Some Englishmen who did not fancy potatoes formed a Society for the Prevention of Unwholesome Diet. Mario Pei's 1949 The Story of Language was responsible for the word's false etymology he wrote "the potato, for its part, was in disrepute some centuries ago. The origin of the word spud has erroneously been attributed to an 18th-century activist group dedicated to keeping the potato out of Britain, calling itself the Society for the Prevention of Unwholesome Diet (SPUD), for whose existence there is no evidence. Around 1845, the name transferred to the tuber itself, the first record of this usage being in New Zealand English. It subsequently transferred over to a variety of digging tools. 1440) used as a term for a short knife or dagger, probably related to the Latin spad-, a word root meaning "sword" compare Spanish espada, English "spade", and " spadroon". The word has an unknown origin and was originally ( c. The name "spud" for a potato comes from the digging of soil (or a hole) prior to the planting of potatoes. Potatoes are occasionally referred to as "Irish potatoes" or "white potatoes" in the United States, to distinguish them from sweet potatoes. In many of the chronicles detailing agriculture and plants no distinction is made between the two. The 16th-century English herbalist John Gerard referred to sweet potatoes as "common potatoes", and used the terms "bastard potatoes" and "Virginia potatoes" for the species now known as potato. The name originally referred to the sweet potato although the two plants are not biologically closely related, despite their similar appearance. The Royal Spanish Academy says the Spanish word is a hybrid of the Taíno batata ( sweet potato) and the Quechua papa (potato). The English word "potato" comes from Spanish patata (the name used in Spain). Normal potato tubers that have been grown and stored properly produce glycoalkaloids in amounts small enough to be negligible for human health, but, if green sections of the plant (namely sprouts and skins) are exposed to light, the tuber can accumulate a high enough concentration of glycoalkaloids to affect human health. Like the tomato, the potato is a nightshade in the genus Solanum, and the vegetative and fruiting parts of the potato contain the toxin solanine which is dangerous for human consumption. It remains an essential crop in Europe, especially Northern and Eastern Europe, where per capita production is still the highest in the world, while the most rapid expansion in production during the 21st century was in southern and eastern Asia, with China and India leading the world production of 376 million tonnes (370,000,000 long tons 414,000,000 short tons), as of 2021. The importance of the potato as a food source and culinary ingredient varies by region and is still changing. Over 99% of potatoes presently cultivated worldwide descend from varieties that originated in the lowlands of south-central Chile. Following millennia of selective breeding, there are now over 5,000 different types of potatoes. As of 2014, potatoes were the world's fourth-largest food crop after maize (corn), wheat, and rice. Today they are a staple food in many parts of the world and an integral part of much of the world's food supply. Potatoes were introduced to Europe from the Americas by the Spanish in the second half of the 16th century. In the Andes region of South America, where the species is indigenous, some close relatives of the potato are cultivated. Potatoes were domesticated there approximately 7,000–10,000 years ago, from a species in the S. The potato was originally believed to have been domesticated ( § History) by Native Americans independently in multiple locations, but later genetic studies traced a single origin, in the area of present-day southern Peru and extreme northwestern Bolivia. Wild potato species can be found from the southern United States to southern Chile. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae. The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant Solanum tuberosum and is a root vegetable native to the Americas.
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