in his buttonhole,
inspiring a brief
vogue in which the
French aristocracy
swanned around
with potato plants
on their clothes.
The flowers were
part of an attempt
to persuade
French farmers to
plant and French
diners to eat this
strange new
species.

Today the potato is the fifth most important crop worldwide, after
wheat, corn, rice and sugar cane. But in the 18th century the tuber
was a startling novelty, frightening to some, bewildering to others
part of a global ecological convulsion set off by Christopher
Columbus.

Compared with grains, tubers are inherently more productive. If the

head of a wheat or rice plant grows too big, the plant will fall over,
with fatal results. Growing underground, tubers are not limited by
the rest of the plant. In 2008 a Lebanese farmer dug up a potato
that weighed nearly 25 pounds. It was bigger than his head.

POTATO.The potato is a tubera short, thick,

underground stem with stored starches and sugars
of the potato plant. It was given its botanical
name,Solanum tuberosum,in 1596 by the Swiss
botanist Gaspard Bauhin, and belongs to the
Solanaceae family, the nightshades, which includes
eggplant, peppers, and the tomato. (The sweet
potato is not a potato; it belongs to the morning
glory family.
Nutritionally, the potato supplies complex
carbohydratesessential for energyand a very
low amount (about 10 percent) of protein. One
serving (a 5.3-ounce medium potato) provides: 45
percent of Recommended Daily Intake (RDI) for
vitamin C (most of it in the millimeters-thick layer
immediately under the skin), 21 percent of
potassium, 3 grams of fiber, essentially no fat, and
only 100 calories. It is rich in the minerals iron and
magnesium and supplies all the vital nutrients

Fear of Potatoes

It is not unusual for new foods to be met with skepticism and fear, especially those arriving from a
strange, faraway continent where they are consumed by "uncivilized" non-Christian peoples. The
potato, however, had a tougher battle for acceptance than many other foodstuffs introduced from
the Americas. Aside from its odd, unaesthetic appearance and initially bitter taste, the tuber was
feared for a variety of reasons. Since it was not mentioned in the Bible, it was often associated with
the devil. As a consequence, in the north of Ireland and in Scotland, Protestants flatly refused to
plant them. In Catholic Ireland, to be on the safe side, peasants sprinkled their seed potatoes with
holy water and planted them on Good Friday.

Another source of prejudice against the potato was its membership in the nightshade family, which
includes a number of poisonous members: deadly nightshade (belladonna, which is poisonous),
mandrake (known as a soporific and fertility drug), tobacco, and henbane (poison). Some of these
substances have traditionally been associated in various cultures with magic and witchcraft. In many
folk beliefs there is a grain of truth. Solanine, contained in the tubers and common to all plants in the
nightshade family, is indeed a poison. Unlike modern potatoes, which contain only a nonharmful
trace amount, tubers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had much higher levels, not
enough to cause death, but sometimes a rash appeared. That led to its association with the
deadliest disease of the time, leprosy. So great was the fear that, when Frederick the Great of Prussia
ordered his people to plant potatoes in 1744, they pulled them up. Frederick was forced to post
soldiers to guard the crops. Ten years later, in 1754, the king of Sweden also ordered his subjects to
grow potatoes. Yet, when famine struck Kolberg in 1774, wagonloads of potatoes sent by Frederick
were rejected.

All over Europe, it was believed that the potato plant would
bring disease. In the seventeenth century, the parliaments of
Franche Comptand adjacent Burgundy actually prohibited its
cultivation. In the early nineteenth century, Ludwig Feuerbach and
other German radicals believed that "potato blood" was weakening
the people and delaying the anticipated revolution. In Sicily,
potatoes were used like voodoo dolls: the name of an enemy was
attached to a tuber and buried in the belief that this would ensure
his or her death. Even as late as 1928 in America, Celestine Eustis,
the author ofCooking in Old Creole Days, advised readers to throw
out the water in which potatoes had been boiled because it was
poisonous.
At the same time potatoes were feared and reviled, and being grown
only in the gardens of botanists, there was also a developing
literature in sixteenth-century European herbal books asserting that

The Potato in Time of War

Europeans quickly discovered that
the potato afforded them a
military advantage; it was ideally
suited to combat starvation
caused by war. During the Dutch
Wars (15671609), for example,
Spanish soldiers crossed the Alps
on foot from Italy, marching north
through Franche Compt, Alsace,
and the Rhinelands. Villagers
along the route quickly discovered
that tubers carried by the soldiers
could be planted, hidden
underground, and dug as needed,
unlike grain. Nearly every military
venture after about 1560,
including World War II, resulted in
more acreage being planted in
potatoes.
When French, Austrian, and Russian armies invaded Prussia during the Seven Years
War (17561763), peasants escaped starvation by eating potatoes. As a result, the
Austrian, Russian, and French governments all persuaded their own peasants to grow
potatoes. In 1778, the War of the Bavarian Succession was called "the potato war"
because most of the action consisted of destroying the enemy's food supplies.

Cultivating
Potatoes
Potatoes are most often grown in cooler climates in
moist, acidic soil (pH slightly less than 6). They must
be able to gather sufficient water from the soil to form
the starchy tubers that range anywhere from three to
twenty in number on any one plant, depending on
variety, weather, and conditions.
Although potatoes are perennials, they are treated as
annuals since the edible part of the plant that contains
the buds is dug up each year. Farmers grow particular
tubers as seed potatoes (not intended to be eaten) for
propagating new crops. These potatoes are cut into
what are called "sets," small pieces, with at least one
eye or leaf bud on the surface, with some of the flesh
of the potato still attached to supply the initial energy
for the plant. The sets are planted with the eyes facing
upward; new plants sprout from the eyes

The potato plant produces leaves and flowers that can be white, purple,
lilac, or violet, depending on variety. If fertilization of the flower is
successful, a small green fruit ball is produced containing fifty to two
hundred seeds, known as true seed. These can be planted for the next
year's crop rather than using seed potatoes. The leaves supply abundant
food for the plant's growth, and the generated surplus moves down into
the underground tuber for storage. Potatoes can be left in the ground for
four to six weeks. They are harvested when all of the leaves and tops of
the plants have withered. A potato that is harvested young, usually in
the spring or early summer, and sent directly to market instead of being
Before potatoes can be sold or shipped, they must be sorted for size
stored, is known as a new potato.
and quality. This process is called "grading" and special implements
are used. These can be as simple as a wooden slat with a bag on the
end for acceptable potatoes, or a more complicated conveyor-belt
system that moves potatoes toward the bag at the end as inspection
is performed.
Potatoes produce the steroidal alkaloid solanine, which seems to
protect the tubers and foliage from some predators and insects.

Relation to Human Biology

Potatoes contain anthoxanthins, pigments that produce the white
color and act as antioxidants, believed to have some cancerpreventing activity. Specifically, unfried potatoes are among those
vegetables containing the highest levels of the antioxidant
glutathione. When compared to bell peppers, carrots, and onions,
potatoes have the greatest overall antioxidant activity. Only broccoli
is higher.
French fries and potato chips, however, may pose a cancer risk.
Separate studies by the national food agencies of Sweden, Britain,
and Norway have reported high levels of acrylamide, a carcinogen
in rats and probably one in humans, in potato products fried at high
temperatures. Until there is more evidence, the World Health
Organization and the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization have not been able to determine whether consumers
should cut back on their intake of fried potato foods, particularly
chips.

Genetic Diversity
Many observers believe that the solutions to the agricultural
issues lie in plant breeding and preserving the genetic
diversity of potatoes. By planting a larger number of
varieties, farmers guard against damage of blight or insects
that might destroy one variety but not another. There is
some reason to believe that, if Ireland had planted its fields
with a diverse crop, the toll from the famine would not have
happened.
Today, only half a dozen varieties constitute the vast
majority of the nation's crop. In the final decade of the
twentieth century, there was a resurgence of interest in
potato varietals and their preservation and development. Of
particular interest are heirloom potatoes, those developed
over centuries for which the seeds have been handed down
from one generation to the next.
To protect the genetic diversity of the potato, and to make it
available for systematic manipulation, the International
Potato Center in Lima, Peru, under the auspices of the
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research,
has collected about 5,000 samples of native cultivars from
nine countries in Latin America, representing about 3,500
genotypes. Every aspect of the potato and its place in the
environment and human society is studied. Recent projects

Master Management si Agribusiness

Student: Laura-Alexandra CHIRILOIU
Proiect Materia Engleza

HOW THE

PATATO

CHANGE THE

WORLD