Mr Potato Head, it may be argued, is undeserving of defamatory jokes, especially after a recent finding that shows how the potato is about the only food that seems least likely to give anybody any health problems. That’s saying a lot when you realize how many food allergies and intolerances exist.

Although negative reactions to foods are obvious to some people, they are not to the majority. People eat junk foods, artificial ingredients, chocolate, milk, margarine and altered fats and oils without even understanding that they cause side effects. Waking up with stuffy sinuses, an itchy back, pimples, inflamed gums and cold sores is not at all uncommon. But few connect such maladies to the foods they eat. So the moral of the story is that if you have any health problem, look first to your daily diet, from pizza to cola to tomatoes to sulfite-stuffed hot dogs.

In the meantime, take notice of the new study that shows that the potato is a friendly food. Not the potato chip, french fry or deep fried hash browns, but the wholesome baked potato.

A new British study has identified the lowly potato as the safest food on the menu, saying it is the least likely food to cause fatigue, irritable bowel syndrome, eczema, and migraine.

The study, which involved giving food intolerance tests to over 8,000 volunteers, found that less than one percent of the participants tested positive for potatoes. “When you consider that each and every person in the UK eats on average 200lb of potatoes a year, this is really quite surprising,” said study spokesman Les Rowley. “Whereas some food intolerances appear to be caused by too much of the same food, on a too regular basis, it seems that the potato is the exception to the rule.”

Rowley said he believes the potato causes few problems because it breaks down easily in the digestive system, and added that the three foods which most often cause reactions are cow’s milk, yeast, and egg white. (Source: Newsmax Health Alert, Feb 2008)

Let’s all give Mr Potato Head more respect and invite him to dinner.

Image from Hasbro: Mr. Potato Head, by the way, was born in 1952 at the Pawtucket, RI-based toy company, Hasbro, Inc., and began making history at an early age as the very first toy to be advertised on television.
The original Mr. Potato Head contained only parts, such as eyes, ears, noses and mouths, and parents had to supply children with real potatoes for face-changing fun! Eight years later, a hard plastic potato “body” was included with Mr. Potato Head to replace the need for a real potato.

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