Altogether thirteen
courses were served at the lunch following the army chief's
meeting with the national editors at the army headquarters on
April 8, 2008. The menu included potato soup, french fries,
potato corn curry, potato kopta curry, potato roller gravy,
potato with spinach, potato malai curry, potato navaratna,
potato pudina, and potato pulse.
The key to a successful lunch meeting is making people feel
comfortable. During the lunch, the army chief made a 5-point
appeal to the press to help bring down prices of essentials,
hold credible elections, encourage people to diversify their
food habit, improve the rule of law and security and highlight
rural news. Behaving graciously throughout the meal, he stressed
the need for the nation to consume potatoes alongside rice to
alleviate the food crisis and requested the press to spread the
slogan “potatoes alongside rice every day (Bhater pashe aloo
protidin)” throughout the country, which is according to him,
already a common slogan in the army itself.
According to a
new WB-IMF report from Washington through a video conference
connecting Dhaka, New Delhi, and Islamabad on Tuesday, April 8,
2008, sharp rise in food grain prices in recent times will
worsen poverty situation in most of the South Asian countries
including Bangladesh, leaving UN development goals (fixed in the
UN Millennium Development Goals, a set of eight globally agreed
development goals, by the given timeframe) by 2015 in the
developing countries uncertain. As there's a lot of fear and
greed out there, the Philippines, the largest rice importer,
recently urged China, Japan, and other Asian nations to attend
an emergency meeting on the region's food crisis to try to
reverse export curbs that have driven prices to a record.
Governments of those countries are getting afraid of unrest.
Shortage of supply, international price-hike, extreme weather
events, and government incompetence are responsible for the
present food price hikes. According to the economists’
suggestion, country should try hard to increase the supply of
the most demanded commodity and in the mean time divert the food
habit to an unmet demanded commodity for the time being.
Potatoes are best known for their carbohydrate (approximately 26
grams in a medium potato). Starch is the predominant form of
carbohydrate found in potatoes. A small but significant portion
of the starch in potatoes is resistant to enzymatic digestion in
the stomach and small intestine and, thus, reaches the large
intestine essentially intact.
Many critics
felt sad as one of the General from the independent Bangladesh
now recommended eating potato. They might recall the history
while the then late General Ayub Khan once advised the East
Pakistan (now Bangladesh) people to eat bread instead of rice.
But everybody should have to keep in mind that the time is
totally different as the then East Pakistani people had been
advised or forced to change their mother language, their
heritage, their culture, and their nationalism.
Potatoes contain
a number of important vitamins and minerals. A medium potato
(150g/5.3 oz) with the skin provides 27 mg vitamin C (45% of the
Daily Value (DV)), 620 mg of potassium (18% of DV), 0.2 mg
vitamin B6 (10% of DV) and trace amounts of thiamin, riboflavin,
folate, niacin, magnesium, phosphorus, iron, and zinc. Moreover,
the fiber content of a potato with skin (2 grams) equals that of
many whole grain breads, pastas, and cereals. In addition to
vitamins, minerals and fiber, potatoes also contain an
assortment of phytochemicals, such as carotenoids, and
ployphenols.
A single serving
of a potato can provide a person with 40% of the daily value
needed of vitamin C; this will help keep the body from bruising
easily. Also, the potato can give 20% of the potassium needed
for the body each day; it is a needed element for everyone. It
helps stabilize the body when it is being over worked. Though
not likely to cause serious harm, green skinned potatoes can
taste bitter and may result in temporary digestive discomfort.
The potato, a
name derived from the Native American Indian word "Batata," was
first cultivated by the Inca Indians in Peru over 7,000 years
ago. It was introduced to Europe around 1700 and subsequently by
European mariners to territories and ports throughout the world.
Historical and genetic evidence suggests that the potato reached
India not very much later than Europe, taken there by either the
British or the Portuguese. Genetic studies show that all 32
varieties of potato grown in India derive from the Chilean
subspecies. The earliest unequivocal reference to the potato in
India is in an 1847 British journal.
In recent
decades, the greatest expansion of potato has been in Asia,
where as of 2007 approximately eighty percent of the world
potato crop is grown. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union,
China has become the world's largest potato producer, followed
by India. Potato is the world's most widely grown tuber crop,
and the fourth largest food crop in terms of fresh produce —
after rice, wheat, and maize (corn).
Last year, eight
million tons of potatoes were produced in Bangladesh but there
is capacity of preservation of only two million tons. According
to the army chief, eating potato will not only help to reduce
sharp rise of food grains but also potato growers will get fair
price and will be encouraged to cultivate potato next year.
The United
Nations have officially declared the year 2008 the International
Year of the Potato in order to “increase awareness of the
importance of the potato as a food in developing countries.”
Of course, there
is nothing tasty, traditional, or important in compare to rice
and people of Bangladesh cannot take anything instead of rice.
But potatoes are one of the most nutritious staple crops
discovered by man and can be habituated along with rice.
