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!

Comments

Mmmm.. genetically modified food...

[Wakko Warner]

Them's good eatin'.

Till you grow a third nipple.

- A.P.

Take these to dinners!

[smnolde]

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.

To Paraphrase Homer

[FatRatBastard]

Mmmmm.... purple Vodka.

Absolut Barney!

{god damn lameness filter}

These are NOT genetically modified

[RollingThunder]

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!

Re:These are NOT genetically modified

[Kwil]

Depends on the variety.

I buy food from the local farmers market, and we actually get quite a variety of blue/purple potatoes. Some varieties have a purplish skin. Cut it in half and you'll find the flesh is like a normal potato with the exception of a ring of blue about a half inch in from the skin. This typically fades somewhat in the cooking.

Others have a much more bluish tint to the skin. These varieties also tend have the entire flesh colored a washed-out blue-purple. They keep their color when cooked.

As to the taste, well.. it's a potato. There's hardly any difference between the lighter ones and your normal red potatos that I can tell (I'm no gourmet, though). The darker bluish ones I tend to think taste a bit better than regular potatos. They have a more... potato-ey.. flavor. Not sure how to describe it. It's as if they have a bit more of the essence of potato in them. Quite good, especially cubed and fried with a little olive oil and sour-cream to dip.

Factory farm zombies

[blamanj]

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.

Why white?

[hey!]

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.