Americans love their spuds, consuming 130 pounds per person annually. Now that culinary love affair could grow even more passionate with Agricultural Research Service (ARS) findings that some potato varieties are packed with health-promoting compounds called phytochemicals.
Using a new analytical method, ARS plant geneticist Roy Navarre and colleagues in Washington State and Oregon have identified 60 different kinds of phytochemicals and vitamins in the skins and flesh of 100 wild and commercially grown potatoes.
The team's analysis of Red and Norkotah potatoes, for example, revealed that the spuds' total dietary-phenolics content rivaled that of broccoli, spinach and brussel sprouts. These phenols included the flavonoids subgroup, which may play a role in helping diminish cardiovascular disease, respiratory problems and certain cancers, notes Navarre, at the ARS Vegetable and Forage Crops Research Unit in Prosser, Wash.
