Susan’s father called himself a “meat and potatoes” guy. He wasn’t keen on trying new foods, but he liked basic meals. He grew up in a household where potatoes were served with every meal. When we were first married, we would visit his parents fairly regularly and after we graduated from seminary we lived in North Dakota, which was their home state, and we saw them frequently. Breakfasts were always served with fried potatoes. Often they were the leftovers from the previous evening’s dinner chopped up and fried. Lunch offered boiled potatoes most of the time, and occasionally there would be potato salad. Dinner always featured potatoes, mashed, or baked and occasionally scalloped. I enjoy potatoes and found their eating style to be easy to embrace.

We, however, don’t serve potatoes with every meal. In fact we might go several days without including potatoes in our meal plans. I still enjoy fried potatoes with eggs for breakfast, but don’t prepare them every day.

When we moved from North Dakota to Idaho, potatoes were frequently the topic of conversation. The Idaho state slogan is “famous potatoes.” I used to joke that the slogan said “famous” not “tasty.” I had been fairly loyal to Red River Valley russet potatoes when we lived in North Dakota and didn’t find Idaho potatoes to be any better flavored. Potatoes are big business in Idaho, eastern Oregon, and eastern Washington. An Idaho agribusiness company developed the process for making potato flakes that could be reconstituted as mashed potatoes. They supplied a lot of potatoes to support the war effort during World War II. Idaho potatoes were the choice of McDonalds restaurants and there are huge facilities in Idaho where potatoes are cooked and frozen and then shipped around the world.

When the McDonalds chain began opening restaurants in Russia, they were criticized for importing potatoes into Russia and began to source potatoes for those restaurants in Russia.

When we lived in Idaho, we used to be able to get enormous potatoes from the grocery store. Sometimes we could find ones that were over a foot in length and were really heavy. Typically we could purchase individual potatoes in the 4 to 5 pound range in our grocery store and if you looked you could find a few that were close to 10 pounds. We would purchase one when we had an out of state guest and offer it as a gift to them saying, “We knew you have to travel, so we found a small cull from our Idaho potato fields for you to take home as a souvenir.” The joke was usually good for a few laughs.

Skagit County our neighbors to the south here in Washington, is home to a large amount of potato production. Those farms often grow a special variety sold as golden potatoes in grocery stores.

I am no expert in potatoes, but I’ve been party to a lot of conversations about potatoes and I have bits of trivia about them in my head. According to a 2019 study by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), potatoes are by far the most eaten vegetable in the U.S. According to the USDA the average American eats 49.4 pounds of potatoes a year. Compare that with an average of only 9.4 pounds of onions, the third most eaten vegetable in the U.S.

The second most eaten vegetable in the USDA study raises its own conversation. It is tomatoes, at an average of 31.4 pounds per year. The conversation, of course, is whether it is appropriate to call a tomato a vegetable. Tomatoes are botanically defined as fruits because the form from a flower and they contain seeds. However, according to the USDA, they are most often utilized as a vegetable in cooking. Back in 1893, the argument over the designation of tomatoes reached the U.S. Supreme Court which ruled that the tomato should be classified as a vegetable on the basis of its culinary applications. Scientists continue to disagree with the court ruling.

Another debate over the classification of food is brewing and has prompted more than a dozen Washington legislators to write to Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack and Secretary of Health and Human Services Zavier Becerra arguing that potatoes should keep their designation as a vegetable. Every five years the USDA and HHS publish dietary guidelines for US citizens. A recent report said that the advisory committee for the guidelines is considering classifying potatoes as a grain.

I’m with those who wrote the letter of protest. Like botanists who continue to call tomatoes fruit despite a Supreme Court ruling, I intend to continue to call potatoes vegetables regardless of the official designation by the makers of dietary guidelines. Potatoes are an excellent source of vitamins. A good baking potato contains more potassium than a banana, a food that is commonly cited as high in potassium.

If the classification of potatoes were to be changed, vegetable consumption across the country would go down dramatically. Nearly 50 pounds of food per year would become classified as grain rather than vegetable. Moreover, according to Jamey Higham, president of the Idaho Potato Commission, a change in the classification of potatoes would give federal food programs such as school lunches, which are required to meet federal nutrition guidelines, to purchase fewer potatoes. Potatoes would no longer count as a “specialty crop” eligible for federal subsidies.

I’m not particularly concerned with federal subsidies, but I think offering potatoes in school lunches is a pretty good practice and I don’t think that there would be significant health benefits to reclassifying the food. Although those who are watching carbohydrate consumption need to pay close attention to their potato consumption. Potatoes are a carbohydrate rich vegetable with about 26 grams of carbohydrate in a medium potato with the skin. The starch in potatoes is considered to be a complex carbohydrate. According to the diabetes association, complex carbohydrates generally take longer to break down in the body than simple sugars and potatoes are perfectly okay to include in a healthy diabetes diet.

I’m holding on to calling tomatoes fruit and potatoes vegetables. I’ll listen to other arguments, but I don’t think they are going to convince me.