Meeting of the Parliament 04 June 2014
I, too, thank Claire Baker for securing this members’ business debate, which is on an important topic that is relevant to Scotland and Scottish exports. I want to confine my remarks to three issues: the health value of potatoes, the health and safety of managing chips, and the future of seed potatoes. The seed potato industry is important.
We have already heard that the Potato Council has demonstrated the significant health benefits of potatoes. I think that the evidence base is now quite strong. I will not repeat all the elements that other members have talked about, but potassium is an important factor, as are the energy and fibre of potatoes and the vitamins that other members have mentioned. For example, vitamin B6 has many important functions, including contributing to normal red blood cell formation, the normal functioning of the nervous system, reduction of tiredness and fatigue, and regulation of hormonal activity.
The Potato Council has produced a number of “healthy eating” recipes that feature potatoes and all of which have fewer than 400 calories per portion. Potatoes are a much undervalued and underappreciated product.
I want to look at chips, because they are one of the favourite potato products. They have had quite a bad press in many ways, of course. We need much firmer standards in chip production. That is necessary for our health and a healthier population.
New Zealand has developed a set of industry standards for potato chips that are based on the best scientific evidence. Its Chip Group, which works to improve the nutritional status of deep-fried chips that are sold in New Zealand, found that chips that are not cooked to the industry standards have up to 20 per cent fat in them. Operators that adhere to the standards produce deep-fried chips with between 7 and 9 per cent fat. To illustrate that, one of its programmes is called “town makeovers”. People go to local chip producers and instruct them on the standards. After one of those programmes in Matamata in Waikato, the annual consumption of fat was reduced by 1,711kg, which is the equivalent of three trailer-loads full of fat. Chips are very popular, so that can have a major effect.
I would like the fish and chips organisation in Scotland to ensure in its programme that no fish and chip shop is given an award unless it complies with the standard that reduces the chips’ fat content to less than 9 per cent.
Good technique has other important results. It reduces the levels of acrylamide and furan, both of which are carcinogens. They will be in high prevalence if frying standards are not followed. What will the Government do to ensure that high standards are encouraged?
Finally, I want to deal with seed potatoes, which are an important crop, as has already been said. I will not go into the figures, but as Angus MacDonald mentioned, one of the big problems is potato blight. It causes real problems. I will go into an area that is slightly difficult for us. The current mechanism is the use of Mendelian cross-breeding in order to improve blight resistance. A lot of work is going on at the James Hutton Institute and elsewhere on that, and significant work is also going on in Holland to produce blight-resistant varieties. However, America is going to follow the genetic modification route. Here, existing potatoes from South America and old forms of potato that are almost completely blight resistant are being used, and that will shortcut the approach quite significantly.
Blight has a massive effect on the potato crop across the world. The production of seed potatoes is important to Scotland, so if we are going to survive as a seed potato producing nation, we need to consider a risk assessment of not adopting GM potatoes in order that we can protect our industry’s competitiveness. I am not advocating GM, and the industry itself talks about all the public protections that need to be put in place. Nevertheless, we should be very careful that we do not lose out in this area to the Americans, because it is an area of great importance to us.
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