The Neatest Little Paper Ever Read ® June 18, 2013 e potato is a member of the deadly nightshade family and its leaves are indeed poisonous. e tuber is not poisonous in the least, but it took a lot to overcome cultural fears surrounding the plant. Come along with Tidbits as we consider the hum- ble but miraculous potato. • Potatoes originated in the Peruvian Andes. e Incas called them batatas. ey were eating pota- toes 2,000 years before Columbus set sail. ere are over 5,000 kinds of potatoes growing in the Andes— so many types that the local language has 1,000 different words for potato. e Incas even measured time by how long it took a potato to cook. When the Spanish Conquistadors over- ran the land, they had never seen anything like the potato. ey were forced to eat the strange new food when their own food supplies ran low. e potatoes they introduced to Europe turned out to be far more valuable than the gold that they killed for, but it took some doing to convince the European populace to try them out. • In 1744 Prussia was at war and Frederick the Great was distressed to see his people starving to death. He had earlier been introduced to the po- tato as a food crop, and he encouraged the peas- ants to grow the new food as well. e peasants did grow them— but they only fed them to their livestock. Tidbits is all about... Of Greeley, Centerra, Loveland & More! Potatoes Issue 884 Listen to... Tidbits Talk Wednesdays at 8:18am Look for the Loveland Ford Focus. It’s all around Town! Watch for Ron or Amy Ross driving all around Greeley, Centerra and Loveland delivering Tidbits in their new Ford Focus purchased at Loveland Ford. Tell them, “Howdy!”
Transcript
The Neatest Little Paper Ever Read ®June 18, 2013
The potato is a member of the deadly nightshade family and its leaves are indeed poisonous. The tuber is not poisonous in the least, but it took a lot to overcome cultural fears surrounding the plant. Come along with Tidbits as we consider the hum-ble but miraculous potato.
• Potatoes originated in the Peruvian Andes. The Incas called them batatas. They were eating pota-toes 2,000 years before Columbus set sail. There are over 5,000 kinds of potatoes growing in the
Andes— so many types that the local language has 1,000 different words for potato. The Incas even measured time by how long it took a potato to cook. When the Spanish Conquistadors over-ran the land, they had never seen anything like the potato. They were forced to eat the strange new food when their own food supplies ran low. The potatoes they introduced to Europe turned out to be far more valuable than the gold that they killed for, but it took some doing to convince the European populace to try them out.
• In 1744 Prussia was at war and Frederick the Great was distressed to see his people starving to death. He had earlier been introduced to the po-tato as a food crop, and he encouraged the peas-ants to grow the new food as well. The peasants did grow them— but they only fed them to their livestock.
Tidbits is all about...
Of Greeley, Centerra, Loveland & More!
Potatoes
Issue 884
Listen to...
Tidbits TalkWednesdays at 8:18am
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• So the ruler had his cooks invent recipes using the potato, and passed copies of the recipes out to everybody. Still the people would not eat the potato. Finally Frederic resorted to the threat of violence: he issued an edict that anyone who did not eat potatoes would have their ears cut off. Po-tatoes quickly became the most important part of the Prussian diet.
• When French pharmacist Augustine Parmen-tier was captured during the Seven Year War in the mid-1700s, he was thrown into prison where his Prussian captors fed him little besides pota-toes. He remained in good health in spite of the limited diet. When he was released, he returned home and encouraged all French families to start eating potatoes. He went to the King of France with a plan to grow potatoes and feed them to the hungry. The King was not impressed, but he consented to give Parmentier a few acres of the worst possible land near Paris. Nothing would grow there— nothing, that is, except potatoes, which thrived. Like the Prussians, the French people thought of potatoes as simply a food for livestock, so Parmentier devised scheme to change the tide of public opinion.
• Operating under the prin-ciple that people only want what they can’t have, he sta-tioned soldiers around the potato field in order to “protect” this valuable crop from theft. However, he instructed the sol-diers to take bribes and allow peasants to steal potatoes. The plan worked, and soon potatoes were growing all over the countryside. Next, Par-mentier threw a huge feast, inviting all the most prominent names of the day. Everything served at the feast was made from potatoes - from soup to dessert. The Queen even wore potato flowers in her hair. This was all that was needed to make the potato a socially acceptable food.
• Potatoes didn’t gain popularity in America until Thomas Jefferson began serving them regularly at the White House. Then the potato caught on fast, with good reason. The potato is one of the most perfect natural sources of nutrition found so far. The average potato has 100 calories and provides 50% of the U.S. Recommended Daily Allowance of vitamin C; 20% of vitamin B6; 15% of iodine; 10% of niacin, iron and copper; and smaller amounts of other vitamins and minerals. Potatoes are high in potassium and fiber but have no fat and are almost salt free.
• No other food matches the potato in food energy per acre. Potatoes produce 75% more food energy per acre than wheat and 58% more than rice. The Soviet Union grows the most potatoes, followed by Poland, the US, and Canada. Only corn grows in more countries than potatoes. It’s the fourth most important food worldwide, after wheat, rice,
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and corn. It’s also is the only vegetable that grows in the desert and in mountains above 14,000 feet. The value of the potato worldwide exceeds $100 billion a year.
• Potatoes have many uses. They are used in the production of many kinds of foods. They are add-ed to soups, sauces, pasta, baked goods and dairy products in order to help foods stick together, stop ice crystals from forming, and make food creamier. When used to make ethyl alcohol (eth-anol), one acre of potatoes can produce enough gas to fill up 25 station wagons. A product made from potatoes is used by oil well drillers in order to keep their drills dry enough to keep the friction high. Potato starch was used in the early days of color photography, and vodka is made from dis-tilled potatoes. Potato starch is now being made into “plastic” bags which decompose when bur-ied. Potatoes are also used in manufacturing of plastics, medicines, paper, cloth, glue, and candy.
THE POTATO FAMINE• Growing potatoes in Ire-land became very popular because they were handy to have around during times of war. The edible underground tubers were likely to escape the notice of invading troops. The growing green tops could not be set afire as could fields of wheat or barley. Even if
a potato field were trampled by soldiers, the tu-bers would be undamaged. Armies and outlaws were not likely to take the time to dig them up. After being dug up, the potatoes could be taken directly to the kitchen to be cooked and eaten without having to be ground at a mill first. They could be stored in a root cellar for months, to be eaten in leaner times. People with very little land could still grow lots of potatoes, which was not the case with grains. Potatoes thrived on Ireland’s very poor soil, and all that was needed to plant them was a spade rather than a horse and plow. It is thought that the nickname “spud” came from “spade.”
• The potato blight has been around as long as there have been potatoes, and there is still no cure for it. In 1845-1847 Ireland’s entire potato crop failed three years in a row, causing devastating starva-tion and social upheaval. Ireland’s population at that time was 8 million. The potato crop failed in America at the same time it failed in Ireland. However, in Ireland the potato was the sole food crop upon which the majority of the people de-pended for nourishment. In America, corn, oats, wheat, barley and other crops were grown in suf-ficient amounts so that Americans had other crops to feed them. One million people died in Ireland over the course of 3 years from hunger or disease, and another million moved away.
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Women in HistoryIRENA SENDLER
• Irena Krzyzanowska Sendler was born in 1910 in Warsaw, Poland. From an early age, she sympathized with the Jews who were being persecuted relent-lessly by the Germans. When Jews were rounded up and incarcerated in ghettos during World War II, she hatched a scheme to rescue as many Jewish chil-
dren as possible.• The Germans were afraid of typhoid fever and feared that if there were an outbreak in the ghettos, it would spread to the German populace. Because Irena worked for the Social Welfare Department, she volun-teered to be in charge of “inspecting” people in the ghetto for signs of typhoid on a daily ba-sis, along with her team of nurses. The Germans
were only too happy to hand this unpleasant chore over to her. This job gave her free passage to come and go from the ghetto. Every day she and her col-leagues smuggled children out of the ghetto howev-er they could. They were hidden in suitcases and cof-fins. They were disguised as packages. Babies were sedated and placed in a secret compartment in the bottom of a tool chest. Older children were taken out in burlap bags. A network of underground sew-er tunnels was often used. A specially trained Ger-man shepherd barked any time a soldier was near, which scared the soldiers away while also covering the sound of a crying child.
• The children were then given new identities and sent to orphanages, convents, or to live with Polish citizens. Irena kept meticulous track of the names of the children and where they had been sent to, hop-ing to be able to reunite them with their families af-ter the war. The lists were kept sealed in jars buried in a backyard garden. Over 2,500 children were es-corted to safety through the efforts of Irena Sendler and her cohorts.
• In 1943, her scheme was uncovered. The Gestapo arrested her and tortured her, insisting she divulge the location of the lists she had kept as well as the names of her co-horts. They wanted to know where the children had been sent, who was taking them in, and how her system worked. They broke her legs, but she never told. She was on her way to be execut-ed when her co-workers bribed a prison guard to release her in secret. Her “execution” was duly noted on the official bulletin board, and posters were plas-tered all over the city announcing her death. Spir-ited to safety, Irena saw the posters of her death on her way into hiding. She spent the rest of the war in hiding, just as the children she rescued did.
• After the war, she uncovered the names from the jars in the garden and endeavored to reunite as many families as possible. Unfortunately, the vast majority of parents had died or gone missing in the meantime, many of them perishing in Treblinka.
• Following the war, she was showered with awards and on several occasions was able to meet some of the people she had saved. However, she remained living under Communist rule in her native Poland, where her story was largely forgotten. In 1999 in a high school in Kansas, four students decided to fea-ture her story for a history project they were work-ing on. The result was a school play called “Life in a Jar,” which other high schools also began to perform across the U.S. This eventually led to a PBS docu-mentary, a television special, and a book, which brought Irena wide recognition. Money raised from these items was sent to Poland to support her, and some of the students who worked on the play even traveled to Warsaw to meet her. Irena Sendler, often referred to as “the other Oscar Schindler” died in her native Warsaw in 2008 at the age of 98.
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My CardGreeley area businesses &
professionals ready to serve YOU!
• This day marks the 42nd anniversary of the war on drugs. Today our partners in Mexico ob-served it with a moment of silence followed by hours of laughter. - jAY lENO
• The new Superman movie, “Man of Steel,” is a different look at Superman. It’s about Super-man’s struggles as a guy. I guess we all knew this, but I didn’t realize how tough it was — he’s kryptonite intolerant. - David Letterman
• Edward Snowden is the guy who leaked all of the NSA secrets. He had a 98-minute press con-ference today and yet they can’t find the guy. This is the biggest manhunt since Martha Stew-art started online dating.
• Scientists say that by the year 2045 we can all be immortal. It involves putting your brain into a robot. But why do we need to figure out how we will live forever? Can’t we just ask Larry King? - Craig Ferguson
• This immortality technology sounds like a con-temporary search for the Fountain of Youth. Ponce de Léon, the Spanish explorer, searched for the Fountain of Youth in the 16th century. Nobody knows if he ever found it, but he died in 1521. So I’m guessing no. - Craig Ferguson
• Scientists say the key to preserving immortality is the brain. Just my luck. The one part of my body I need to preserve is the one I spent my youth actively destroying. - Craig Ferguson
20 Essential Truths1. A king size water-bed holds enough water
to fill a 2000 sq. foot house 4 inches deep.2. If you spray hair spray on dust bunnies
and run over them with roller blades, they can ignite.
3. A 3-year-old’s voice is louder than 200 adults in a crowded restaurant.
4. If you hook a dog leash over a ceiling fan, the motor is not strong enough to rotate a 42 pound boy wearing Batman underwear and a Superman cape. It is strong enough, however, if tied to a paint can, to spread paint on all four walls of a 20 by 20 foot room.
5. You should not throw baseballs up when the ceiling fan is on. A ceiling Fan can hit a baseball a long way.
6. The glass in windows (even double pane) will not stop a baseball hit by a ceiling fan.
7. When you hear the toilet flush and the words “Uh-oh,” it is too late.
8. Brake fluid mixed with Clorox makes smoke. Lots of smoke.
9. A six year old can start a fire with a flint rock even though a 36 year old man says they can only do it in the movies.
10. Certain LEGOs will pass through the digestive tract of a four year old.
11. Play Dough and Microwave should never be used in the same sentence.
12. Super glue is forever.13. No matter how much Jell-O you put in
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a swimming pool you still can’t walk on water.
14. Pool filters do not like Jell-O.15. VCR’s do not eject PB&J sandwiches even
though TV commercials show they do.16. Garbage bags do not make good para-
chutes.17. Marbles in gas tanks make lots of noise
when driving.18. You probably do not want to know what
that odor is.19. Always look in the oven before you turn
it on. Plastic toys do not like ovens.20. Cats throw up twice their body weight
when dizzy.
BEST OF LATE NITE HUMOR
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¥ It is still not known who made the following sage observation: “The difference between ‘involve-ment’ and Ôcommitment’ is like an eggs-and-ham breakfast: The chicken was ‘involved’; the pig was ‘committed.’”
¥ If you wanted to use fossil fuels to equal the amount of energy released by the sun onto the Earth, you’d have to burn 550 billion tons of coal every day.
¥ Lightning isn’t solely a phenomenon of Earth: Astronomers have noted lightning bolts on Jupi-ter, Saturn, Uranus and Venus.
¥ In 1915, the average annual income for a family in the United States was $687.
¥ You might be surprised to learn that the name Adam isn’t actually a proper name in the clas-sical Hebrew language; it’s a generic term for a human being.
¥ If you’re planning a visit to the village of Chester in the United Kingdom, be glad you’re not from Wales. In that town, the law says that any Welsh-man found within the city walls after sunset may be shot with a longbow.
¥ In Germany, cacao was used for medicinal pur-poses long before it was used to make chocolate.
¥ It is, perhaps, unsurprising that the first duty-free airport shop -- those favored sources of tax-free liquor -- was in Shannon, Ireland.
¥ It was in the very early years of the 20th cen-tury when, in his “Devil’s Dictionary,” Ambrose Bierce defined a corporation as “an ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.”
¥ In Alabama, every purchase of a deck of playing cards is subject to a special 10-cent tax. Those who sell the cards must pay a $1 to $3 license fee.
***Thought for the Day: “When you do the common
things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world.” -- George Washington CarverÊ
(c) 2013 King Features Synd., Inc.
By Samantha Weaver
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PRAYERSSt. Jude Prayer
May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be adored, glorified, loved, and preserved now and forever. Sacred Heart of Jesus pray for us. Saint Jude, worker of miracles, pray for us. Saint Jude, helper of the hope-less, pray for us. B.J.C.
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Dr. Ross is the publisher of Tidbits of Greeley. Dr. Ross is also the Voice of Tidbits Radio on 1310KFKA Every Saturday Noon - 1pm. He is available to speak at your service club or other event. Dr. Ross posts this blog each week onRonRosstToady.com. To contact him email: [email protected] or call 970.475.4829.
The important question, “Who am I?” can be answered many ways. When my mother was in her 90s she still referred to my brother and me as “her kids.” So I am a kid, a husband, a father, a grandfather, an uncle, a boss, a writer, a speaker, a basketball player, a sinner (though redeemed), a senior, a teacher, and much more.
Your list of “I ams” could be longer or shorter depending on how long and how audacious a life you have lived. But your list of “I ams” does not tell the whole story of you.
Some of your “I ams” are lies told to you by un-kind people. A teacher might have said, “You are not very smart.” A relative might have told you, “You’re not as talented as your sister.” A friend might have muttered, “You are clumsy.” So you adopted the “you are” messages of others (false though they may be) as “I am” messages for your-self.
Many other of your “I ams” come from your own trial and error as you explore various ways of presenting yourself to others. “I ams” also come from people who care deeply for you, who can see in you great potential, and work to help you become all you can be. Those are my favorite kind of people.
Here’s a truth I can assure you is, well, true: You were created with certain gifts and talents and with a purpose for using them while you’re here. That’s the real you. So why wish you were like someone else, or why try to be something dif-ferent than the real you just to make someone else happy?
Don’t know who the real you is? I believe there
What Could Possibly Go Right?
are three people who can help you discover and become the real you:
The first person who can help you find the real you is your creator. Yes, I believe that you are the special creation of Almighty God and that He has a wonderful plan for your life that will make your life meaningful and cause you to be a blessing to others. So find out what Almighty God has to say about you. You may be surprised at how much he believes in you and how much he wants you to succeed in life. And though you may not know God, I assure you of this, He knows you.
The second person who can help you find the real you is a true friend, and I’m sorry to say, there are not many of them out there. A true friend is one who has your best interests at heart, who will not lie to you nor hurt you, but encourage and bless you as you go about your self-discovery.
The third person who can help you find the real you is you. Only you know how you feel, think, process, and assess events, information and peo-ple. Only you know what you like and don’t like. Only you can determine what you focus on and what you ignore. That’s why I like to say, “Stop whining: 80% of your life is up to you!”
Here’s this week’s kick in the pants: Take a step back and consider who you are living to please. Ask, what am I passionate about? What gives me joy; makes my face light up; makes my heart beat faster? Where do I fit best? Explore your inner self to see who you really are.
Take the advice of the writer Oscar Wilde, “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
Don’t be Someone Else, Be Yourself
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