Warren sheaf. [volume] (Warren, Marshall County, Minn.) 1880-current, 1921-02-02
YOUNG LADIES REPORT
ON POTATO VALUE
Elizabeth Miller and Myrtle Knutson
Submit Potato Essays To McCrea
Farmers Club.

Yedr'S Eve WIN the result IudL TWO
young lady members of the club were
asked to report at the next meeting on
what they could find on the subject.
The result was two very good essays
by the young ladys. They follow:
Potato As q Food
Potatoes have a place in our diet
which no other vegetable occupies.
We usually have potatoes at least
once day and, if we were to 60 with
out them for while we would miss
them almost as much as bread.
Potatoes are both palatable and
wholesome and lend themselves to
great many preparations.
The potato contains 70 per cent of
water, IS per cent of starch, % per
cent Of protein, per cent Of fat and 1
per cent Of ASH AS an article of diet,
it is deficient in fat and nitrogen. 1t
should be supplemented by such foods
as oatmeal, butter, gravy, eggs, beans
and meat, because these foods contain
more fat, etc. Potatoes contain
trifing amount of alkaloid poison but
this escapes during the boiling and
gives the potato the characteristic of
boiling potatoes.
Potatoes are an excellent food for
supplying energy because of their high
percentage of carbohydrates, chiefly
starch.
Another thing is that 80 per cent of
their nutritive contents can be readily
digested, and, about IA per cent of food
used in an average home, consists of
potatoes in one form or another.
: Different Ways of Serving Potatoes
Potatoes can be served baked, steam
ed, fried, boiled, in soups, in salads and
in deserts.
Cooked potatoes are the most com
mon and most used. When they are
cooked in their skins, they lose none
of their food nutrients, but a slight
loss of water is noted
Fried potatoes lose none of their food
value.
Baked potatoes have been found to
be more quickly digested than those
cooked in other ways.
to it's nutritive value.
Chemical analysis have shown that
as much albumen, the flesh forming
food of the potato, is lost or needlessly
wasted in pairing fifty pounds of po-
tatoes, as there is flesh and food value
in pound Of sirloin steak. This shows
that a great deal of the food value of
the potato is lost in this way.
The potato lacks fat. but what it
lacks in fat, is made up in salts. These
salts are very important and stimulent
to the blood. In 80 bushel potato
crop there are $500 lbs of food This
goes to show there is great deal of
food substance in potatoes.
Other Uses of Potatoes. :.
Though chiefly table food, potatoes
are also used for the manufacture of
starch, for potato flour, for alcohol and
for food for farm animals.
Potato flour is made by grinding the
dried and usually cooked potatoes to
suitable fineness. This flour was first
made by the French and is so easily
made that the French people made it at
their homes.
This flour is being used very sue
cessfully as Il substitute for oat -four;
barley -four and wheat flour and in COM
bination with these fours in bread etc.
Potato starch is also being used sue
cessfully as a thickening agent.
One tablespoon Of potato starch
thickens 4 tablespoons of liquid to
very thick consistency. Potato starch
has been found to be more easily di-
gested than starches Of corn and of
cereals.
Alcohol is also obtained from pota-
toes. One kind of alcohol is obtained
from the plant itself and used as
substitute for petrol in running motors.
The ordinary way Of obtaining
alcohol is to form a thin paste of crush
ed potatoes, finely ground grain The
starch Of the potato is first changed to
sugar by action of the malt. Then fer
mentation is produced by the addition
of yeast. This alcohol then obtained is
used in medical cases.
Potatoes as Food for Stock.
AS stock food, potatoes belong to the
same class as corn and other starchy
foods.
A bushel Of potatoes furnishes some
what over one-fifth as much food as a
bushel Of corn.
A professor of agriculture claims that
four and half pounds of boiled pota-,
toes are equal in feeding value to one