GUELPH, Ont. – About 1,500 potatoes from prairie research plots will play a role in finding a healthier potato at the University of Guelph this fall.
Stephanie Bach, an Edmonton native and a master’s student, is part of the Bio-Potato Network that connects 150 researchers and support staff researchers across the country.
They are looking for potato varieties with more fibrous starch that breaks down more slowly during human digestion.
Bach said that many potato varieties now contain a form of starch that quickly breaks down, causing a sharp rise in blood sugar levels.
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“With diabetes becoming a much more widespread disease, this has real implications for people with that condition,” she said. “And the potato is such a basic part of our diet that if we could make it healthier, it would have a wide impact.”
Researchers at Agriculture Canada’s Fredericton, N.B., research centre are leading the project, funded in part through the department’s Agricultural Bio-products and Innovation program.
Bach’s role is to study the starch profile of 12 potato varieties from across the country. It includes samples produced in southeastern Alberta and southern Manitoba.
She cooks the potatoes, freezes them and then grinds them into flour that can be used for testing throughout the year.
In the lab, she uses enzymes to simulate human digestion and then monitors how quickly the potato starch molecules break down over the typical three-hour digestion period.
“If we can find or create a potato whose starch breaks down over the course of digestion rather than quickly during the first hour, it would allow for better management of blood glucose levels,” she said.
Bach said she experiments with potatoes from across the country because the starch profile is not determined only by potato variety.
“The starch profile also can be influenced by the location where it is grown, by the soil type, by rainfall, so we need samples from different regions across the country with information about where they were produced.”
The prairie samples come from Winkler and Carberry, Man. and Vauxhall, Alta.
But it is more than a simple health issue for the young researcher.
“We are working to improve it but we don’t want people to think that potato is bad for you because it’s not,” she said emphatically. “It is actually very good for you. It’s what people do to the potato that’s bad for you – deep frying it, adding sour cream and things like that.”
She said it is not the potato’s fault. “We eat a lot of junk food,” said
Bach. “We consume more calories and carbohydrates than we need. We have to improve our health and our eating habits. The potato can be part of that.”
