It’s National Potato Day, and if you think about it, we may be underrating the potato!
Think about what a big role they play in our food system: we’ve got French fries, hash browns, potato chips, mashed potatoes, hotdish, I could go on like this for hours.
The National Potato Council promotes its number one crop by saying the potato sector contributes over $100 billion to the economy, including more than 700,000 jobs!
But the potato’s influence stretches out well beyond the dinner table.
In fact, there was a study that came out in 2017 that said the potato helped keep the peace in Europe for centuries.
This is a paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research called “The Long-run Effects of Agricultural Productivity on Conflict, 1400-1900.”
It looks at life before and after the time when potatoes came from the Americas to Europe, which took place over the 1500s and 1600s.
The main idea is this: European society at this time was based on farming, farming requires land, countries fought wars to obtain land.
But potatoes changed the game: because they were much more broadly nutritious than previous staple crops had been, and resisted colder weather better, farmers were more successful.
You’re less likely to try to take a neighbor’s land if you have what you need on your own.
Plus, with potatoes around, people started eating better, which meant less unrest within countries.
The researchers actually confirmed this by going back through history.
They developed an equation which showed that when potatoes came to a region, there was a statistically significant reduction in the number of battles in that region.
The researchers wrote, “We find that the introduction of potatoes permanently reduced conflict for roughly two centuries.”
Now, obviously there was still fighting in those centuries and there’s still fighting today.
We can’t just potato our way to world peace.
But maybe those potatoes are a key ingredient to reaching world peace, just like they’re key to so many of our favorite recipes.
If you really want to go big on this National Potato Day, why not head to the town of O’Leary, Prince Edward Island.
It’s home to the Canadian Potato Museum, which takes visitors back through the history of the crop with what it says is the world’s largest exhibit of potato artifacts.
Just look for the 14 foot tall fiberglass Russet potato out front.
Potatoes helped keep peace in Europe for hundreds of years (Earth.com)
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