How long have potatoes been a staple in almost every country in the developed world? Well, I don’t know either, but I do know that during the Irish Potato Famine (1845-1852), also known as Gorta Mór or the Great Famine, approximately 1 million people died and a million more emigrated from Ireland to escape the famine that had devastated the Irish economy.
The humble potato has become a major component of most dinner tables, but is it really that healthy?
Potatoes are very rich in long carbohydrates and starches. Eventually, each digestible starch is broken down into simple sugars in the body. The sugar is then assimilated into the blood, raising blood glucose levels. And this in turn increases the secretion and production of insulin, which is our fat storage hormone.
Insulin is secreted from the pancreas in large amounts. It prevents fat burning and stores numerous nutrients in fat cells. After a while, this can lead to an apparent deficiency of supplements in the blood, and this causes a buildup of hunger and a craving for something sweet. At this point, people eat again and the process will start all over again, thus this vicious cycle causes weight gain.
On the other hand, a low carbohydrate intake gives you a lower and more stable blood glucose, and reduces the amount of insulin produced by the pancreas. This triggers the release of fat from your fat stores and also increases fat burning. This naturally causes fat loss, particularly around the abdomen in people with abdominal obesity.
Unfortunately, what we all have to face is the fact that we live in a nation of increasing obesity. Statistics indicate that obesity has doubled since 1980. The latest figures from the CDC show that more than a third (34.9% or 78.6 million) of American adults are obese. Obesity has been cited as a contributing factor to between 100,000 and 400,000 deaths in the United States per year, costing society approximately $117 billion in direct costs and accounting for 6% to 12% of expenditures health care nationals in the United States.
Currently, our level of fitness is estimated by a calculation known as BMI (body mass index). BMI is defined as body mass divided by the square of body height, and is universally expressed in units of kg/m2, resulting in mass in kilograms. and height in meters.
There has been some discussion lately within the medical fraternity about the accuracy of the BMI test. Given the fact that we all have different amounts of muscle and fat, and both have different densities and weights, the measurement must logically become inaccurate.