Potato and Tuber Crops

Nutritive Value and Uses

• Nutritive value and Uses It is used mainly as vegetable but it also finds use in for making of chips, halwa,hour gulab jamun , kheer, etc.
• According to Aykroyd (1941), it contains 74.7 per cent water, 22.9 per cent sugar, 0.6 per cent protein, 0.1 per cent fat, 0.6 per cent mineral matters, 0.01 per cent calcium, 0.03 per cent phosphorus and 0.0007 per cent iron
• According to Macgillivray (1953), food value per 100g of edible portion is 85 calories of energy, 2 g protein, 13 mg calcium , 40 IU vitamin A, 12 mg ascorbic acid, 0.11 mg thiamine, 0.06 mg riboflavin and 1.18 mg niacin.
• According to Chatfield (1949) 100 g of raw potato contains: 3 mg Na, 410 mg K, 14 mg Ca, 27 mg Mg, 0.8 mg Fe, 0.16 mg Cu, 56mg P, 29 mg S and 35 mg Cl.
• The potato tuber may contain an alkaloid (Solanine), if it is exposed to light. It is a poisonous compound but 70 per cent of it is removed when potatoes are peeled.
• This alkaloid may cause sickness to live stock and human beings.
• Nadkarni (1927) reported the following medicinal uses of potatoes

1. It is anti-scorbutic.
2. Persons with neurotic and liver dyspepsia digest it well.
3. It is also used as an aperient, diuretic and galactagogue, nervous sedative and stimulant in gout.
4. Leaf extract is used as an antispasmodic in chronic cough.
5. Potatoes are ground into a paste is applied as plaster to fire burns.