OMEGA - South Georgia farmer Randy Scarbor wonders why he keeps growing sweet potatoes year after year even though most Americans only eat the vegetables around holidays, if they eat them at all. <br>
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The 55-year-old just can't understand why such a healthy food isn't more popular. <br>
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Researchers have lately been buying up Scarbor's crop for some experimental work -- they want to see if they can turn around the fortunes of the lowly sweet potato by making it into a commercially viable pasta. <br>
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University of Georgia food scientist Yao-Wen Huang says some people don't like the sweet taste, but says it's not as strong in the pasta. <br>
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He says that consumers could use sauces or spices to tone down the sweetness even more as he gets ready to submit his noodles for focus group taste testing. <br>
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Huang says the folks in his lab love it but will have to see what other consumers think. <br>
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Per capita consumption of sweet potatoes has been flat at about four pounds for the last ten to 15 years, compared with 20 pounds per person in the 1930s. <br>
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Scarbor sells a few of his Beauregard, Hernandez and Ruby Red sweet potatoes at a roadside stand and ships the rest to the Midwest. <br>
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Huang hopes that Scarbor and other farmers will have more customers if the pasta catches on with consumers. <br>
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Most pasta is made from wheat flour, but Huang made his from sweet potato flour, fortified with soybean flour. <br>
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Huang decided to focus on pasta because of its popularity. His noodles are flat, orange and slightly sweet, but the flour could easily be formed into spiral or sea shell shapes, he said.
