How the Potato Made the World

Potatoes are America's favorite vegetable. To be more precise, french fries are the most-eaten vegetable dish in the US. While that might not be great, the potato itself is a wonder food. They are more nutritious than most of the world's staple grains, and they are easy to grow, unless your soil is made of clay full of rocks, like my riverbank yard. You know that potatoes originated in the Americas, and that the Irish became so dependent on them that the Potato Famine devastated the country in the 1840s. Get ready to learn a lot more about potatoes, like the link between potato crops and the human population explosion. Or the link between potatoes and human height. Adam Ragusea gives us the lowdown on potatoes as his kids harvest some intriguing bright purple potatoes from their backyard garden. (via Damn Interesting)