Irish Potato Diet

The white potato that you and most Americans have eaten, also known as the Irish potato, is one of the most nutritious vegetables on earth. While the idea that a person can live only on potatoes is not true, the potato can serve as an essential component of a weight loss diet or a healthy weight maintenance diet.

Origins of Potato

The potato was brought to Europe by the Spanish conquistadors of Latin America. Unlike above-ground European crops, which marauding armies could destroy, potatoes grew safely underground until farmers were ready to harvest them. Potatoes were especially popular in Ireland, where poverty-stricken Irish Catholics, unjustly deprived of the bulk of their land by their English Protestant overlords, cultivated potatoes on tiny plots where potatoes provided more food per acre than grain.

Irish Potato Famine

Potatoes became the primary staple of Irish diets during the early Victorian era, though the Irish also drank milk and ate grain, cabbage and fish. The desperately poor Irish were described by their contemporaries as healthy and good-looking, and this was explicitly attributed to their potato-based diet. In September 1845, a fungus arrived in Ireland and blighted the potato crop for several years. Potatoes had supported record Irish population growth, and once potatoes became unavailable, between 500,000 to 1 million Irish died of hunger and disease, as described in an online book offered by The History Place, "Irish Potato Famine."

Potato's Nutritional Qualities

Potatoes supply a large portion of our daily requirements for vitamin C, vitamin B6, copper, potassium, manganese and dietary fiber, according to The World's Healthiest Foods website. Potatoes and their skins carry chemicals similar to those found in broccoli that protect against certain cancers, cardiovascular disease and respiratory problems. Efforts are underway to cross-breed colored potatoes from other potato strains that will create potatoes that are not only more colorful than the white or Irish potato, but which may contain even more substances that will protect your health, according to a 2001 report by Kathryn Barry Stelljes in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's "Agricultural Research" magazine.

Potato Diet Precautions

You have probably heard some acquaintances refuse to eat potatoes because they are considered "starchy," but the real problem with potatoes is how they are prepared. Potatoes can be good for a weight-loss diet and for a healthy weight maintenance diet, but if they are always served covered in sour cream and butter, some of their health benefits can be lost. A steady diet of fried potatoes as tater tots, french fries and potato chips will add pounds instead of subtracting them.

Many Good Recipes

There are many different ways to include potatoes in your diet. Potatoes are available not only as a mashed, baked or fried vegetable, but can be purchased as potato bread and also made into potato salad, potato pancakes, potato pie and potato soup. One example of an online repository of Irish potato preparation recipes is Fantasy Ireland's "The Essential Irish Potato Recipe Collection." There are also several books on Irish potato recipes, including Eveleen Coyle's 2001 "Irish Potato Cookbook."