When the Irish had the potato famine, couldn't they have eaten someting else?

Question

I know I won't be satisfied with the answers to this question, but I just think we don't eat potatoes that much. We eat other stuff, so I know it was their main source of food way back when, but come on! seriously?!

Answer 1

BUGS!!! Is what caused the Irish Potato Famine. WAKE UP you biology students!!!!
When seed potatoes were imported from the usa to the Irish farmers, they only got four (4) types of potatoes!!! Not much genetic deversity there folks!
So when the naughty disease broke out.. wheeee it affected all the potatoes because they had the same weaknesses. Of course the fact that they grew to plant more and more potatoes before the famine, and eat more and more potatoes was mainly because it was hard up to that point to ruin a potato crop. The Irish planted this friendly root crop to cut their losses due to soldiers trampling the above ground crops.
I remember my great grandma telling of how the local farmers, men women and children all got their big hay pitchforks and went to the only road to her part of the world, where they repelled the horseback interlopers. (a horse skewered on a hay fork is not a pretty sight).
Now the people of my family lived on IslandMagee, which is only an island when the tide rises.. and they did have potatoes (underground crop) but not many. They were mainly a family that ate diversed which included beans.. YES, I said beans... my ancestors were the bean people of IslandMagee. The people didn't die nor migrate because of the Potato Famine. But I can see why other areas were wide open to this problem.
Did you know that there were Corn Laws, that prevented the import of corn? Native Americans in this country had to get special permits to send cornmeal to the starving in Ireland. Talk about bureaucratic red tape!
So now you see how this was a concert of bad luck.. We all love our breads.. What would happen if the wheat in this country suddenly disappeared for five years? What would we substitute? Potatoes??? What would happen to the price of wheat and potatoes? What would happen to the price of corn? (corn bread)
This was a most terrible time in history. I'm glad to be the decendant of a beaner of IslandMagee..

Answer 2

In Ireland, the land is very different. Most of it is bogs and rocks, and the little land that was left was given to the English who came over to Ireland at that time. The Irish were being given half an acre per family at most, and if they were lucky, maybe half of it would be fertile. The only thing that could grow a lot on their harsh land in such little space was potatoes. They didn't grow anything else because all you need is potatoes and milk, and it's considered the 'perfect' food--all the vitamins and minerals you need to survive (most Irish men in that time would eat up to 8 pounds of potatoes a day). So when the famine came, they really had no other food, and the English refused to give them any other land because at this time, the Irish were slaves in their own land.

Answer 3

It really was the staple of their diet. They didn't have grocery stores like we do and the climate was not acceptable to raise other things. Add in that what they may have been able to buy would have been soooo expensive. Most poor people existed on potato. Much like when the USA started out with farmers growing most of their own food. We have a better climate here. There it was nearly impossible. Some of the things that we learn of like this, is just hard for people in this day and age to fathom. We have so many choices. They didn't.

Answer 4

They did not have supermarkets, and the growing season VERY short and not all ground was tillable. Very rocky soil.

The avg person ate an estimated 10 lbs of taters a day when the blight happened. Their diet was based on potaties as a staple. They didn't grow a lot else because they thought they had it in the bag with taters. Believe me, if the choice is dying or finding other food, you try to find other food. There wasn't anything. A lot of people died of starvation, and left the country because of no food.

Answer 5

It was the main, sometimes only source of food. And people in charge, like landlords and the british, kept food aid from getting into the country/people's possession.

Even in modern America, we eat a ton of potatoes. When was the last time you had chips, or fries, or even a piece of bread?

Answer 6

the potatoes were their main food source, and all the farmland was devoted to growing potatoes so they couldnt grow any other food. they were really only good at growing potatoes. they probably fed the farm animals potatoes too, so a lot of the animals probably died too.

its hard to imagine that back then, they couldn't just go out to k-mart and get some more food

Answer 7

it was one of the only things that grew well in the type of terrain they lived on or somthing like that. there is alot of bogglands in ireland and there was some bug eating the crops. that and they were extremely poor and oppressed during this time by the anglo-saxons. here find out for yourself cause i'm not real sure.

Answer 8

Well yes they could have but it was mostly being exported to England one reason the Irish hate them so much

Answer 9

It was the potatoe that prevented them from having a famine sooner. there wasn't anything else to eat. The South American who showed Europeans how to cultivate spuds warned them that they should plant a variety of crops, in case a disease or something should wipe it out. But they didn't listen.

Answer 10

But you said it yourself-- that was their main source of food. What else were they to eat???