Dig This - It's National Potato Month!

My editor recently informed me that was September just happens to be National Potato Month. Since both sides of Irish ancestry and a lover of all-mashed potatoes, baked, french-fried and baked - I eagerly offered to do some digging for dirt on his beloved vegetable

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service, potatoes are the most popular actions in America ... hands down. Unfortunately, it's greasy hands down, because many of our processed potatoes end up like french fries!

USDA argues that the typical American Munches more than 140 pounds of potatoes a year. It is much more than 50 pounds per capita consumption of tomatoes, another veggie place. And the second is kinda ironic, because tomatoes are technically fruit anyway!

Despite our love of potatoes, not the top dog when it comes to consumption of potatoes. We aim to somewhere around the seventh place, top honors go to our German friends who each year to chow down 200 pounds per piece

On average, Americans eat more than 16 pounds of french fries every year. Which appears in more than 2 million tons of bad potatoes who met their deaths shoe strings or julienned, and fell into a bubbling-hot deep fat fryer!

By the way, France and Belgium are in a war where a country invented french fries. Belgians claim street vendors selling their "Belgian fries' from pushcarts before the French adapted the idea in the middle of the 19th century. My kids do not care who is formulated to fry - they are just grateful that someone had the sense to set sail for America in the not-so-secret recipe potato

POTATO required: About one in every 14 potatoes grown in the U.S. ends up as McDonald's fries! Fast food giant has no beef with the fact that it churns out more than 1 / 3 of all potatoes sold in U.S. restaurants.

Ok, so here is a potato confusing that long haunted me: tuber, or tubers ... that is the question. Stop groaning! Since I considered Shakespeare in shaky to eat anyway, I thought I'd painfully distort Bard's famous line for my report on the potato. For those of you who thought tuber is someone who sails down the river on rubber donut, I offer this nugget: part of the potato plant we eat is called a tuber. I was actually increased tuber underground stem. Each plant produces more than potato tubers, which can come in different colors. The most common are red and white varieties.

MORE POTATO necessary: I bet you did not know ...

A potato is about 80% water, 20% solid.

O Henry Spalding first planted potatoes in Idaho 1837th

The Guinness Book of World Records says is the biggest ever potato - 18-​​pound, 4-ounce monster - was raised in England in 1795

O chips were invented in 1853, the fashionable resort in Saratoga Springs, New York, after the railroad magnate Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt complained of his French fries were too thick and sent them back to the kitchen. For despite its finicky guest, Chef George Crum sliced ​​some potatoes paper thin, fried them in hot oil and salted them. Vanderbilt loved the "Saratoga Crunch Chips" and the rest is history.

A potato is the second most consumed food in America, trailing only milk products.
Despite its popularity, the poor potato suffers a bad rap. However, deep fry anything and it becomes bad food! In fact, potatoes are one of the most nutritious foods you can eat. One medium potato has fewer calories than a grapefruit, more potassium than bananas, and more usable iron than any other vegetable. Potatoes are also high in fiber and loaded with complex carbohydrates. Best of all, potatoes are fat free and extremely versatile.

When you think of potatoes, you can not help but think of Idaho. While digging for info, I found lots of interesting things in. sampling ...

O Bingham County in eastern Idaho produces almost as many potatoes as well as the entire state of Maine.

O Why are potatoes called spuds? One theory is that the term refers to spudder who uses pottery as a shovel to dig potatoes. Spud can also refer to the wooden barrel sorters would put small potatoes when sorting for large. Abbreviation for these unwanted vegetables: SPUD that stands for some potatoes Under Developed

For the best looking baked potatoes, Pierce potatoes with a fork, once lengthwise and crosswise. Press the potato at both ends and that it will "blossom". Never use a knife to open the baked potatoes, it flattens the surface and changes the normal soft texture baked Idaho potatoes

No one can change the oft-repeated adage, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away", but there are plenty of "old potatoes Tales" in connection with potato power. Chew on this ...

A potato in your pocket will cure rheumatism and eczema!

The potatoes should be put on sore muscles and pull out the pain oozing sores. If you have a wart, rub it with a cut potato, then bury the potato in the country. As the potato rots in the ground, your wart will disappear.

about carrying a peeled potato in the pocket on the same side as the bad tooth would cure the tooth as soon as the potatoes fell apart.

However, pregnant women might be advised to fight their potato cravings. Otherwise the baby will be born with a big head, legend!