365 IN 365 - All Hail the Spud!

Jennifer Armstrong is the creator of this series of posts, published bi-monthly, entitled 365 in 365. These posts will help guide us all as we accept the 6D opportunity to diversify our plants in order to nurture and nourish our microbiome and thus improve our health and wellness. You can join us for this year-long event either via our 365 Facebook group or by following along via our 365 website page.

Like many people of my generation, I grew up on a steady diet of boiled potatoes for dinner.  Back in the 60s and 70s, having pasta meant either lasagna or spaghetti, both rare enough to be considered “fancy!” Rice was white, as was bread. Sweet potatoes were seasonal only - a holiday dish gilded with brown sugar. 

For some reason, baked potatoes also earned the distinction of “fancy!” - I think because they always featured as part of a steakhouse dinner and came loaded with sour cream and chives. French fries came frozen, in a bag, and accompanied the occasional hamburger. 

Possibly the old house I grew up in, with the distant kitchen isolated from the rest of the house, was not conducive to meals that needed much attention; my mother was understandably more interested in adult conversation and a cocktail with my father in the living room than in tending to a stovetop of pots and pans after a day of mothering.  So boiled potatoes were the day-to-day staple: peel ‘em, drop them in a pot of water, and walk away.  If they sometimes ended up waterlogged and mushy, so be it.

So it doesn’t surprise me that I strayed from potatoes as an adult.  With the broadening of the American palate in the 1980s, I was eager to blaze a different culinary path than the one I’d been raised on.  Don’t get me wrong - put a plate of greasy French fries in front of me and until recently I would have been all over it.  But I seldom cooked potatoes at home. 

All that has recently changed, however, since I bought an air fryer.  Now that I can make crispy oil-free potatoes, I’m gobbling them like a maniac.  Boil them one day, cool them in the fridge to form resistant starches, and then air fry them the next.  I toss them in lemon balsamic, garlic powder, and nutritional yeast, and and air fry until golden and crunchy. Boy oh boy, do they taste great!

And happily, for the purposes of getting plenty of plant diversity, there are multiple varieties of potato - blue ones, purple ones, white ones, yellow one, red ones - little, big, skinny, roly-poly.  And of course when not assaulted by oil or sour cream or butter they are low calorie nutrient powerhouses. They say you can’t go home again, but I’ve gone home to potatoes.  All hail the mighty spud!

So what’s your potato story? 

About Jennifer Armstrong

Jennifer Armstrong has spent her life making things; she has had a long career of writing books for children, decades of gardening, painting, making music, and cooking. A 2023 graduate of the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies course in Plant- Based Nutrition, she has also combined her interest in sustainability with her love of food by learning how to can and dehydrate, saving as much of the local harvest as possible for use throughout the year.  She lives in upstate New York.

Jennifer is both a blog writer and event moderator at 6D Living. Her blog post series 365 in 365 will explore how we can all diversify and improve our microbiome. Jennifer is also an administrator for our public, world-wide event of the same name. This free event is a year long community activity with one goal only - get more people on the planet a wider variety of plants.

About our 6D Community Activity - 365 in 365

This is a 365 day challenge to try 365 different plants in your nutritional routine over the next 365 days. We will explore new and known plants, share their nutritional benefits as well as recipes so we can all enjoy the splendor of the plant world and improve our health - as a united community.

We know that the diversity of plants we eat determines our microbiome health, which in turn determines our overall health and wellness. Our goal at 365 in 365 is to try to get as many different plants as possible into our bodies over the year - steadily becoming healthier together.

We invite all our members to share recipes, new plants they have 'discovered' for themselves as well as resources where we can all find these wonderful gifts from nature no matter where we live in the world.

This is an international plant-based community for curious minds which want to learn how to be healthier, happier and more balanced in their lives. This is a group of hope and encouragement for all sentient beings on the planet we call home. This activity/event is taking place both on Facebook as well as our 6D Blog - you can join via either venue, or join both by sharing your journey through comments and posts!

Be well

Stop.Breathe.Focus.Move.Flow.