Faith an’ begorrah! Tis rumblings akin to the Great Famine, the starving of the Irish that sent so many to American shores. The US Department of Agriculture would ban potatoes from our school lunchrooms.
The absence of potatoes changed the lives of the Irish in the 19th Century:
There’s a proud array of soldiers—what do they round your door?
They guard our master’s granaries from the thin hands of the poor.
Pale mothers, wherefore weeping? ‘Would to God that we were dead—
Our children swoon before us, and we cannot give them bread.
Of course, in today’s schoolhouses, the children are not starving as the young did during the famine resulting from a blight that ruined the potato crop in Ireland. US schoolchildren are largely overweight, and the potato – specifically, the French fried version – is receiving much of the blame.
The USDA guidelines would remove potatoes altogether from breakfast menus and would severely restrict their servings at lunchtime.
There are those running the anti-potato gauntlet. Susan Collins, R-Maine, says there is a place for potatoes in school lunchrooms, as long as they aren’t fried. Collins hails from a potato-growing region of New England.
“A baked potato can be a good source of potassium for our children,” said Collins.
The potato is often singled out as a culprit in dietary planning – or lack of – that results in weight gain. A medium-sized spud can deliver more than 200 calories regardless of how it is cooked.
There are those who say schools should be a place for learning about dietary choices as well as history and literature, and that offering alternatives to potatoes at school may be the only time some students encounter vegetables other than fries.
Of course, the idea of lowering consumption is opposed by the National Potato Council, which points out that farmers will bear the brunt of the menu change, along with unhappy, fry-choosing students. School districts will spend more for alternative vegetables, which are more expensive as a general rule.
Which brings us back to the potato famine in Ireland, a time of hardship that reduced the population of the Emerald Isle by millions.
Why did so many die when the crop failed?
The Irish were so impoverished at the time that they could afford little beyond the potatoes that were grown on their plots of land. In fact, the potato was introduced in part as a low-cost crop for the common-folk. When the plants died from a disease, there were few alternatives offered the Irish beyond eventual death from starvation.
One alternative was emigration. More than a million Irish left the island searching for a chance to survive elsewhere. It is estimated that a million died as a result of the famine.
In the cases of the famine and the classroom, the potato is not to blame for the resulting changes in the lives of the end-consumer. The Irish would not have starved had the political system afforded them opportunities to grow other crops.
If those behind menu creation in the school lunchrooms can manage a little diversity and creativity, the simple potato can avoid being labeled as the villain responsible for the plumping-up of America’s students.
Rather than blaming Irish or Idaho spuds, it may be that obesity can be more closely linked to those video-gaming couch potatoes.
