Potato Review

12 POTATO REVIEW MAY/JUNE 2023 HEALTH FOCUS ‘Review of nutritional advice needed’ T HE merits of eating potatoes as part of a healthy diet or weight loss plan have been further highlighted in a new study, and put a clear case as to why the UK needs to review how it is described within nutritional education sources, it has been claimed. Sta at the Pennington Biomedical Research Centre in the United States carried out a study involving 36 participants between the ages of 18 and 60 who were overweight, had obesity, or insulin resistance. Assistant Research Professor at Pennington, Dr Candida Rebello, said the individuals who participated in the study were able to lose weight. She added: “People tend to eat the same weight of food regardless of calorie content in order to feel full. By eating foods with a heavier weight that are low in calories, you can easily reduce the number of calories you consume. e key aspect of our study is that we did not reduce the portion size of meals but lowered their caloric content by including potatoes. “Each participant’s meal was tailored to their personalised caloric needs, yet by replacing some meat content with potato, participants found themselves fuller, quicker, and often did not even nish their meal. In e ect, you can lose weight with little e ort.” Participants in the trial were fed precisely- controlled diets of widely available common foods including either beans, peas, and meat or sh, or white potatoes with meat or sh. Both diets were high in fruit and vegetable content and substituted an estimated 40% of typical meat consumption with either beans and peas or potatoes. Lewis Cunningham , Managing Director at Wilson’s Country Ltd, which buys and packs potatoes from growers in Northern Ireland, is amongst those campaigning for better recognition for potatoes within consumers’ diets, and said the research is a signi cant factor in why better education about potatoes is needed. e Eatwell nutritional principles within the National Health Service recommendations, which are taught in schools throughout the UK, describe potato as carbohydrate therefore not as healthy as other vegetables, and this is wrong, he said in a recent interview with the Belfast Telegraph . “We need to have the role of potatoes within a healthy diet fundamentally reviewed by health and education professionals and this must work must be carried out as matter of priority.” A NEW study has revealed that consuming protein extracted from potatoes has the same bene ts for helping your body rebound after a workout as consuming milk protein. Men’s Journal reveals in a recent article that potatoes contain all the essential amino acids that milk does. A new study in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise nds that consuming protein extracted from potatoes has the same bene ts for helping your body rebound after a workout as consuming milk protein, which is long believed to be the go-to source for post-exercise recovery. “Plant proteins are typically considered less useful in recovery because they’re harder to digest and are incomplete in their amino acids compared to animal protein, but potatoes, it turns out, have all the essential amino acids that milk does,” the article states. In the study, Dutch biologists asked a group of t men to consume a beverage made with 30 grams of either potato or milk protein powder after resistance training. Study co- author Luc J.C. van Loot says this resulted in muscle protein synthesis (the recover process) being enhanced equally for both groups. A newcomer to the tness supplements market, potato protein is expected to reach $115 billion in sales by 2030, according to some estimates. Could potato protein be the next big thing in workout supplements?