Americans love potatoes and residents of Central Wisconsin are no exception. "Unfortunately, we tend to consume potatoes in a form that also delivers a lot of fat and calories, such as French fries," explains Annie Wetter, assistant professor of nutrition and dietetics at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point (UWSP).

Wetter is in charge of an ongoing partnership between UWSP dietetics students and the Wisconsin Potato Growers Auxiliary (WPGA). The latest product of this collaboration is a series of heart healthy recipes containing potatoes. The collaboration between the students and the auxiliary began last year when the WPGA published its first potato cookbook, "Wisconsin Potato Sensations."

The auxiliary will use this set of heart healthy recipes to create a promotional brochure for distribution at future community outreach functions. This was the third UWSP-WPGA collaboration. The first took place in the fall of 2001 when auxiliary member Lynn Isherwood contacted Wetter because she needed over 80 potato recipes tested and evaluated. The second project involved modifying home recipes that serve four into volume recipes that serve 50-100 people that could be used in school food service. A cookbook of more than 100 potato recipes, from appetizers to desserts, "Wisconsin Potato Sensations" also offers nutrition information, tips for cooking potatoes and tricks of the trade such as how to make mashed potatoes fluffier.

According to Wetter, the goal of the recent project was to modify potato recipes contained in the first cookbook that are popular in Central Wisconsin. "The recipes were high in fat because they contained ingredients such as sausage or bacon, cheese and other full-fat dairy products," explains Wetter.

To transform these rich dishes into less fatty fare, students used computer software to analyze the nutritional content of each recipe. Many of the original recipes had 40 percent or more of the calories coming from fat. Students applied basic principles of food science to make ingredient substitutions that would produce a similar product while decreasing the fat content to 30 percent or less of the total calories.

While lowering the amount of fat in the recipes was a key objective, students never lost sight of consumer satisfaction with both taste and presentation. The lightened products were evaluated for taste and other factors by anyone on campus willing to exchange a few minutes for an afternoon potato snack.

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