ode to the humble potato

Today as I was heavily negotiating with my mother what she is going to cook me over the weekend I was reminded about how much I love potatoes.

I'm a keen runner, last year I ran three half marathons in the space of a month, and although I will not do that again any time soon, I still really love to run. However, I avoid the runner staples of bread and pasta as I try and avoid wheat. Which is where potatoes really come into their own: they are a great source of carbohydrates, but mean I can still run/recover without having massive stomach cramps. As a bonus potatoes have enough flavour on their own without having to drench them in a calories/fat dense sauce, unlike pasta and rice.

Having said that this weekend's roast potatoes are clearly not the healthiest choice (this was definitely one of the 20% splurge time), and a far better option are new potatoes.

And yet another link to an article: there has been a lot of work recently suggesting that although medicine undoubtedly played an important role in population development, nutrition played an important role too. (As an aside note: many 'ancient history' measures of GDP come from nutritional measures). These guys find that the availability of potatoes potentially explains 20% of population growth in the 18th and 19th century.

Who knew that my favourite running food was such an amazing thing!


Miss Haribo
http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/3845