A potato proven to be safe for diabetics will soon be on dinner plates in the U.S.
The Carisma has been around for some time, but became more prominent when chef and potato farmer Graham Liney took up the challenge to find a spud that was okay for diabetics and pre-diabetics to eat.
Having farmed potatoes near Crookwell in southern New South Wales, Australia, for around 30 years, Liney wanted to prove to Professor Jennie Brown-Miller from Sydney University that people with the condition could eat potatoes.
Brown-Miller's principal area of research is diet with a focus on the glycemic index (GI) and how the body absorbs carbohydrates.
"Through a lot of testing, we managed to prove that we had a variety that was low GI," Liney said.
Mr Liney has since secured the intellectual property rights for the variety and is now in partnership with a company in the Netherlands to market Carisma worldwide.
It was the Netherlands which originally bred the variety; however, the GI link was only discovered in recent years.
After working with a major South Australian potato grower to supply the domestic market, the seed potato has been successfully trialed in the U.S. and Europe.
It is also grown in South Africa, where, like in Europe and the U.S., the plant tissue has been shipped from Australia.
The potato variety is also attractive to growers as a result of its shorter production time.
"Most potatoes are 140 days in the ground. We can get a crop out of these in 85 days. You are using 20 percent less water, so it is a very sustainable potato," Liney said.
Source: New South Wales Country Hour