Revenge of the white potato

I grew up on an Aroostook County potato farm where I revered the spud. It represented nutritional calories on the table, money in the bank, and my ability to buy school clothes after serving an annual sentence of forced child labor.

I was upset about the WIC program’s sole exclusion of the white potato from fresh vegetable options, and am very proud of Susan Collins’ effort to gain its rightful place in the WIC grocery cart.

Photo by Pixabay

While I am excited about this break through, I have unresolved resentment about the maligning of the white potato. And I have a proposal that will exact revenge for all the years of unfairness.

Let’s nominate some other vegetables to take their turn as forbidden WIC vegetables.

  • Sweet potato: This haughty relative of the white potato claims superiority due to its orange color and lower carb content, parading its beta-carotine like a coat of arms. Behind closed doors, however, it makes x-rated vegi-tales with jet-puffed porn star: the Marshmallow.
  • Broccoli: Nutrients drown in a molten sea of Velveeta.
  • Green beans: “French’s green been casserole” has impersonated a healthy side dish for decades. Let’s ask Susan to sponsor a bill to make this recipe illegal.
  • Onions: We need to crack down on home onion ring labs, where beer battered ecstasy is fried and served to carb-craving junkies.
  • Tomatoes: You start out with recreational salsa on the weekend, and before you know it these lycopene laden beefsteaks are plastered on pasta and pizza every day of the week.
  • Carrots: Glazed, candied and incorporated into cakes.
  • Celery: Pretending to be high fiber and lo-cal, these hypocrites embed themselves in platters of hot wings with blue cheese dressing.
  • Spinach: One word:  Salmonella.
  • Eggplant: Don’t be fooled by this glossy purple perennial. I did some research and learned they are a relative of tobacco, and bitter-tasting seeds are laced with nicotinic alkaloids. Are we willing to have our most vulnerable become hooked on this addictive nightshade?
  • Cucumbers: How many summer picnics have you attended where this innocent vegetable is corrupted by carbs in a macaroni salad?
  • Beets: You can try to dignify this vegetable with ivy league status, but here is a case where Harvard is just another word for fructose.

I think you get the idea. Every vegetable has its own dirty little secret if you dig deep enough. Let’s celebrate the digging of pure white potatoes, and hope our homegrown tubers fully recover from this nightmare of discrimination.

What do you love about white potatoes?

Check out a song that celebrates my favorite vegetable.

For more of my humor go HERE

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11 thoughts on “Revenge of the white potato”

  1. My wife insists potatoes don’t count when it comes to a healthy side of vegetables, but you’ll be happy to know I’m fighting the good fight.

    I’m losing. But still, I’m fighting it.

    1. I’m on your side, Mark. You might want to share this post with her so she can break through her denial about the merits of the other vegetables. Don’t give up! Even if you are clinging to a shoestring!

  2. I love potatoes in every way,shape, and form. I love them. I would marry potatoes if I could. I would have to get a divorce first, or maybe not because my husband may be okay with one potato, two potato…he loves them too!

  3. I like plain boiled white potatoes, with the skin still on because the skin is the most nutritional part. As proof, I have never had an attack of scurvy in my life.

    I also love baked potatoes, just plain, with nothing on them. Again, I eat the skins, too. I eat these with a knife and fork, like a steak.

    I also love sweet potatoes and yams. I am not prejudiced.

    1. You had me until you said you like sweet potatoes, Kathy. Secretly I like them too, but for this post I can’t admit it. You are a purist for sure! I like my baked potatoes with butter and sour cream and after I eat the creamy inside I enjoy the crispy peelings with a little more butter. Heaven!

    1. I like sweet potato and broccoli too, Donna, but my poor white potato has had to put on its boxing gloves to fight its way back into the vegetable scene. LOL.

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