Happy Year of the Spud!

It's the International Year of the Potato and no one knows about it.

It's not a gimmick or a joke. It's serious business to help alleviate world hunger.

Here's background from the website:

The potato (Solanum tuberosum) originated some 8 000 years ago in the Andes of South America. It was appropriate, therefore, that the initial impetus for declaring 2008 as the International Year of the Potato came from the Government of Peru.

At the biennial Conference of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in November 2005, the Permanent Representative of Peru proposed - and the Conference adopted - a resolution that sought to focus world attention on the importance of the potato in providing food security and alleviating poverty. The resolution was transmitted to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, with the aim of having the UN General Assembly declare the year 2008 as the International Year of the Potato.

It started in 2005 when a representative from Peru proposed the potato n fact, there's no humor in it at all really. In 2008 the United Nations launched the IPY, as its called, as an effort to help reduce world hunger by working with world leaders to promote potatoes as a viable choice.

I'll update this post with some more nutrition information about potatoes once I find it. I might have read it in one of Dr. McDougall's books, but hopefully their's a nice newsletter of his I can add the link to.