You have to feel sorry for the potato. The poor thing is a root vegetable, just like carrots and turnips, but while its cousins are hailed for their health benefits, the tuber gets cruelly maligned. It's the bête noire of countless weight loss diets, scorned by the health set for its high carb content, and damned by association with those fatty agents of chaos, chips and crisps. Hell, the humble spud doesn't even count as one of your five-a-day.

But perhaps that does the potato a disservice. Just ask a team of scholars from the University of Illinois, who recently published a study showing that mashed potatoes are as effective as specially-designed carbohydrate gels at boosting performance in athletes (not to mention much cheaper).

It seems the only real downside to using mashed potatoes over carbohydrate gels is that, according to the study, the former causes more bloating and farting than the latter. But what’s a trump or two between friends? Especially when it’s in aid of elevating the potato to its rightful status.

The energy-richness of the potato is far from the only reason to tuck into a spud. Here are a few other reasons why potatoes are a superfood just waiting for the recognition by the health industry.