KEY POINTS:
Potatoes, still a central feature on many Kiwi dinner plates, are being rebranded by dietary experts trying to improve the nation's health.
Spuds, kumara and taro remain "vegetables" in the evolving language of food, but a special kind, according to Australian dietitian Sharon Natoli, who has developed eating advice aimed at filling a gap in official material.
Food & Nutrition Australia - her practice - groups potatoes and other starchy vegetables with pasta, bread and Weet-Bix, separating them from "light" vegetables like lettuce, carrots and onions.
The World Cancer Research Fund's dietary advice this week on avoiding cancer includes eating at least five servings a day of fruit and "non-starchy" vegetables - a refinement of the 5 + A Day message, which traditionally includes potatoes among its recommended three-plus servings of vegetables.
Ms Natoli agreed there had been confusion around potatoes and said that with the 5-plus message, just one of the servings could be a starchy vegetable.
"We separated out the starchy vegetables because they are higher in kilojoules [energy] and at a level similar to grains. You don't want people to eat 'plenty' of potato, corn and sweet potato. The only group you can eat plenty of is the light vegetables."
She said her group designed its healthy food model, which can be tailored to an individual's energy needs, because of limitations in the Australian Government's 1998 Guide to Healthy Eating and new research on optimum nutrient intakes.
New Zealand has no national food guide model and the Ministry of Health, despite a 2005 commitment to "progress the development" of one, the project has stalled. The Government does, however, have a variety of healthy eating advice: from posters on how many servings to eat of each food group, to a dinner-plate advertisement (a quarter for carbohydrates, a quarter for protein and half for vegetables), and the 148-page Food and Nutrition Guidelines for Healthy Adults.
The plan for a national food guide model was prompted by the Heart Foundation after it withdrew its 16-year-old Healthy Eating Pyramid in 2004 because it was considered outdated.
Some believe the lack of a national model leaves consumers confused.
The Heart Foundation notes New Zealand's range of food guides and says a national one could improve nutrition communications and add to the state's Healthy Eating-Healthy Action plan. The ministry's involvement is "critical" to the wide acceptance of a national model.
Public health dietitian Robert Quigley identified a gap between food science and consumers which he said needed to be filled cautiously.
"The issue with all the food guides is that they are reasonably simplistic and people really struggle to convert that at the supermarket into real foods. People can parrot back some of the key messages from them but then they can't translate that into action."
