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Mmm ... Purple Disease-Resistant Potatoes
the_ph0x` writes: "An article on Reuters describes a new breed of potato as being resistant to disease, able to grow in low nutrient soil and ... purple. Not all that interesting unless you're from an area where blight is a problem. At least we'll know we can always live on potatos, which who doesn't anyway ... mmm purple tater-tots." Combine it with the hideous green ketchup Heinz is making, and eating can be like a Kadinsky ? painting!
Anyone know?
At least we'll know we can always live on potatos, which who doesn't anyway
;-)
Diabetics have to watch their sugar/carb intake. My wife is diabetic.
Glad I could clear that up
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Them's good eatin'.
Till you grow a third nipple.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Really hoopy food. But they really hate Vogons.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
My dad made some purple potato stuff for a church dinner. Even though they tasted identical to regular potatos, but few people tried them.
As much as the purple potato is resistant to disease, people are more resistant to change.
They aren't new. They've been a staple at organic food stores for years. Of course, how many slashdotters shop at organic food stores ;-)
The purple potato is one of the ancestral Peruvian ur-potatoes. It's quite high in nutrients and tastes delicious.
The man who never alters his opinion is like the stagnant water and breeds Reptiles of the Mind -- William Blake
You could always color coordinate with purple ketchup.
Seen any BadMarketing lately?
They have purple ketchup too. I saw it the other day at Meijer. I was almost disgusted that someone would actually decide that this was a viable product to sell.
;)
Green ketchup is one thing (at least there are fucking green tomatoes), but purple? No.
This is a sad sad day. Designer vegetables/fruits. Scary
Mmmmm.... purple Vodka.
Absolut Barney!
{god damn lameness filter}
Do not ingest before drinking heavily; the consequences are too terrible to think about.
Careers should combine three things: what you can do, what you want to do, and what you can get paid for.
I hate to be a stick in the mud but how long till blight, or some other fungas mutates so as to effect these potatos? Once we start mass producing it something will mutate.
Still, it is good news. I support genetic engineering of crops, but if this works well then all the better.
Disclamer - Opinion of Person
Sounds like the perfect side dish for Green Eggs and Ham! (sorry, Ted...)
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
They're pretty old - I've been buying them regularly in the Pacific Northwest for almost 10 years. Very, very tasty. They're usually best baked, then they also retain their purple color through the cooking. When you fry or boil them they lose most of their color and "exotic" appeal.
The potatoes the article is about are probably a different purple strain, though.
Does this mean we'll see our children playing with purple Mr. Potato Heads in the future?
Kandinsky [?]... heh.
As in Wassily Kandinsky, the painter... not Kadinsky... some coffeeshop in Amsterdam.
--
nutate on e2...
My mother has a nice garden at her place. She often grows potatoes. Every year she tries out a few different varieties. One year she grew some that tasted just like they were already buttered. Just sprinkle on some salt and ready to eat! She has also grown several kinds of potatoes that are purple. One even had a cool purple starburst pattern inside that made for some really cool looking potato chips!
Oh, and none of these are genetically altered in any way. They come from South America like this. There are hundreds of varieties of potatoes that we have never seen or tasted.
I even saw a special on one of those really cool cable channels (TLC, Disc, etc. not sure which) that went on for an hour about potatoes. Wow.
My name fits again.
science is a religion
as in Vassily Kandinsky.
there's no place like ~
We need 'diversity.'
And what's wrong with a 3rd nipple? Haven't you seen Total Recall?
It's Kandinksy. N. Kandinksy. And while you're at it, why don't you remove the Clear Channel slander until such time as you've verified the list of banned songs with a representative of their corporation? Or are you all too busy patting yourselves on the back because your servers didn't crash last week?
I do not have a signature
How can they have an article about purple potatoes without showing a picture? I wonder if it is the peel that is purple, or if they are actually purple all the way through.
At first I thought maybe this was some genetically modified thing, but I'm under the impression now that it's not. I remember a couple of months ago I was watching a cooking show on the Food channel, and a lady had about seven different kinds of potatoes...one of them *was* deep purple on the outside, and more pinkish than normal on the inside. I wish I could remember what she called it... Since they said this one was extremely rare though, it probably wasn't the same thing. The purple potatoes she had were very small and more round than what you typically think of.
Wish I could remember. I read this article last night and had been trying to think of it then, too. :(
My Webcomic: Asylum on 5th Street
Potato Association of America Handbook: Potato Varieties.
Off-colour vegetables.
Who says watermelon must be red?
Potatoes of note. (Potatos or potatoes, either is acceptable. Just not potatoe).
Wordnik, a dictionary project which aims to collect
There is no mention of genetic engineering in the article. They are an unknown variety from Hungary that still need to go through taste testing and market quality tests before they become available.
"We tested a wide range of different varieties that have come available fairly recently which organic farmers have no experience with," he told Reuters.
At the very last minute we took on a variety that two Scottish enthusiasts gave us which were from Hungary. It really did amazingly well in trials against blight, and it also had the best vigor -- it grew like a weed on a very low-nutrient soil. "
Don't worry, it's a common mistake...just remember, Vegans write slightly better poetry.
------------------------------
The actual article doesn't mention it, but the slashdot story makes it sound like purple is some weird, genetic engineered colour for potatoes. This is not the case at all. In South America where potatoes originated, there are many many species including more than a few purple varieties.
So it's not as scary as it might sound.
At least its better than the Vogon Poetry...
.sig wanted: Must be concise, funny, and display my cleverness.
"so obscure it has no name"?
I hope that's not because it just came out of the genetic engineering lab. What would one cross with to get purple? Sea Anemones perhaps?
Really, though I like potatos and GM stuff if it's useful and safe. Besides more than likely it really is nature doing freaky stuff, cause she's good at that.
I'm from holland, the use of copper-based fungicides has been banned here and a lot of (a.o. ecological) farmers have had failed crops due to the blight. ;-)
People here eat a lot (and I mean almost every single day) of potatoes, the national dish is mashed potatoes with some veggies and a piece of meat.
I really think a lot of people here are going to have a major culture-shock when suddenly their "stamppot" (no really, that's what they call the dish I mentioned) is purple.
Not a big surprise when you eat potatoes every day
Reality has a notoriously liberal bias -- Stephen Colbert
You might be able to find blue potato chips at your local grocery store. Although they're called blue, the chips look more purple to me.
...and eating can be like a Kadinsky painting!
Just a nitpick:
Im pretty sure you meant Kandinsky.
Kadinsky is a coffee shop in Amsterdam (according to the original link).
I couldn't fail to disagree with you less.
These aren't new. Blue and purple potatoes are perfectly normal, and common in South America.
Here in the US, you can even get them at your local health-food store. In fact, at the very moment I am writing this I am looking at a quite delicious bag of Terra[tm] brand "Blues" (more of a cabbage-like purple) chips. They are quite good, and a little starchier than your normal chips.
Apparently, enough of them haven't made it to the UK yet to be noticed.
I'll get my girlfriend to eat a lot of purple potatoes then.
Her 2 are good, hand sized. But 3?
Damn, I'll love that shit. 1 for each hand, 1 for mouth...
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
..up your ass.
the spelling correction was helpful, the whining about 'clear channel slander' is not.
...dave
Think different? I'd be happy if most people would just think...
Hey, it's Kandinski... mind your own business.
Just a thought.
Best Slashdot Co
Soilent Purple is Barney! My God, don't eat it, it's Barney!
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
puple potatoes are not at all a new thing. They have been around for a long time, though most people havent seen them. They are more common in expensive gourmet restaurants than in dennys, i frequently buy them at the local farmers market. purple doesnt meen genetically modified.
-- free as in swatantryam - not soujanyam.
I've heard of Big Purple People Eaters and now
we can be Big Purple Potato Eaters.
Or according to this recipe:
Purple People Eater
3/4 oz rum
1/2 oz vodka
1/2 oz gin
1/2 oz tequila
1/2 oz Triple Sec
1/2 oz blue curacao
1 oz sour mix
7-Up
splash grenadine
Combine all liquors and sour mix in a cocktail shaker with cracked ice and shake well. Pour into a collins glass, fill with 7-Up and top with grenadine.
We can become Purple People Eater Drinkers!!!
Please don't say you can beowulf these...
They're just an odd variety - although as some other posters have mentioned, purple potatoes are not completely unknown. These purple potatoes are special because of their disease resistance, that's all.
I'm not sure if it's the skin, though, or the entire potato that's purple. The article wasn't very clear.
But in any case, the article is talking about how these will be a boon for ORGANIC farmers. I've not heard of a real organic farmer that used GM species, they tend to hate that more than pesticides!
I've been growing purple potatoes for several years now. They are actually called "All Blue". They are blue/purple inside and out. There are also red varieties which are red/pink inside and out.
Potatoes originated in Peru, where they come in a variety of colors: purple, red, white, yellow, sometimes all mixed together.
I haven't had much problem with disease, but the Colorado Potato Beetles are a real nuisance.
Check out www.irish-eyes.com and look at all of the different potato varieties they carry.
They now have purple ketchup also as my mother showed me. So now the condiment can match the recipient. On a side note... green ketchup... maybe... purple ketchup... no.
Kumara is a delicious sweet potato from New Zealand, which has a purple skin. British sweet potatoes look similar but don't taste as nice :-)
Of course, to cook them *properly* you need to dig a hole in the ground, light a fire, put some big stones on it etc, wrap the food in flax leaves (or aluminium foil ;-) bury it and wait for a few hours, but then you can't rush good food...
dont tell me what your feeding me today,
dont fill my head with trouble while im scarfin down a cheese soufle
i wanna be a new, original creation
a cross between a moose a monkey and a fig
i'm ready Monsanto let me be your guina pig
cuz the seed we sew aint good enough
the earth we plow it aint good enough
the food we grow well its never been up to scratch,
the geezer with the beard and all the angels
made a few mistakes I dont know why
we dont need him anymore if geneticly modify
so dont ya tell me what you're puttin in my lunch box
i got a crazy pioneering additude
dont bother me with labels gotta get a belly full of franken-food
gotta geta belly fulla franken-food
--Moxy Fruvous
I've gotten those in CA for years! Not genetically modified, but still yummy.
sulli
RTFJ.
Even the link into everything2 is wrong. `Kadinsky' is apparently some dope smoking coffee house in Amsterdam. Maybe they paint there, maybe not. everything2 is silent on the matter.
Wassily Kandinsky was a painter. Check him out over at Thinker.org, this link ought to get you some of his works. Thinker will probably die under the load. You should also look at This guy's kandinsky page.
It is very likely that it is resistant to all potato fungal diseases. At least if it is, it won't be for very long.
-Sean
I think you meant it would look like a Kandinsky painting.
a nd insky.htm
http://www.wishihadthat.com/Directory/Posters/k
geez, you should check those links.
This is the Everything link that he meant:
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=81664
HEY KIDS!
Ever wonder what tater tots used to look like when your parents ate them as kids? Look at the purple tater tots in the green Heinz ketchup. Continue staring at them without moving your eyes while you count to 30. Then look at a blank white sheet of paper and you'll see an image of the potatoes amd ketchup in their old colors like your parents used to eat!
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
What I think you intended to say was "sold for consumption (but quite nice for decoration)"       ;)
I grew up eating this stuff and think it has quite a good flavor. And nothing beats a tortilla made from blue corn.
although not as "saleable" to picky american eaters
Although a lot of people won't touch it in ear form, all you have to do is just slap a label on products made from blue corn that says "Southwest Style" or "Santa Fe" and people will buy the stuff.
Except for the popcorn. Haven't seen *any* labels than can seem to convince people to buy blue popcorn...
______
Once: you're a philosopher. Twice: a pervert.
One on the back, for dancing.
Get it right :-) Unicode rules...
Purple potatoes may be new to Hemos, but they are nowhere near being a new thing.
Personally, I'd like to cut up a cluster of these and fry them, then do a review on the Official French Fries Pages. And with neon green ketchup from Heinz, the page will certainly be memorable.
woof.
These are actually my favorite potato chips. They are quite tasty, and people look at you strange when you eat them. They taste pretty close to regular potato chips. I suspect the main difference is the oil they are fried in.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
But can you use them to power a webserver?
:)
/*drunk.. fix later*/
This made me wonder if any serious and long term studies have been done on the concept of "cues" in the food chain. The way I understand it, evolution has decided that colour is closely tied into our abilities to determine edibility and such. That's one of the reasons why we know for example, that a ripe tomato is the red one.
Using this example of purple potatoes; I see a real problem with the colour from the health aspect. Most normal potatoes get an off-white blotch when mold sets in and this is a fairly obvious cue that it's gone bad. Other vegetables have similar behaviour signaling their end. Taking this to the logical extreme suggested by this article, what happens when designer-coloured veggies are the norm? Are we going to have to relearn, and relearn again the signs of *bad* for each new vegetable-of-the-day?
They have purple ketchup, now, too. I can't wait until they make the whole spectrum of ketchup colors.
Fighting the War on the War on Drugs.
http://smokedot.org/
As people have pointed out, there are a zillion varieties of potato, some of which are purple. Even at the time of the Incas there were thousands of varieties, many/most of which survive to today. Here's the South America page from the World Potato Atlas. And no, until 10 minutes ago I didn't know there was such a thing as a World Potato Atlas, but it has more information than I ever imagined would be on the web about where potatoes are grown, what kind are grown, and so on.
As seen here, off of a quick link. /.'s strong hand.
I guess pomo art isn't
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
The green ketchop rules. I can't wait to try the purple. I like the bottle mostly. The spout is perfect for putting exactly enough ketchup in exactly the right place. You could pur it along the length of the fry or have a dot on each bite. Truly ingenious.
:P It is good to be young, or at least feel like it :)
For all of you who think you should grumble about my ketchup choices, please put away the nerf guns and stuffed dust puppy or tux first
"Boys have a Penis, Girls have a Vagina", kids say the darndest things!
"At least we'll know we can always live on potatos"
Just to set it straight (for the poster and for Mr. Quayle):
It's potato, not potatoe.
It's potatoes, not potatos.
It's like hero, heroes...
Kevin Fox
You do realise, of course, that green ketchups used to be quite common. It was Heinz that standardised on red around the turn of the last century.
It's still the best ketchup though.
:wq
Of course you have all put Cyrillic on your system after the arrest of a certain Russian programmer. :-)
Is it safe to assume that lower nutrient soil will only ever produce lower nutrient potatoes?
This would certainly be better than nothing. But it would also explain why purple potatoes should not be your first choice at the supermarket.
I suspect you meant Kandinsky the abstract artist, not Kadinsky, the Amsterdam coffee shop that the link points to... :)
All opinions expressed herein are not my own; I haven't had free will since last year when aliens ate my brain.
someone to claim hat they have a patent on blight-resistant potatoes, or colored food stuffs and sue patent infringement.
Don't laugh, as it has already happened here in the US and Mexico over yellow beans.
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
This is good news considering that potatoes are a staple food supply for some countries. This could possibly help the world with food shortages.
One thing I wonder about though...did they test if the potato is insect resistant as well in their laboratories? It may be virus/bacteria resistant, but will it attract some weird worms or insects (or animals even) that will destroy the crops? Maybe there is a reason why this variety was never cultivated in some countries...because it could not survive due to some interaction with other plants or animals.
It's not genetically modified. Purple potatoes have been around for as long as, well, the potato.
The responses here show how much we've become factory farm zombies. Carrots are orange, potatoes are white, apples and tomatoes are red, etc.
In fact, what we're used to is what's convenient to ship or grow. If people were more concious of genetic diversity, we'd already have much more color on our plates. Orange carrots date from the last few hundred years, originally they were white or yellow or red. Apples came in various shades an combinations of yellow, red, and green. Corn can be blue, as well as potatoes. Tomatoes have a fantastically varied set of colors.
Some of these are now becoming known as "heirloom" varieties as people begin to understand how bland and overprocessed our diets have become.
I used to work for an organization that sponsored antropological research in S. America. I saw an interesting paper given on potatoes, which I'll try to remember here.
Potatoes are native to S. America, where there are thousands of varieties. People native to that region grow and eat a much greater variety of potatoes than we do, with different shapes (running from round to finger shaped) and colors. This is partly due to the fact that their potatoes tend to hybridize with wild "weedy" strains, and partly because they encourage hybridization. Since potatoes are a big part of their diet,different shapes, colors and tastes add variety. This strategy probably also protects them from poor harvests and pests by spreading their bets across many strains that do better in different circumstances.
There are probably a hundred or so cultivars we grow in the 1st world which tend to be large, roundish, and have white or yellow flesh. Most importantly they have been selected to have low concentrations of poisionous alkaloids in the tuber. Potatoes are closely related to jimson weed and deadly nightshade and are normally poisonous. Where they eat many more primitive and diverse varieties of pototatoes, the potatoes must be treated specially to remove the alkaloids. They are spread on a blanket or a tarp, trod upon to break their skins and left outside several days to freeze and thaw. Apparently this reduces the concentrations of alkaloids to where they can be consumed safely, although you might still get sick if you aren't used to eating native potatoes.
I don't know if the flesh or the skin of this particular potato is purple -- probably just the skin, although I suppose it is possible that the flesh might be colored. Yellow flesh is not uncommon; green is a sign that a potato wasn't properly handled and may be poisonous. The interesting thing is that it apprently this strain came from European gardens. They could probably develop a number of useful new strains by hybridizing with wild potatoes.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I already want to go there. I swear all of Europe is conspiring against me while I'm over here in America. :)
My Webcomic: Asylum on 5th Street
What I think that everyone here is missing is the obvious application of this on extra-planetary colonies. Yes, I know that we don't have any now and that we aren't likely to have any in the next hundred years. There are two reasons that this is very exciting: there aren't likely to be very many nutrients in the soil of, say, mars and diseases will mutate faster because of the increased radiation on other planets without an atmosphere. Also, as was recently hypothesized, there may be microbes in places other than earth and they are likely to not be very healthy for the plants and vegetables that we are going to eat..
rJames.org - illustration
They're good eating baked, but I'm not so certain that they mash well.
not the inside. There have been red and purple potatoes for sale here in Californai for years. If you nerds would actually visit a place that sell raw food once more often, you would know these thigns and probably have a much healthier diet. Go back to your caramel-colored, corn syrup beverage and junk food. Geesh. Lame-Os.
It's like eating a finely ground up Shrek. Yummy. I prefer it on corn dogs.
You can also cut them in big chunks and make "steak fries". They look normal on the outside (i.e., brown), but they're purple on the inside.
I've never had a guest flip out over the color, other than to remark on how nice they look.
can be found here.
Potatoes as with other agricultural crops have several varieties which thrive depending on the climate and soil quality. Many have mutated over the years to combat pests in their environments and these are the ones being rediscovered. Usually these varieties do not have the productivity qualities desired by the farmer who wants to produce the most out of his land.
Return the bells of Balangiga.
So there is a link to Everything2.com for an explanation of who Kandinsky is, pretty good, since everyone might not know what a Kadinsky painting looks like, right? The only thing strange here, is the page on Everything2 only talks about a coffe house in Amsterdam. You have to go to the bottom and click on "Wassily Kandinsky" to see anything about the painter.
Seems like the editor should check those links before putting them up!
Good thing I already know what a Kadinsky painting looks like.
room101 -- how much can you stand before they break you?
(they always break you eventually)
The special sauce in BigMacs are a combination of Mayo, Salad dressing and, if memroy serves, tar tar sauce.
That and the bit of spit for people who order it "without onions" or other special orders. Hint, uinless its rush hour, never ever ever ever order it special. Take the pickles or whatever off yourself, if your allergic, you shouldnt eat there anyway.
I've actually eaten purple potatoes...the wife brought them back for me from a farmer's market in Philly. These were regular potatoes grown in coloured water (coloured by the organic agent that prevented beetles i'm told) and they were very very cool to slice up, as you could see the packets of starch that would build up inside (and, I'm told again, cut them out if you're on a low starch diet).
They tasted just like regular red potatoes, and when I fried them up Saratoga style they made a very pleasant addition to a banquet-style spread we had for our halloween party.
I might add that they cost a bit less than the russets they had at the same market, and didn't taste anywhere near as the six dollar per pound organic russets I buy at the organic market when I make a batch of my super spicy Megabyte fries. Want the recipe? I'm afraid it's carefully guarded and heavily encrypted, but one of the secret ingredients is "sweetened cornmeal".
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Even though its easy enough to tell where your evolutionarily superior potato is (its purple for chrissakes) the Greenies of the world will continue to rant about its destructive effect on our ecosystem.
Aren't farms one of the most counter-evolutionary, artifical places out there? They are devoid of weeds, insects, small mammals, the animals that live on them could never survive in the wild, and the entire setup is maintained with a bath of poison.
In cases like these a genetically engineered potato might help out a bit.
"Look at me, I invented the stove!" -- Ben Franklin
With current fossil fuel policies, and the numerous oil-producing nations that are likely to soon be alight, hardy varieties may soon be of interest to everybody on the planet.
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
I worked in a produce department for two years. In that time I saw some really strange fruits and veggies come through and purple potatoes were one of them. As I recall, only the skin is purple, with a slight tinge on the actual "meat" of the potato. You have to remember, there's a lot of varieties of potatoes. Russet, Yellows, Golds, Blues, Purples, Reds, the list goes on.
"Purple shit--it's not just for Cookie Monster any more."
You mean Kandinsky, of course.
I don't mean to nitpick, but I suppose a few people may know know who this guy is and, since everything2 seems to be out for the count right now, this may make Google-searches a bit easier.
-C
That's nothing. They're going to be introducing purple ketchup next. I figger for my Mardi Gras party I can serve hot dogs garnished with green and purple ketchup and yellow mustard. Lots of fun until the kids get hyperactive and you come down with cancer.
Seriously though, there are "natural" strains of potato that are purple, so it's not like it's some kind of freak.
Now, I'll get me a blue Nehi and settle back and enjoy the FD&C rainbow.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I know it's somewhat cool these days to have resistant this and genetically modified that, but I think it's time that we realize that in engaging in all these artificial methods on a large scale, we shall also be automatically selecting for strains of pathogens that cannot be resisted.
For a real world example of this, consider that the over-prescription and abuse of antibiotics has led to the development of bacterial strains that are resistant to even the most powerful antibiotic (Vancomycin D.?) that we have been able to produce. Keep in mind that these pathogenic organisms are such simple lifeforms with extremely fast reproductive cycles. As such, they are able to modify their genetic makeup within a few generations and in such a short amount of time to come up with a resistant strain. One might say, "Hey, just come up with another antibiotic", but the fact is that strains develope *much* faster than we can develope new antibiotics, and as these antibiotics are used, we inevitably select for the resistant and usually more violent strain.
Just a note of warning.
Here in Seattle, we get them at Pike Place Market. They're tasty, tho not exactly potato shaped. One thanksgiving, I made mashes potatoes from them - rather yummy :)
... odd :)
:)
What I've been dreaming of for years was a whole meal, where most of the food was a natural-but-exotic color. Purple french fries with white ketchup, and / or white cheddar cheese. Spaghetti sauce made from white tomatoes and red onions. Stuff like that. It'd all taste right, but it'd sure look
Try a Burpee seed catalog for other plants along similar lines. I think it'd be interesting
By the way, wouldn't purple potatoes have more phyto-whatevers? From what I recall, colored fruits and veggies are better for you that white ones. Might be worth a look.
Lemon curry?
My wife actually just cooked some up for dinner the other night. I have no idea where she got them. The skin and flesh were both purple, although you could see "rings" in the flesh that I guess were pigment variations as the potato grow.
They were pretty tasty, too!
Oranges have always been orange, right?
An Heirloom fruit or vegetable is one that breeds true from seed and self-pollinates, as opposed to a hybrid.
-- Too lazy to get a lower UID.
The purple ones have greater amounts of various alkaloids and so will be problematic for people suffering from certain skin conditions. They should also be more prone to accidential toxification. (The natural defense of a plant is to create toxins, knonw in food science as "antinutritional factors", to dissuade consumption; many varieties of plants, when naturally hybridized with other varieties suddenly express high amounts of toxin -- in the US a number of farms have accidentally bred deadly varieties of celery, potatoes, and other crops; one such in California grown by a small organic farmer was so toxic it caused workers picking the celery to break out in boils and some went into shock).
From a simple consumption/risk-management standpoint, conventional hybrids are infitely more dangerous than GMO varieties (hundreds of reported incidents versus zero).
I don't know which potato they are talking about, but colors can come from high amounts of phenylalanine (ie, don't eat if you suffer from PKU), or, more likely (they are potatoes, after all, and mostly energy storage in the form of starch) one of the many colors possible from
variations of isoprene-based storage metabolism (like carotenes and such) which have a tremendous range of possible colors.
I don't dare post this as a real person.
perple potatoes have more flavor than any other potato i've ever had (red, yellow, and russet), and because of this taste much better too. also, purple potatoes are not just purble-skinned; they are purple inside as well - it makes for quite a conversation when you make purple hash browns or mashed potatoes :)
wally
Anyone around here ever made (or tried to make) vodka?
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
And I can only imagine the fun in explaining to little kids that you're eating Barney.
Hell no! Blood oranges (reddish tinge to the skin, deep red flesh and juice) are naturally MUCH tastier and sweeter than normal oranges. Particularly prized in Italy, but available in US groceries (for only a few weeks every year: they have a limited growing season).
not kadinsky ...
*sigh*
and his paintings aren't particularly purple or green.
--
Combine it with the hideous green ketchup Heinz is making
Heinz also makes purple ketchup. I saw it in my local supermarket.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
There are similar potatoes at the local AJ's fine foods here in tempe. If you mash these purple potatoes, they look like lint from the dryer.
Thanks. That's interesting.
Anyone wondering about who kadinsky was... you'll likely become rather frustrated looking it up. Wassily Kandinsky is the artist's name. Very nifty stuff, his.
=== "Some people see the glass as half-empty. Others see it as half-full. I see the glass as too big." -G. Carlin.
(For the Goatse-fearing: http://www.glyphs.com/art/kandinsky/)
I am Sam.
Sam I Am.
Would you like Purple Potatoes and Ham?
Would you eat a purple potatoe with a fox in socks in a box?
No I will not eat a purple potatoe here nor there nor with a fox in socks in a box.
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crinkley bindlewurtles -- or however you spell it
I myself ate purple potatoes years ago. There are already breads of purple potatoes in existance, without any need to use genetic modification.
Imagine a Beowolf Cluster of THESE!!!
I have nothing against GM food, and this is most likely GM food. The problem, as with software, is patents.
Many GM seeds come with "terminator" genes and so forth and cause the same sort of "forced upgrades" and other nonsense that programmers and IT folks despise about software.
This I think is the main fury of the anti-GM crowd, not that GM food is unhealthy (though it's quite possible for it to be unhealthy).
first of all,
potatoes already resist disease. how the fuck do you think they have survived for the past couple thousand year? they were invented in south america
by indians. this modern fiddling is pointless
and possibly dangerous. i know big rich people
dont care because A. they stand to make huge profits B. it will give them a superweapon to combat competition from smaller farmers (because they can sue people for copyright infringmenet when in fact a single fucking gust of wind is all it takes to transfer a gene from one field to another) C. it is better than microsoft.net, because you have to buy new seeds/spuds every year from a global agribiz corp instead of sprouting from old ones, or else get thrown in jail for theft, and D. rich scientists and agribiz people can always buy organic non GMO food for their own families.
PS
the bill and melinda gates foundation supports
organically engineered rice, claiming it
solves world hunger.
world hunger is not caused by people not having
enough special rice.
world hunger is caued by other things.
one is the introduction of bottled baby food
rather than breast milk. the world health organization as well as other organizations
clearly know that the bottle formula has
more bacteria, does not pass on the immune
promoting agents from the mother, etc.
thus they claim the bottle feeding is responsible
for more than tens of thousands of deaths
of infants in the third world. why do third
world peple use bottles then? because US
formula makers have 8 billion dollars of income
from third world sales. they brainwash, make
deals with corrupt governments, etc, and dont
care about the babies they are killing.
this is just one small example of how techno
crats like bill gates have their head up their ass, and care more about pushing their techno
garbage and claiming it solves problem x than
they do about actually solving problem x.
Whoever moderated this is pretty silly, must not of even read the article.
some potatoes are naturally purple
My wife and I "subscribe" to a Community Supported Farm which, for about $25 or $50 per month spread throughout the year, you receive a box of organic produce biweekly or weekly, respectively. Said box contains whatever they plant and whatever's in season at the moment.
Having been a normal supermarket shopper until a few years ago, these boxes contain spectacular produce. Nobody usually remembers that tomatoes aren't supposed to be hard, bright red and crunchy (or pasty).
Anyway the point is, they've had blue/purple potatoes in that box for years -- probably not the resistant kind. They're good and kind of fun to eat.
Beyond that, there are all kinds of funky tomatoes you've never seen. Last week we got these green tomatoes that were striped kind of like a watermelon. They were tart yet ripe -- really neat. There's yellow ones all gnarled up that are really good, orange, red, of all shapes and sizes.
All kinds of other funky foods come. Did you know there are many types of garlic some of which really are better than the standard grocery store Italian? Ever had a ground cherry (a bit like a tomatillo but sweet)?
The point is, there's a lot of "odd" foods out there that really aren't odd at all. We've just never seen them because it's so much easier to grow a field of identical, drought-resistant, disease-resistant, shipping-friendly idaho spuds than anything else. I encourage people to support their local farmer's markets and try Community Supported Agriculture -- not only is it earth-friendly but you get cool vegetables as well!
Is green!
Is purple!
yaaaargh
Just like purple buds. Particularly prized by yours truly. Although the lesser common mango bud will always hold a place in my heart.
An Heirloom fruit or vegetable is one that breeds true from seed and self-pollinates, as opposed to a hybrid.
t ml.
That's the definition of open-pollinating, which is only one of the criteria for being an heirloom varienty. See http://davesgarden.com/showthread/heirloom/1988.h
--S
"I used to be a dilettante. Then I thought I'd try something else for a while."
Desease resistance is nothing new, though maybe it is new in potatoes. What would really be news I look forward to is seeing something about desease resistant humans. I don't mean resistant to current deseases only as viruses (at least biological) and bacteria tend to evolve around the resistance. I mean desease resistance that pretty much makes the issue of attacks by bacteria and viruses a non-issue.
I realize this might bring images of the movie Gattaca, but new technology always brings new problems while solving some old ones. Problems I see from this? Medical advancement in desease research would experience a great lack of funding as there would be less need for it. Fields such such as injuries and emergency care would probably still see scientific advancement.
I read somewhere that potatoes an Tomatoes are capabile of being grafted onto each other. Now I don't think there would be much use for a plant with a tomatoe bottom and a potatoe top - but how about a potatoe bottom and a tomatoe top?
I'd love to try it!!! Especially with some nice exotic spuds that already taste buttered!!! Does anyone have any information on how to go about something like this?
Note the key phrase "purple-skinned" - the flesh is white.
BugBear
Ignorance is curable. Stupid is forever.
Where did you get the purple varieties?
Growing potatoes is fun and easy; I've done it with some rotting store potatoes. The foliage of the plant is beautiful. I'd be interested in growing some unusual kinds.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Wassily Kandinsky was one of the pioneers of the abstract art. He made some very coloured paintings.
This would only be "news for nerds" if they started making purple Cheetos..
i don't know if it is just in canada, but heinz is hot on the heels of its green ketchup madness (incredibly successful, apparently a phenom in the marketing world) with another colour-- purple.
The should name it the "Prince Potato"
Purple fries...purple fries...
Does it ven-tickle? ...Aorta have known better than to ask. =)
For a far better take on the William Wallace story, try reading "The Scottish Chiefs" by Jane Porter. Although it is a work of fiction, it is reasonably in accord with history in most regards, and a far better story than Braveheart. It explores Wallace's motivations and strength much better as well, and paints him as the complex character that he really was, insisting on servanthood all the while he was the strongest leader in Scotland.
/. readers won't have the guts required to read this, since it will grate with their self-centered worldview (much like Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, which I expect many slashdotters can't handle for similar reasons.)
Warning: The themes of this work are honor, humility, and the importance of always honoring God by one's actions, so many
BTW: If you do read it, get the version illustrated with the beautiful N.C. Wyeth paintings - They're a 20th century addition, of course, but so perfect a fit that it's hard to imagine the book without them.
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
The peruvian purple potato you had is a common enough variety. You can obtain it in any specialty supermarket or produce market, or from a restaurant wholesaler. I moonlight as a chef - just designing the recipies, locating suppliers, training cooks and procurers, that sort of thing - so I spend a lot of time studying these things. The purple potatoes you refer to have been around for a lot longer than GM foods. So have gold, black, and pale blue/periwinkle toned potatoes. I know of one with a pinkish flesh tone and a slightly creamy-sweet flavor. There are also purple sweet potatoes (Okinawa, the southernmost island of Japan, with a slightly different culture and cousine) that have a wonderfully rich flavor, and purple yams (the real thing, not the sweet potato that gets sold as a yam in american supermarkets) in Thailand, which are grated and used for deserts. Some of these foods have a bright enough purple to look purely synthetic, and some have a beautiful lavender hue. Just because the color is odd is no reason to dismiss the food.
The thing to remember about GM foods is, many of them are really no more extreme in result than a few decades of cross breeding. Traits from on subspecies are imported into another - disease resistance, productivity, flavor, sweetness - without the intermediate stage of weeding out failures. Others are the result of importing animal genes, and these might have unexpected consequences, and should be more rigorously tested. I'd worry most about the ones with chemical pesticide production engineered in, not the disease resistant ones.
Of course, plants engineered to sterilize their non-GM competitors (Hey, Joe-Bob, what happened to your farm? - Oh, hi Bob-Joe, that GM wheat wiped my seed out for this year and I went under...) are a real worry... reducing the number of food crops to a few genomes is really hazardous to our viability.
-- Still waiting for the Nike endorsement
And let me tell you, purple potatoes are by far some of the best. They don't stay purple when you cook them, they turn blue, but it makes for nice blue mashed potatoes. I find it strange that when the commercial (chemical farming) market finds out about something organic farmers have grown for years everyone is like "oh boy, somebody invented a new GM food!"
Hopefully someday people will begin to realize that not only is organic food good for you (i.e. doesn't contain horrible pesticides and herbicides), but it tastes MUCH BETTER than conventional farmed food, because and organic farmer's selling point is quality, not quantity. Conventional produce is almost always GM, chemical fed, and pumped so full of water that you can't even taste it anymore.
If you live in (or visit) Arcata, CA (Humboldt County), go to farmers market on Saturdays and buy some purple potatoes from Warren Creek Farms. You'll never eat conventional farmed crap again.
try and find your local seed savers group
there was a post here once with seed links, but I can't find it on the new google search