Keep potatoes rooted

An influential federal committee that sets the country’s nutritional guidelines is considering reclassifying the potato as a member of the grain family, ostensibly as a strategy to combat a growing obesity epidemic. Instead, the action would confuse consumers and potentially rob Americans of affordable calories at a time food insecurity is spiking.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which provide Food Pyramid-like direction for better health, are updated every five years by a joint committee of the federal departments of Health and Human Services and Agriculture.

There’s no requirement that botany and public health policy overlap 100 percent of the time. But they should not diverge to the point of absurdity. The nation’s nutritional guidelines should have sufficient flexibility to note a potato’s strengths and weaknesses—continued advocacy for healthier, non-fried preparation, say—without wholesale removal from its proper food group.

It may be starchy. It may lack the nutritional complexity of its fellow vegetables like broccoli. But the potato is a vegetable. To abandon its botanical identity is a befuddling way to discourage consumption and is likely to reduce the credibility of the guidelines.

School districts across the nation face a double whammy from inflation and the end of pandemic aid for meals. Schools already follow strict guidelines that ensure school meals are healthy; potatoes provide a lower-cost vegetable that helps the districts stay on budget.

If the country is to overcome obesity, it will do so with simple, straightforward instructions that help Americans build a better diet. Reclassifying the potato is, at best, an eye-roll-inducing exercise. At worst, it could erode confidence in America’s public health institutions.