Mmm ... Purple Disease-Resistant Potatoes 277
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!
Diabetics (Type I) (Score:2, Informative)
Diabetics have to watch their sugar/carb intake. My wife is diabetic.
Glad I could clear that up
Take these to dinners! (Score:4, Informative)
As much as the purple potato is resistant to disease, people are more resistant to change.
Matching ketchup (Score:2, Informative)
More information... (Score:3, Informative)
Off-colour vegetables [vt.edu].
Who says watermelon must be red? [dailynews.com]
Potatoes of note [ruralvermont.com]. (Potatos or potatoes, either is acceptable. Just not potatoe).
Copper-based fungicides (Score:1, Informative)
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
Re:Take these to dinners! (Score:2, Informative)
Potato Eaters (Score:2, Informative)
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...
World Potato Atlas (Score:2, Informative)
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 [cipotato.org] 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.
Why white? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
A good reference on the subject (Score:2, Informative)
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.
Re:These are NOT genetically modified (Score:2, Informative)
True... I saw some on Emeril's tv show on the Food Network the other night.
Re:These are NOT genetically modified (Score:1, Informative)
"Heirloom" does not mean what you think it means (Score:2, Informative)
One-eyed one-horned flying purple potato eater... (Score:1, Informative)
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.
KANdinsky, hemos... KANdinsky. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Geesh, the SKIN is purple, idiots... (Score:2, Informative)
I'm sorry to disappoint you, but the at least the potato-brand Blue Congo (quite usual here in Sweden) is blue on the inside too. And they taste really nice. And make mashed potatoes look soooo much nicer. Those aren't GMO either.
Re:Mmmm.. genetically modified food... (Score:1, Informative)
You're making it sound like the English purposely a blight free upon Ireland, aren't you forgetting England's own crop fields were only a few miles across the channel? That would be a little self-defeating. The problem with the famine is the English didn't respond quickly enough with relief, in fact it more like blatant negligence, that's the beef, it's nothing to do with setting a blight upon a country out of malice.
It seems the events that led up to US Independence were mostly economically motivated, with the various taxes, etc, all scenes of burning churches with people inside are purely Hollywood deviations, I found no evidence of any actions like that in the war of independence, there was a similar event during WW2 by the Nazi's however. And of course there was the burning of the Whitehouse, but never innocent civilians in burning churches.