While your grocery prices go up, Congress remains hard at work on… keeping potatoes classified as a vegetable.
On Tuesday, a group of 14 senators sent a letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack and HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. In it, the senators condemned a rumored plan to reclassify the starchy staples as a grain.
The signatories include seven Democrats and seven Republicans, and one of those Republicans is moderate Susan Collins of Maine.
They pointed to potatoes’ nutritional content, its physical descriptors, and its botanical similarities to other vegetables. Plus, they celebrated potatoes’ important role in school lunches.
“The scientific justification behind the assertion that potatoes are not vegetables is not strong, and there are documented nutritional benefits of potatoes. Therefore, we strongly oppose any reclassification of potatoes to the grain category under the DGAs,” the senators wrote.
“Schools already struggle to meet vegetable consumption recommendations at a reasonable cost, and potatoes are often the most affordable vegetable.”
The food industry has been spreading rumors about the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee’s imminent efforts to reclassify potatoes as a grain sometime next year.
“We understand that the Committee is considering changes to food groups within US dietary patterns,” Kam Quarles, CEO of the National Potato Council said in a September statement. “One of those discussions involves the interchangeability of starchy vegetables and grains.”
However, the Biden administration denies any plans to reclassify potatoes and claims to lack any authority over such matters.
“[The committee] is not considering a change to the classification of potatoes… It is not within the committee’s purview to make such a change,” DGAC spokesperson Joellen Leavelle said in an email obtained by The Hill.
“That said, the committee is conducting an evidence review, which includes systematic reviews, food pattern modeling and data analysis.”
Ultimately, the senators’ letter may not even have been necessary. Plus, compared to grocery prices, these debates about how to classify certain foods are just… small potatoes.
The Horn editorial team