The potato

📖 In short

The potato is one of the most important foods in the world and is grown in most countries. We eat it fried, boiled, roasted or mashed, with meat, fish and vegetables. The part we eat grows underground, but it isn't a root!

🤩 Did you know?

A potato is about 80% water and 20% solids.
The world produces hundreds of millions of tonnes of potatoes every year.
There are thousands of kinds of potatoes, and some are purple!
Potatoes have been grown in space as an experiment.

🔎 Find out more

🌟 A stem underground

A potato is a swollen stem underground called a tuber, where the plant stores starch. It has little “eyes”, and a new plant can grow from each one.

🔍 From the Andes mountains

People in the Andes mountains of Peru grew potatoes thousands of years ago. Then explorers took them to Europe, and they became the main food of many peoples.

💡 Water and starch

A potato is mostly water, and the rest is starch that gives energy. It has vitamin C and useful minerals, especially in its skin.

🎯 Don't eat the green part

If a potato is in the light too long, part of it turns green, and that part has a harmful substance in it. So we keep potatoes somewhere dark and cool, and cut off any green parts.