The potato's prominent place on Irish dining tables has declined steadily from pre-Famine times, when the average labourer or farmer consumed up to 6 kg a day down to 0.4 kg a day in the 1990s.
What's more, "fresh potatoes" - as distinct from crisps or French fries - do not have a popular image in modern Ireland, Dr Ronan Gormley of Teagasc's National Food Centre has noted.
US research indicates a persistence in the belief that potatoes and starch are fattening. Here the trend is towards eating processed potato products. In research presented to the IFA-Teagasc National Potato Conference recently, Dr Gormley said boiled, baked, steamed, or microwaved potatoes were "low-fat" and an excellent source of energy, complex carbohydrate, thiamine (Vitamin B1) and Vitamin C. They also supplied significant quantities of protein (its quality is almost as good as egg protein), dietary fibre and minerals.
Potatoes and milk, when consumed in volume - as they were in the 19th century - were an all-round nutritious low-fat diet which would satisfy most of the requirements in today's dietary guidelines. "However, such a diet would not be tolerated by today's sophisticated consumers because of its blandness and monotony," he said.
Current dietary advice was for a high intake (close to 50 per cent of energy intake) of complex carbohydrate, and in this regard the potato is an excellent energy source.
"Complex carbohydrate is in medium-high energy with its starch packaged in cells, the rate of energy release is relatively slow, and so complex carbohydrate is not fattening, i.e. the energy tends to be used as it is released rather than being stored in the body."
In addition, potatoes (with bread) are among the most important insulin-generating food - insulin hormone is vital to con trolling blood sugar levels. The downside to much potato consumption is that garnishing them with fat-spreads and/or cooking in oil greatly increases their fat content, he noted. Likewise adding butter or sour cream and by roasting or baking them.