Digestibility trials with poultry. XI. The digestibility and metabolizable energy of raw and cooked potatoes, potato flakes, dried potato slices and dried potato shreds

Abstract

A series of digestibility trials on fowls with a number of potato products led to the following conclusions: 1. Raw potatoes, though readily consumed by fowls when mixed with other foods, are not readily utilized, the potato starch largely escaping digestion. 2. Boiled potatoes are readily utilized by the fowl, the preliminary cooking altering the structure of the starch grain in such a way as to render the starch readily digestible. 3. The energy derived from 1 lb. of cooked potatoes is, in the fowl, equivalent to the energy derived from no less than 5 lb. of raw potatoes. 4. The food value of dried potato products is shown to be dependent upon the nature of the heat treatment to which the potatoes are subjected in the preliminary treatment of drying. 5. Dried potato slices of the type produced in sugar-beet factory driers have a value approximating that of well-boiled potatoes, both values being compared on a dry-matter basis.