Betting the farm
on low-carb potatoes

Oh, you can just sense Atkins disciples salivating right now. There’s soon to be a potato with fewer carbs.

Growers in Florida, helped by state agricultural researchers, have licensed a new variety with only about 70 percent of the carbohydrates found in the Russet Burbank, the beloved and iconic coarse brown variety used for baked potatoes and for much of the nation’s fries. A 3.5-ounce serving has some 13 grams of carbs; the Russet has 19. Not quite low-carb, but a bit less.

But its backers — though they certainly aren’t shying away from the purchasing power of the low-carb consumer — refuse to put all their, well, potatoes in one basket.

“Low carb may get people to try it initially, but I think once they try it they’ll come back because of the taste,” said Jim McDowell, director of sales and marketing for the SunFresh cooperative, a group of five Florida farmers who will grow the newfangled spud.

Before anyone gets too worked up, let’s delineate potato from potato.  The most popular variety, accounting for well over 60 percent of U.S. potatoes, Russets are primarily grown for baking and frying. They’re a far cry from something like round white or red potatoes, which are the sort of thing you’d use to boil up or mash — or new potatoes, which are young enough that their starch hasn’t fully developed and their flesh is more vegetal.

Those latter types have less starch and more water than something like the Russet Burbank, whose high-starch development has been tailored to make terrific fries.  And this lower-carb variety will work along the same lines.  Part of it can be attributed to a lower specific gravity — its starch-to-water ratio — than the Russet, but its developers admit they’re somewhat stumped as to what exactly causes the lower starch content.

The smaller carb count may be good for marketing, but this particular tater was born out of Florida farmers’ hunt for a premium potato they could sell at higher prices to picky shoppers. 

States like Idaho and Washington have captured the largest chunk of the nation’s potato production, though Florida accounts for 2 percent, according to the 2002 agricultural census. That’s a $130 million per year industry.

“When you think of Florida, you shouldn’t just think of sunshine and beaches and Walt Disney World,” said Chad Hutchinson, an assistant professor at the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences who specializes in potato research.

Hutchinson discovered this new breed’s carb-conscious properties while working with SunFresh farmers to find new varieties that would flourish in Florida's winter and spring, when warm temperatures would give the state an advantage marketing fresh potatoes to East Coasters forced to endure stored potatoes from — shudder — the West Coast.

But the potato itself was developed through careful cross-breeding by Dutch firm HZPC, which licensed the spud to the Florida group. The firm has created between 200 and 300 types of potato. 

As with pharmaceuticals, this is not a quick process, or a cheap one.  The development cycle for a new potato can be 8 to 12 years, and cost $1.5 million, according to Don Northcott, marketing manager for HZPC Americas.  The lower-carb variety began its life in Holland in the mid 1990s, was brought over in a test tube and spent a year in quarantine. Then it became one of many varieties Hutchinson and the Florida researchers tried out.

While HZPC sells its share of Russets, it’s looking for the same thing as the Florida growers: a spud that earns its keep.  That’s a concern for all potato farmers.  Consumption of potatoes doesn’t seem to have budged as Americans have come to curse carbs: projected annual consumption was up slightly in 2003 to 137.1 pounds per person. But prices have tumbled, down 14 percent since mid-2003. And most spud growers — the Florida folks a possible exception — are hoping this low-carb craze, too, shall pass.

Either way, the hope is that a less starchy potato might lure consumers willing to pay a bit more for something unique

“You’re walking through the produce section … you’ve got beautiful produce coming from all over the world,” says Northcott. “For a potato to be there, we have to be equally as bright, equally inviting.”

Some tater types aren’t so convinced. “I’ll be as interested as anyone else to see how it does,” says Frank Muir, executive director of the Idaho Potato Commission.

Muir hasn’t had a chance to evaluate it in the flesh, but he and his nutritionists have been peering at photos of the new spud. They wonder how it will cook given the lower starch content. Will it make for dry baked or mushy mashed?

“If it is a different texture and it tastes different, no one’s going to eat it,” Muir said. “We’d all eat Brussels sprouts if it tasted like chocolates.”

Not surprisingly, all the low-carb hubbub has Muir, who runs three miles a day, miffed. Rather than hunt down a potato with less starch, he suggests we all might do better if we got more exercise, ate fewer calories and enjoyed, say, the occasional potato.  “We’d rather take a magic pill,” he said.

Like the potato industry, nutritionists generally note potatoes themselves have plenty to recommend them: no fat (until they’re fried), almost no sodium, lots of vitamin C and potassium. What becomes trickier is how people eat them, and whether they pile on all that sour cream. And butter. And chili. And cheese. 

Calorie counts still are inescapable. The new spuds may be fine, but not as an addition to a calorie-packed, low-carb regimen.

“Are they adding it to the diet or are they replacing it?” said Alice Lichtenstein, a nutrition expert at Tufts University. “If somebody substitutes, and they taste good, more power to ‘em.”

Before you start hunting this thing in stores, be aware it has yet to be grown as a field crop. The first planting may begin this fall for a debut early next year.

Nor does it have a name. Trade press dubbed it “Spud-U-Lite,” and growers may seek to get in a plug for their locale along the lines of “Florida Lite.”

Still, its developers swear by its taste and tout its “great moisture” for baking and mashing.

If nothing else, a bit of potato rivalry may be brewing.  While the Idahoans may pride themselves on the fry-perfect goodness of the Russet, the Florida crew is a bit less enthusiastic about its high-starch ways.

“We have Russets on the farm,” Hutchinson said, “and when you put them in the microwave, they actually blow up.”

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