Are Potatoes Vegetables?

Through out my senior year in high school my class was divided between people who thought potatoes were vegetables and people who thought they weren’t.  It might be a silly thing to argue over, but it is still a good question to ask.  I am sure there is science behind it arguing for one side or the other but right now my mind is made up that it is defiantly not a vegetable.  Yes, like probably every other vegetable it is nutritious but there are many other things that are nutritious that are not vegetables as well.  Vegetables are very noticeable by there colors of mostly green as well as orange, yellow, etc.  I have never seen or heard of a vegetable with such a boring dark color as brown.  They seem more of roots to me with their spores and everything.  Plus, when you go to McDonalds and get a large fry can you really say you’re eating a vegetable?  I thought vegetables were suppose increase your dietary health not worsen it.  When you go to nicer restaurants as well don’t they usually give you sides of some sort of potato and a vegetable?  Notice how they do not give you the choice of a potato as a vegetable.  To add to my argument I am almost positive they belong to another food group on the food pyramid.  From the food pyramids I have seen they are in the grain and starches group rather than the vegetable group.  Potatoes are so much different from every other vegetable in to many ways for it to actually be one.