Let science decide what food to subsidize: Our view

It may seem hard to imagine at a time when Americans wolf down billions of french fries a year, but the potato is feeling disrespected.

White potatoes (as opposed to sweet potatoes and other types of spuds) are the only vegetable the Agriculture Department excludes from its nutrition program for some 9 million low-income women and their kids – the so-called WIC program for women, infants and children.

The potato exclusion, like every other decision about WIC's menu of the last 40 years, is based on nutritional science — which is exactly the way things like this ought to be done. In 2005, the Institute of Medicine specifically recommended excluding white potatoes because low-income people were already eating plenty of them. The Agriculture Department accepted the advice.

But that riled the potato industry, which insists the issue isn't money but image. "We can't let our federal government perpetuate those negative stereotypes," says Mark Szymanski of the National Potato Council.

So in a classic case of a special interest trumping the public interest, potato growers and their allies are fighting back the Washington way, boosting campaign donations and enlisting potato-state politicians to force the Agriculture Department to let potatoes into WIC. They claim science is on their side, insisting newer studies show that potatoes are nutritious and that people aren't eating enough of them.

If that's true, though, the industry and its political friends ought to have the courage of their convictions, and let science sort it out when the Agriculture Department updates its guidelines for the WIC program. But potato backers either don't have confidence that the science will work for them or don't want to wait.

The National Potato Council is on track to make record political contributions to its backers in Congress this year, according to OpenSecrets.org, and those backers are stepping up. A bipartisan group of 20 senators from potato-growing states recently wrote Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to demand that he "take immediate action" to include white potatoes in the WIC program.

What the senators don't mention in their letter is that it doesn't really matter what Vilsack does, because they're about to force WIC to accept potatoes anyway. Potato-state senators seem to have the votes to amend the agriculture appropriations bill later this month to require the Agriculture Department to open WIC to white potatoes.

Potatoes aside, that is a dreadful idea with broader implications. It would undo 40 years of allowing science – instead of cash and political influence – to determine which foods taxpayers will subsidize. That in turn would open the door for other big food lobbies to try the same end-run.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank that backs the science-based regime for WIC, there have been furious fights in the past to stop politicians from adding rice, Raisin Bran and salmon to WIC over scientists' objections. (Salmon eventually got in on nutritional merits.)

WIC defenders have always been able to argue that no food has ever been able to trump science with money and muscle. That would no longer be true if the potato lobby wins.

USA TODAY's editorial opinions are decided by its Editorial Board, separate from the news staff. Most editorials are coupled with an opposing view — a unique USA TODAY feature.