Government nutritionists are considering labeling potatoes as a grain. Potato growers and others in the industry remain apprehensive.

1. Food pattern monitoring protocol

This is a quiz.

A potato is: a) a vegetable b) a grain c) something else.

The federal Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee is considering reclassifying the potato from vegetable to something else — possibly a grain — raising concerns within the potato industry, which produces one of the most popular foods in the nation. Every man, woman and child eats more than 112 pounds of potatoes a year.

The committee’s report is due this fall to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and USDA, which will develop the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

Reclassifying the potato could result in reduced usage in school and other federal nutrition programs, and even the loss of specialty-crop status — a qualifier for USDA grants that help pay for research and marketing.

“What we would see is a change in demand, and we don’t even know what that’s going to be as far as moving potatoes or not,” said Randy Hardy, board chairman of grower and packer-shipper Sun Valley Potatoes, based in south-central Idaho.

“Paying attention to things like dietary guidelines and other things is important,” Hardy said. “If we don’t, nobody else will.”

Popular crop

Last year, U.S. farmers grew about 44 billion pounds of potatoes. About 20% are exported, and the rest go into the domestic market.

About 60% of potatoes went to foodservice outlets such as restaurants, schools and institutions such as hospitals, according to the National Potato Council.

Sun Valley Potatoes gets about 10% of its revenue from schools and other government nutrition programs, Hardy said. Changing the classification of potatoes could dramatically impact that market segment and others.

He has followed previous regulatory efforts to limit potatoes in nutrition programs.

Farmers “don’t have a lot of voice in these decisions,” Hardy said. “We’ve got to pay attention and we’ve got to speak our minds.”

Defending potatoes

Kam Quarles, CEO of the National Potato Council, is the point man for defending potatoes.

To the news stories, “a general reaction from a variety of different folks is: Why is the government involving itself in what seems to be on some level a kind of comically absurd question on whether or not potatoes should be classified as a vegetable?” he said. “Clearly they are.”

“There’s no scientific validity” to reclassifying potatoes, Quarles said. And lumping them in with rice and grains based on starch or carbohydrate content fails to consider potatoes’ unique nutrients.

Nevertheless, “we obviously want to be constructive in the way we engage with the Dietary Guidelines Committee,” he said.

The Potato Council is emphasizing the potato’s nutrition profile, versatility, low cost and a well-documented ability to encourage school children and others to eat everything else on their plate.

A council goal is to ensure that officials “respect those benefits and allow for the industry to deliver potatoes in nutritious form throughout all of these channels,” Quarles said.

“We feel the government shouldn’t be making decisions for folks,” he said.

Consumers should choose and the industry should continue to innovate based on the best information available, he said. Innovations include a lighter, baking approach to preparing foods that are typically fried.

It’s a vegetable

“From a botanical point of view, it is strictly a vegetable,” plant pathologist Jeff Miller of Miller Research in Rupert, Idaho, said of the potato.

“You are eating the vegetative part of the plant,” he said. For example, someone eating celery is eating the stalk, and someone eating a potato is eating a root.

Potatoes offer starchy carbohydrates and a slow release of energy, Miller said. They are rich in fiber, potassium and — like other vegetables — a great source of Vitamin B1.

Nutritionists over the decades have determined certain foods to be healthful and then changed their minds, he said. But removing a food just because it is high in carbohydrates may ignore its other benefits, such as calcium and potassium content.

A better approach would be to “teach people to eat in moderation and increase vegetables in the diet,” Miller said.

If reclassification made the potato a whole grain, the potato would still meet school nutrition guidelines that emphasize whole grains and vegetables, said Pat Hatzenbuehler, a University of Idaho Extension specialist in crop economics.

Market impacts are difficult to predict, but “I just don’t think there would be much demand effect unless the potato is classified as totally unhealthy, such as an ultra-processed food,” he said.

Many consumers do not follow dietary guidelines closely in making purchases, Hatzenbuehler said.

Nutritionists’ approachThe committee’s staple carbohydrates protocol outlines the approach it will use to answer questions related to grains and other staple-carbohydrate foods, said Janet de Jesus, nutrition adviser to the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion within the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health.

The protocol asks about nutrient-intake implications when specific individual staple grains are emphasized or when grains are replaced with other staple carbohydrate foods such as starchy vegetables.

The committee is using food-pattern modeling analyses that ask questions such as whether someone following a particular diet can get adequate nutrients, de Jesus said. The analyses will examine the nutrient-intake implications of hypothetical modifications to the grain group.

Such modifications include analyses that reduce grains and increase starchy vegetables — such as white potatoes — as well as beans, peas, lentils, and starchy red and orange vegetables.

Organizations speak upLeaders of state potato organizations are concerned about a potential reclassification.

The 2023 Oregon Legislature made the potato the state vegetable.

“They didn’t classify it as the state grain, because it’s a vegetable,” said Gary Roth, Oregon Potato Commission executive director. “It’s one of the most nutritious and nutrient-dense vegetables you can eat.”

“We are certainly worked up about it,” Chris Voigt, Washington State Potato Commission executive director, said of the idea to reclassify. Potential implications in addition to school lunch program access include specialty crop recognition hard-won in numerous federal farm bills.

“If you are going to reclassify the potato, reclassify it as what it is: a food you can truly live off of,” said Voigt, who ate potatoes exclusively for two months in 2010 to prove that potatoes provide a full array of nutrients that other foods do not.

Consumers probably would not be influenced much, said Dale Lathim, Potato Growers of Washington executive director.

“But my concern along the same line is that we make sure we have the next generation coming up and knowing how good potato products are and making them part of their diet,” he said.

As it is now, “kids love to eat potatoes,” said Shawn Boyle, Idaho Grower Shippers Association president and counsel.

His 9-year-old eats school lunches because they offer “things he likes to eat” including potatoes, he said. Removing or reducing them could “draw kids away from the meals that they like and enjoy, and that are healthy.”

“My initial reaction is shaking my head and thinking this is just silly,” said Idaho Potato Commission CEO Jamey Higham. The idea to reclassify likely is “just part of fitting into a narrative.”

The potato’s healthy properties are at the center of the Idaho commission’s work with the American Heart Association and American Diabetes Association.

Although a reclassification could shrink access to school nutrition programs and federal research funding, “everybody loves them,” Boyle said of potatoes.

No matter what happens, “the potato industry is extremely resourceful and will find a way to be successful,” he said.