WSPC, WSU researching alternate uses for potatoes

New projects could mean increased demand for spuds

MOSES LAKE — Lentil and potato breakfast cereal, anyone?

Through funding by the Washington State Potato Commission, Washington State University researchers are experimenting with several different alternative uses for potatoes and potato waste, including food products, plastics, essential nutrients and acids.

WSPC Director of Research Andy Jensen said that the research began when WSPC Director of International Trade Shannen Bornsen got connected with WSU's International Marketing Program for Agricultural Commodities and Trade, or IMPACT Center in Pullman.

Through the IMPACT Center, the WSPC is funding four scientists to study these new uses.

"The main thing is to provide another outlet for Washington potatoes — another use for them, potentially increasing demand or prices or niche markets that will be valuable to whatever growers that get involved," Jensen said.

WSU scientists Shulin Chen and Zhiyou Wen, both of WSU's Department of Biological Systems Engineering, are searching for ways of making valuable by-products from potato wastes. Options being tested range from the creation of biodegradable plastics to chitin and chitosan, and omega-3 fatty acids.

Chitosan is a substance taken from chitin, the second most abundant polysaccharide in nature. Chitin and its derivatives can be used in the manufacture of cosmetics and in medical applications, such as glucosamine, a product used for the treatment of arthritis. Chitosan has also proved useful in promoting tissue growth, accelerating wound-healing and bone regeneration.

Omega-3 fatty acids are commonly found in such wild cold water fish as cod, herring, salmon, mackerel, sturgeon, anchovies and tuna. Much of their omega-3s are derived by eating algae in the oceanic environment that are the primary producers of the omega-3 fatty acids.

Reducing the cost of producing commercial algae-derived omega-3 fatty acids is a challenge for both the scientific and industrial communities.

"While it is true that, in large amounts, some types of fat are bad for your health, not to mention your waistline, there are some we simply cannot live without," Chen and Wen wrote in a paper released Nov. 2. "Among them are the omega-3 acids … Omega-3s can help reduce various heart diseases such as heart attack, arrhythmias, atherosclerosis and thrombosis. Other benefits include reducing joint pain, rheumatoid arthritis and symptoms of schizophrenia such as hypertension and depression."

Jensen said that Chen and Wen have developed a fermentation process using potato starch, leading to a kind of algae that they then feed to cows. The cows can extract the omega-3 fatty acids and excrete it in their milk, resulting in milk fortified with omega-3 fatty acids and increased in nutritional characteristics.

The scientists' technology utilizes the starch and protein from wastewater as well as cull potatoes, those that don't meet minimum size, grade or quality standards.

"Cull potatoes are fed to cows, spread on fields, things like that," Jensen said. "Generally, processing wastewater is just sprayed onto fields. There is a lot of starch and other things in that wastewater that could be extracted and used."

Another project is a new dehydration method for potatoes and other things.

"It's a vacuum-microwave dehydration procedure and it results in a potato product, like for example, a scalloped potato product that actually tastes more like potatoes instead of the sauce you put on the potatoes," Jensen said. "We've had some samples and they are pretty good."

Still another project is another food product that was started by the Pea and Lentil Commission, he said.

"They were making a puffed, extruded food product," he said. "Think of Cheetos, the puffy cheese things. They look like that, but they're made of lentils and then, when we got involved, they started to think, well maybe we can incorporate potatoes into this, too. So now they've got several prototype products that are this puffed snack or breakfast cereal made of lentils and potatoes."

The breakfast cereal would be unusual because it has a lot of protein from the legumes and potatoes. Jensen said that scientists are estimating that such a cereal would be available within five years.

"They have a product that they can bring, they can show and you can taste it, but getting from the university to mass production and into grocery stores would take a number of years."