Potatoes and politics

In 2011, the United States Department of Agriculture proposed limiting starchy vegetables in school lunches (including french fries) on the grounds that most school potatoes arrived frozen to be deep fried and offered thin nutritional value. The National Potato Council and a bipartisan coalition of senators from Idaho, Maine and Colorado responded by attaching a congressional rider to the agriculture appropriations bill that blocked the USDA from spending any money to enforce those limits. They renewed it for seven consecutive years, over the objections of more than 130,000 public comments in favor of the restrictions. 

French fries are still served in public schools today: in 2024, the USDA updated standards for added sugars, sodium, milk and whole grains but starchy vegetables were explicitly not addressed, and Senator Collins from Maine continues to secure language annually in the appropriations bill to retain the status quo on potatoes. The power of the potato lobby and the American industrial food system lives on.

Something you perhaps weren’t aware of: the original potato — the one Irish subsistence farmers survived on almost exclusively — was genuinely remarkable and rich in nutrients. It was dense in potassium, vitamin C and fiber, caloric enough to sustain hard labor, and growable on small plots. A widely cited study comparing USDA crop data as a result of our lovely industrialized food system from 1950 and 1999 found declines of up to 38% in several key nutrients across common vegetables, including potatoes. 

Fun fact: today’s dominant commercial variety, the Russet Burbank, was not selected for nutritional density but rather because it produces a long, uniform, consistent fry — the same frozen-to-fry process in nearly every fast-food location in the country. There are a few exceptions to the frozen-to-fry french fry with In-N-Out Burger being the most well known. They have no freezers in their restaurants at all and potatoes arrive fresh, get sliced in store, and go straight into the fryer at least sparing you extra preservatives for that meal.

Colored potato varieties including purple, red and fingerling carry antioxidant activity up to six times higher than commercial white varieties. When you choose varietals other than the standard russet or grow one of the smaller rainbows at home, you are getting something measurably different. In San Mateo County, you can also grow potatoes year round with almost no effort. Plant a few seed potatoes in a container or a corner of your yard with a drip line, harvest most of them when they are ready, leaving a few in the ground. The winters here are mild enough that they will not freeze, and the ones you leave behind will simply resprout and produce another crop. There’s no replanting required and you’ll know potatoes are ready to dig up when the greenery on top wilts. It is about as close to a self-replenishing garden as you are going to get without any particular skill involved.

Speaking of potatoes being able to pop up almost anywhere (I love this segue): if the medians along Alameda de las Pulgas or El Camino Real seem to have sprouted more colorful signage than usual lately, that is because campaigns place signs wherever they calculate the risk of removal is low more than where they are actually permitted to be. Under California Penal Code section 556, placing signs on public property, including medians, sidewalks, utility poles and public rights-of-way, is a misdemeanor, and the city can remove them without prior notice. San Mateo residents can report violations through the MySanMateo app or the online portal. Redwood City has myRWC, San Carlos uses Inform San Carlos, and Daly City runs a portal called iHelp, with code enforcement reachable at 650-991-8260.

So there you have it. The potato has been a staple of American politics since before our modern American political machine, and it turns out there was a real column in there after all.

Annie Tsai is chief operating officer at Interact and three-time author, leads community engagement and learning for Moms in Tech, and is a city and county commissioner, among other things. She can be reached at: media@annietsai.co.