SYLVIE DOUGLIS, BYLINE: NPR.
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WAILIN WONG, HOST:
This is THE INDICATOR FROM PLANET MONEY. I'm Wailin Wong here with friend of the show Nate Hegyi, host of the public radio podcast Outside/In.
NATE HEGYI, BYLINE: Hey. Great to be here.
WONG: Awesome to have you back. What do you have for us today, Nate?
HEGYI: Well, OK, so, first, I know that you have a not-so-secret McDonald's habit, as do I.
WONG: Oh, yeah, no, my body is, like, 50% Filet-O-Fish at this point.
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HEGYI: So my question to you is, do you consider the french fries in your kids' Happy Meals to be a vegetable?
WONG: No. And I actually have a little weird feeling every time I even serve potatoes, even at home. I'm like, this doesn't really count as a vegetable serving. You know, I always have this conversation with myself.
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HEGYI: Well, the federal government disagrees with you. It classifies potatoes - baked, waffled, curlied, fried - as a vegetable. But recently, some nutritional scientists were questioning that logic as the feds updated their dietary guidelines for 2025.
WONG: This is not the first time this has come up, but every time it does, it's created a spud spat in our nation's capital.
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SUSAN COLLINS: My question, Mr. Secretary, is, what does the department have against potatoes?
WONG: (Laughter) Why do you hate potatoes so much, Mr. Secretary?
HEGYI: That, of course, is Senator Susan Collins of Maine, a state that produces a ton of taters. In fact, potatoes are a multibillion-dollar industry in the United States.
WONG: Today on the show, why potatoes have such sway on Capitol Hill and the real financial stakes this tuber has in staying a veggie.
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WONG: When I was growing up, I remember posters of the food pyramid were everywhere in my school cafeteria.
HEGYI: The food pyramid was an easy visual display of the federal government's dietary guidelines. Sweets and fats were at the top of the pyramid. Eat less of those. And grains, fruits, and veggies were near the bottom. Eat more of those.
WONG: And these weren't just, you know, gentle suggestions. The U.S. dietary guidelines dictate everything from which foods get special grants from the federal government to what can be bought with federal food assistance programs, like WIC for women, infant, and children up to age 5.
HEGYI: They also guide what can be served at school lunches. The cafeterias where literally millions of children, aka future customers, develop their palette. The government wants those school meals to contain a lot of veggies, so there is an incentive to be classified as just that.
KRISTINA PETERSON: The potato has been a hot potato there, if you will.
HEGYI: Kristina Peterson is a reporter with The Wall Street Journal, and she's devoted a lot of ink to this long-running spud spat, mainly whether potatoes should have a home in the veggie group.
PETERSON: No one really disputes that botanically speaking, the potato is a vegetable.
WONG: Here's my women in STEM moment. Vegetables are the roots, stems, and leaves of a plant. And potatoes are tubers, but they were also considered starchy vegetables, meaning they have a lot of carbs in them.
PETERSON: And so periodically, there are questions about whether it should really be kind of lumped in with other starchy foods like staple carbohydrates.
WONG: Staple carbs like rice or pasta.
HEGYI: Every five years, the federal government reviews and revises its dietary guidelines.
WONG: Next year, the USDA is set to release its latest dietary recommendations. And as scientists were looking at people's diets...
PETERSON: They raised the question which they were discussing about whether potatoes should be considered interchangeable with grains.
WONG: Now, while potatoes are technically vegetables and do have nutrients like vitamin C and potassium...
PETERSON: The way that Americans consume a lot of the potatoes that we eat is through french fries. And so you are getting more fat along with that. And in addition, there are some nutrients in the potato peel, which is often removed when you're making French fries.
HEGYI: That has real nutritional impacts. Obesity has become a major crisis in America, costing close to $300 billion a year in health care costs. And our love affair with the french fry doesn't help.
WONG: Other countries are trying to nip that relationship in the bud, like the United Kingdom. It doesn't count potatoes, fried, or otherwise, towards your daily serving of vegetables. In fact, there was this big controversy that erupted across the pond.
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As Peppa Pig) I'm Peppa Pig.
WONG: So cute. If you have a kid, you have definitely heard of "Peppa Pig." And in this episode, Peppa Pig had the gall to invite a Mr. Potato to talk about fruits and veggies.
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As Peppa Pig) Mr. Potato's fruit and vegetable quiz.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As Mr. Potato, singing) Fruit and vegetables keep us alive.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (As characters, singing) Always remember to eat your five.
PETERSON: I spoke with multiple parents who felt misled by that because in the U.K., the potatoes don't count towards your five a day.
HEGYI: Here in the U.S., it's different, not because our tots are any healthier but because potatoes are a massive business here with a very successful lobbying arm. They are the most grown, quote-unquote, "vegetable" in the country.
WONG: The National Potato Council touts that it's a $100 billion industry that supports more than 700,000 jobs in the U.S. And because it's classified as a vegetable, it's eligible for special research grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
HEGYI: Last year, potato growers and advocates received more than $2 million to help out with things like marketing and disease prevention. Not to mention that the Potato Council says schools spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year on potatoes for meals.
WONG: Kam Quarles is head of the National Potato Council. He worries that some of that school money will dry up if taters become interchangeable with grains.
KAM QUARLES: If you put us over in the grains category and we're competing with slices of bread or a bowl of rice, we become one of the most expensive items over in the grains category.
HEGYI: That's why, over the years, lobbyists have gone to some extreme lengths to protect the potato's status as a veggie. Take, for example, in 2010, when folks weren't able to buy potatoes through the WIC program. In protest, this advocate, Chris Voigt - he ate nothing but potatoes for 60 days. Here he is on SpudmanTV. And yes, Wailin, there is a SpudmanTV.
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CHRIS VOIGT: And I did the entire diet. I never had any weird, strange side effects, always had really good energy, was never lethargic. Yeah, slept great at night. So everything went really well physically.
WONG: On SpudmanTV, do they just play that one scene from "Lord Of The Rings" on a loop where Samwise Gamgee says, boil 'em, mash 'em, put 'em in a stew?
HEGYI: Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew.
WONG: Potatoes.
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WONG: Iconic potato moment in pop culture. (Laughter).
HEGYI: Oh, my God. I'm so happy you brought that up.
WONG: (Laughter).
HEGYI: When the potato's status as a vegetable was challenged again last year, no one went on an all-spud diet, but lobbyists did come out in force.
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QUARLES: Americans do not eat enough vegetables, and potatoes are key to addressing this issue.
HEGYI: That's Kam again, testifying at a U.S. Department of Agriculture Committee hearing last fall.
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QUARLES: Potatoes are a versatile, affordable and nutrient-dense choice. And they play a key role in nutrition programs such as the school lunch and school breakfast programs, where they serve as a springboard vegetable, introducing children to other types of less consumed vegetables and increasing participation, decreasing food waste.
WONG: Yes, you heard that right. Just like Ronald Reagan argued that marijuana is a gateway drug, the National Potato Council argues that potatoes are a gateway vegetable.
HEGYI: Wailin, I'm curious - you've got kids. Do you think that they are actually a gateway vegetable?
WONG: Potatoes have only been a gateway to more potatoes, I think...
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WONG: ...In my household.
HEGYI: OK, so this may or may not work on kids, but it does seem to be working on Capitol Hill, at least to some extent so far. In March, a bipartisan group of 14 senators sent the USDA a letter urging it to keep classifying potatoes as a veggie. And Kristina Peterson says, if you look back over the years, the potato lobby generally gets its way.
PETERSON: Congress, particularly lawmakers from more potato-heavy producing states, often say, don't touch our potatoes, and they generally win.
HEGYI: The guidelines aren't officially out until next year. But the USDA is now saying that it will not reclassify potatoes as a grain. But the potato lobby is still worried because they aren't out of the woods yet. The tater could still be considered interchangeable with grains, meaning schools could swap out spuds for potentially less expensive stuff like rice or bread.
WONG: Nate, thank you so much for bringing us this story. It's always so fun to have you on the show.
HEGYI: I'm always happy to do the potato beat.
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WONG: This episode was produced by Angel Carreras, with engineering by Gilly Moon. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and edited by Kate Concannon. THE INDICATOR is a production of NPR.
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