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Apr. 15th, 2008 06:39 pmVia the fictional ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cvillette comes a true but strange story about spuds. And apparently this is the International Year of the Potato?! Thanks, United Nations -- I know what I'm having for breakfast tomorrow!
All the talk about nutritional value in that article reminds me of something I heard while I was in Cork. See, there was a good long stretch between the introduction of taters and the Famine during which the Irish were basically living on potatoes and milk, which doesn't sound like a particularly healthy diet. But it turns out that the British military kept pretty decent records on the soldiers it conscripted, and if you go back and look at these, the Irish soldiers were in consistently better health upon conscription than their English counterparts. So while a taters-and-milk diet may kind of suck, it's apparently better than anything else an impoverished 19th-century wretch can afford -- I guess they really ARE more than just starch.
cvillette comes a true but strange story about spuds. And apparently this is the International Year of the Potato?! Thanks, United Nations -- I know what I'm having for breakfast tomorrow!All the talk about nutritional value in that article reminds me of something I heard while I was in Cork. See, there was a good long stretch between the introduction of taters and the Famine during which the Irish were basically living on potatoes and milk, which doesn't sound like a particularly healthy diet. But it turns out that the British military kept pretty decent records on the soldiers it conscripted, and if you go back and look at these, the Irish soldiers were in consistently better health upon conscription than their English counterparts. So while a taters-and-milk diet may kind of suck, it's apparently better than anything else an impoverished 19th-century wretch can afford -- I guess they really ARE more than just starch.