Introducing Spud-U-Lite, the first low-carb potato
By Karyn Miller
(Filed: 30/05/2004)


At last, some good news for Britain's dieters reeling from gloomy predictions of a soaring obesity problem: American scientists have created a type of potato so low in carbohydrates that it could be used in the Atkins diet.

The potato, developed with a Dutch seed company, has yet to be given a formal name but has been nicknamed "Spud-U-Lite". It is yellow and waxy with a smooth skin and has an "exceptional" flavour, according to scientists who have sampled it. Its carbohydrate content is only two-thirds that of other potatoes.

"Normally, we wouldn't recommend potatoes," said a spokesman for Atkins Nutritionals. The potato has yet to be evaluated by Atkins scientists but the spokesman said: "It sounds as if you could eat these potatoes in larger quantities during the later stages of the Atkins diet, once you have reached your target weight."

The Atkins diet, which shrunk the figures of Renee Zellweger and Catherine Zeta Jones, the Hollywood actresses, admits carbohydrates only in minute quantities.

The Spud-U-Lite could also give a boost to the potato industry, which is troubled by the Atkins diet. The British Potato Council denied reports that sales fell by four per cent last year but its advertising campaign, due to run for three months this summer, indicates concern. It is called "Fab Not Fad".

In America the Atkins diet is believed to have contributed to a 4.7 per cent drop in potato sales last year. Dr Chad Hutchinson, a potato expert at the University of Florida who has spent five years working with HZPC, a Dutch seed company, to develop the Spud-U-Lite, said it was "the future of the potato". The potato is the result of a breeding programme, rather than genetic modification, but its low-carbohydrate content was discovered by chance and believed to be the result of the low density of the potato's flesh and the relatively short period over which it matures.

Dr Hutchinson is working with a co-operative of Florida potato growers who intend to mass-produce the potatoes and have them on supermarket shelves early next year. It is not known when the Spud-U-Lite will become available in Britain.

Dr Mike Storey, the research and development director of the British Potato Council, was sceptical. He said: "These low-carb potatoes may be similar to small, waxy salad potatoes, such as Maris Peer, Nicola and Charlotte, that we have been growing for several years."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...0/ixportal.html

"Minute quantities". {snort!} Yes. 50 grams is "minute" compared to the usual 200-300 grams of a "normal food pyramid" day.

I will wait until these "lower carb" potatoes are proven. And remember, they are 'only for Maintenance'.

That still means that a medium size baking potato would be about 37 grams of carb and they don't mention anything about the glycemic index of these, either.
Good thing I was never that fond of potatoes to begin with.

I like to think of it in ounces and pounds:

Current Food Pyramid:



Revised Food Pyramid [Based on what I remember reading about it]:



My Intakes on Atkins:



Compared to the Food Pyramid, which is heavily weighted towards Carbohydrates, my Intakes on Atkins are far more Balanced...The revised food pyramid is slightly more balanced as far as Protein is concerned, but its still way too low in Fat.

Hmmm, sounds rather like another genetically-modified crop to me - so thanks, but no thanks.

I dont even want to eat potatoes anymore. They can have their bland starchy things all to themselves, low carb or not.

Then again I was never a potato person. I enjoyed mashed potatoes sometimes, but I like mashed cauliflower just as much and I dont get that heavy feeling in my stomach after eating it.

Didn't Catherine Zeta-Jones actually try to sue someone for linking her to the Atkins Diet??

Or maybe PotatoLite?

Even Krispy Kreme is introducing low-carb products - this I gotta see!

Tom.

Ummm.... crops have been genetically modified for thousands of years. Cats, dogs, horses, cows, and other animals too. It's called selective breeding.

My understanding is that the originally wild potatoes were actually lower carb then the big domesticated potatoes you get now. The was a article a while back about a South-American potatoes that is lower in carbs with higher nutritional content.

A third fewer carbohydrates in a potato is supposed to qualify as "low"? Ha ha. They may as well try to tell us that a cola with a third less sugar is low carb. Oh, wait; I forgot, Coke and Pepsi already are.

>>"It's called selective breeding."

I don't see what selective breeding has to do with gene splicing. I don't think our ancestors would have been capable of creating a selectively-bred disaster the way we now can under a microscope.

Ew, sounds gross!!! I don't like the thought of genetically manufactured foods anyway - why can't these people just leave nature alone??!

I guess if we left nature alone, we wouldn't have much to eat, or live long enough to care..<shrug>

I realize the prospect of them "tampering" with our food is frightening. Personally, I'd rather eat a product of a spliced gene than a food swimming in pesticides, fungicides, etc., that can be reduced or eliminated by genetic modifications.

Beside the fact that it states the potato was NOT genetically modified, but the product of a breeding program....

There's all kinds of varieties and spontaneous genetic variations in nature. That's why we have more than one sort of lettuce, sweet peppers, squash and so on. Its quite possible the current "potato" as we know it was selectively bred to have a higher amount of starches and sugars than it did originally.

The modern day turkey is selectively bred such that it has a breast that is so fat it can't reproduce on its own. A male turkey's breast is so big it can't mount the female. They used to drive turkeys to market, herding them along. They say nowadays you couldn't do that with a turkey, they're bred to become so fat they'd die of heart attacks before they ever got to the market.

Not all frankensteins come from a test tube, folks.