How do you feel about potatoes? Does that word provoke a feeling of joy, delight, and nostalgia? Or perhaps you’re a little…weird, and potatoes aren’t a magical vegetable sent from up above that somehow manages to be delicious however you make it…
However you feel about potatoes, their historical effect on the world cannot be denied. Perhaps the most memorable potato story that comes to mind for us is the devastating failure of government and humanity that was the Irish Potato Famine, which lasted from 1845 to 1852.
Now, for some brief background on how the potato famine happened from a historical perspective. Potatoes originated in South America, around modern-day Peru and Bolivia, and it is estimated that they have been domesticated for around 10,000 years! The estimates are rather rough because archaeologically speaking, tubers kinda suck at the whole being preserved thing, so we kinda don’t really know, but do have a rough idea.
In the late 16th century, potatoes found themselves in Europe thanks to…checks notes… (Spanish) colonialism. At first, Europeans were afraid of potatoes and refused to eat them because they are a member of the Nightshade family, and as we all know, members of the nightshade family of plants were created by devils and witches to cast their spells. Common knowledge.
As a fun aside, Europeans were also afraid of tomatoes (also a member of the nightshade family) because they saw that people who ate them died earlier, which was probably true, as royals, who were kinda the only people eating them in the first place, ate them off pewter (so lead) plates, and the acids in tomatoes leached out the lead in higher quantities, probably leading to earlier deaths. Actually…checks notes again…that’s not true! I’ll link an article below that discusses what was actually going on 🙂 Always stay on your toes 😉
Now back to potatoes: At first Europeans were afraid of them, but over time, they realized that witches weren’t after them and potatoes were actually an awesome, nutrient-laden bang for your buck, and soon, the potato could be seen playing roles all over european history, being the edible backbone of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, and even being compared to iron in terms of historical importance by Friedrich Engels.
In Ireland specifically, laborers who were forever marked to live on the edge due to owning no land of their own in the highly feudalistic society of that time relied HEAVILY on potatoes for their sustenance, growing the wheat and grain that the landowners whose land they worked wanted them to grow to be sent off to Britain for consumption, while eating the potatoes that they grew on little plots of rented land and also using those potatoes to feed a pig or cow. This arrangement generally worked really well (if depressingly monotonously) until the potato blight came along. But that’s not what today’s (sorta, not really) fun science fact is about!
In Ireland, because of…the British…the Irish diet was steadily stripped of foods like wheat, barley, oats, and rye, all foods that contain a lovely little protein called gluten, a protein potatoes do not contain. Now, for most of us, gluten isn’t really a problem; our intestines bravely and rather unsuccessfully take on gluten, leaving many undigested peptides (think of peptides as the building blocks of proteins) which interact with our intestinal linings while trying to assimilate into our cells. What makes or breaks you is how your intestinal lining reacts to those undigested peptides; for most of us, nothing happens; the peptides assimilate out through our lining and are metabolized in peace. However, for some of us, our silly little immune systems decide these peptides are in some way toxic, leading to our bodies trying to defend us from these terrible toxins, causing a cascade of terrible symptoms such as inflammation, bloating, nausea, extreme stomach pain, headaches, and, in severe cases, intestinal damage. There’s a name for this extreme overreaction by our immune systems: celiac disease, and as a further fun fact, it is genetic.
Because the Irish, for many, many generations, rarely ate foods containing gluten, sticking instead to their gluten-free potatoes, many people who carried the genes for celiac made it to reproductive ages unscathed, allowing them to peacefully have children, who then could also carry these genes that lead to celiac. Due to the Potato Famine, these people dispersed all over the world, but especially to places such as the USA and Canada, which is why many people in these places are afflicted with celiac disease.
The more you know 🙂
Thank you for reading this week’s musing!
Sources of info (Which I highly recommend you read to further your knowledge on these matters so you can make your next dinner party a blast for everyone 😉 :
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_potato
- https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-the-misrepresentation-of-tomatoes-as-stinking-poison-apples-that-provoked-vomiting-made-people-afraid-of-them-for-more-than-200-years-863735/
- https://www.irishtimes.com/news/how-irish-diets-of-the-past-affect-the-present-1.1054583#:~:text=From%20prehistory%20until%20relatively%20recently,explained%20by%20our%20dietary%20past.
- https://gluteguard.com.au/blog/gluten-digestion-explained/
Musings of a Future NASA Scientist (Science & Music History) 
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