French fries and potato chips may have given potatoes a bad rap, but new research finds the lowly tuber -- when cooked correctly -- may actually be good for the heart. A small, pilot study suggests that a couple of servings of potatoes per day can lower blood pressure as much as oatmeal without causing weight gain, researchers said. Joe Vinson, a professor of chemistry at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania, analyzed 18 patients who ate six to eight small purple potatoes twice daily for a month and found their systolic and diastolic blood pressures (the top and bottom numbers on a blood pressure reading) dropped by 3.5 and 4.3 percent, respectively
