Excerpt from Report to the Michigan Legislature on the Feasibility of Using the Pulp and Chicory Dryers in the State to Dry the Surplus Potato Crop, 1915
The matter of proper machinery to prepare the potatoes for the dryers, has been taken up with Jackson & Church, of Saginaw; Ruggles-Coles Engineering Company, 50 Church Street, New York City; The F. D. Cummer & Son Company, Cleveland, Ohio; Buffalo Foundry & Machine Company, Buffalo, N. Y.; and E. Salich & Co., Consulting and Constructing Engineers, 1602 Monadnock Building, Chicago, III. Extracts have been taken from a report of the Michigan Dairy and Food Department, the Rural New Yorker, of New York City, and several Consular and Trade Reports.
Whether the potato, which was first cultivated in Peru early in the sixteenth century, was discovered by the Spaniards or the English is not generally known, and so far as this investigation is concerned is of little moment. The fact, however, seems to be settled that in 1585 or 1580 potato tubers were brought from what is now North Carolina to Ireland on the return of the colonists sent out by Sir Walter Raleigh, and were cultivated on Sir Walter's estate near Cork. Like all other new food products, it had its enemies and for many years was not looked upon with much favor as an article of food. Years of cultivation and proper selection, so as to produce varieties that would contain ingredients necessary to make them desirable for food, have accomplished much and placed the potato in an enviable position among food products of this country. The following excerpt from a report of the Michigan Dairy and Food Department gives us a good idea of the value of the potato as an article of food:
The Potato as a Food.
"The potato is truly a most remarkable product. It contains within its aseptic covering a rich store of one of the most easily digestible of all forms of starch. The observations of Mosse, Van Noorden and others have shown most conclusively that the starch of the potato is more easily digested and appropriated by the body than the starches of wheat, corn and most other cereals. In laboratory tests made by the writer it was found that potato starch digested in less than one-sixth of the time of cereal starches. The experience of hundreds of physicians in the treatment of diabetes has shown that in many cases the starch of the potato is more easily assimilated or better utilized than other forms of starch.
"Potato gruel made from specially prepared potato meal or the pulp of baked potatoes has been found in Germany of very great service in the feeding of infants and invalids. Potato starch is far better for this purpose than cornstarch, arrowroot and similar substances, which are pure starch and cannot be properly considered as foods. The long continued use of these starches in the feeding of young infants often results more disastrously.
"The potato is not only an easily digestible foodstuff but possesses much higher nutritive value than is generally supposed. According to Gautier, about one-fourth of the weight of the Potato is food substance, consisting chiefly (nine-elevenths) of starch.
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