Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Sen. Olympia Snowe has penned a defense of the under-siege potato for the pages of the Wall Street Journal’s letters to the editor section.
The Maine Republican and other members of the Maine congressional delegation have been waging a fight to keep the potato, a major Maine crop, from being excluded from the lists of vegetables sanctioned for federal programs such as the Women, Infants, and Children nutrition program and the free and reduced-price lunch program.
Snowe was reacting to a Wall Street Journal story about a Harvard study that found eating more potatoes, particularly French fries, led to gaining more weight than eating more of other food groups.
“Reading the piece, one would think eating a potato is as bad as eating junk food. The article completely misses the point that the problem is not with the potato; the issue is with how it is prepared,’ Snowe says in her letter, published today.
“It doesn't take a medical journal to determine that deep frying anything and piling on an excessive number of toppings with no consideration of portion size will add to a person's caloric intake and result in weight gain over time,” Snowe wrote. “Baked or boiled, one medium-size potato contains 200 milligrams more potassium than a banana and as much fiber as a similar serving of broccoli. The potato is both fat-free and cholesterol-free.”
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Kevin Miller is Washington bureau chief for the Portland Press Herald and MaineToday Media. He has worked as a journalist in Maine for 6 ½ years, covering the environment, politics and the State House. Before arriving in Maine, he wrote about politics, government and education for newspapers in Virginia and Maryland.
Kevin can be reached at 317-6256 or kmiller@mainetoday.com
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