Kids Corner - 10 Facts About Potatoes!

I love potatoes and did you know...

• Potatoes were first eaten more than 6,000 years ago by indigenous people living in the Andes mountains of Peru./li>
• The Incas measured time by how long it took for potatoes to cook.
• Religious leaders denounced the potato because it wasn't mentioned in the Bible.
• Potatoes are the world's fourth food staple - after wheat, corn and rice.
• Potatoes are grown in more than 125 countries (even in space - in 1995).
• Every year enough potatoes are grown worldwide to cover a four-lane motorway circling the world six times.
• China is the world's largest potatoe producer.
• Namibians each eat an average of 110 kilograms of potatoes every year - not quite as much as the Germans consume.
• In 1778 Prussia and Austria fought the Potatoe War in which each side tried to starve the other by consuming their potatoe crop.
• During the Alaskan Klondike gold rush of the 1890's, potatoes were so valued for their vitamin C content that miners traded them for gold.

-The Other Book