Sugar-free potatoes to hit market soon
 Health News- Kolkata, July 24, 2004

Eating crunchy chips, French fries and batter fried potato cutlets without worrying could actually become possible for diabetes patients, thanks to sugar-free potatoes!

After sugar-free sweeteners, sugar-free ice creams and even diabetic sweetmeats, here come 'almost' sugar-free potatoes - great news for all those diabetics who stay off potatoes for their sugar content.

It's not any new biotechnological invention that is making it possible, but an ingenious regulation of storage temperature that will ensure low sugar content in the tuber.

Research shows that potatoes by themselves have very low sugar content. It's only during storage that a certain kind of bacteria infects potatoes triggering the sugar levels.

Says Swapan Mondal, the chief mover of sugar-free potato production in West Bengal: "When potato is stored in low temperature, the sugar content in it goes up."

Scientists at the Central Potato Research Institute have now agreed that the sugar content could be checked if the storage temperature is increased.

Generally, warehouses in India store potato at a temperature of about 36 degrees Celsius. But research showed that potatoes kept at about 50-52 degrees Celsius developed sugar levels permissible for consumption by diabetes patients.

A special warehouse has been built in the state for storage of sugar-free potatoes. It would chiefly supply to Tamil Nadu and markets in eastern India.

Sugar-free potatoes could be used to make crispy potato snacks that could be had by diabetes patients.

A kg of sugar-free potato would cost Rs.10. Mondal said this was because of the high costs of storage in specially built warehouses.

Researchers have found that bafilomycin, a toxin found in bacteria called streptomyces that infect vegetables such as potatoes, sugar beets, turnips and radishes, may be a trigger for type 1 diabetes in children who are genetically susceptible.

According to a study on mice carried out last year, women who eat vegetables like potatoes and turnips while pregnant may increase their child's risk of developing diabetes.

Research also showed that regions where tuberous vegetables that may contain this toxin are commonly eaten have high rates of diabetes.

For instance, Finland, where potatoes are commonly eaten, and Sardinia, where people eat a lot of sugar beets, have the highest rates of diabetes in the world.

Type 1 diabetes makes up 10 percent to 15 percent of all diabetes cases -- type 2 diabetes is a different type that is triggered by lifestyle factors.

Indo-Asian News Service