Chris Voigt, Executive Director of the Washington State Potato Commission, decided to go on a diet of nothing but potatoes. He did include some seasonings and oil for cooking, but no supplements. He wasn't trying to lose weight, but wanted to show how healthy potatoes are and that you could live off them for 60 days with no negative health effects. The federal WIC program has recently removed potatoes from the list of vegetables it will pay for.
He blogged regularly about his experience, posted videos and ran a weekly contest.
The average potato is 5.3 oz and 110 calories, therefore, he determined that he needed to eat 20 potatoes a day to maintain his current weight. That's almost 7 pounds a day. He actually had a hard time eating all 20 potatoes every day because they were so filling. A wide variety of potatoes (russets, yukon, fingerlings, purple, red, yellow) were included in his diet and he ate them fried, boiled, steamed, roasted, baked, microwaved, and mashed.
Did you know that 20 potatoes supply 942% of daily vitamin C requirements? They also provide over 100% of vitamin B6, potassium, fiber, maganese, magnesium, phosphorus, copper, thiamin, niacin, iron, protein, and folate. You can check out the nutrition facts here.
Chris' wife reported an unexpected effect of the diet. Although Chris is a snorer, while on the potato diet his snoring stopped. It started back up again after he went back to his regular diet. He lost 21 pounds, his cholesterol dropped by 67 points and triglycerides dropped by 60 points. His fasting blood glucose was ten points lower at the end of the diet. Stephan Guyenet does an interpretation of the diet on his blog.
I'm craving a baked potato with some real butter.
Enjoy your potatoes!
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