[HN Gopher] Are sprouted potatoes safe?
___________________________________________________________________
Are sprouted potatoes safe?
Author : mooreds
Score : 104 points
Date : 2022-03-05 13:47 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.poison.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.poison.org)
| hallarempt wrote:
| The thing to do with a sprouted potato is to put in the soil, and
| then after some time, you've got two kilos of potatoes that taste
| just slightly different than the potatoes from the original bag,
| but are just fine anyway.
|
| Doing this is even more fun if you have grade-schooler kids who
| can do the digging for you.
| riffraff wrote:
| or keep them in a jar with water for a while! potatoes are
| beautiful plants :)
| tootie wrote:
| Alternately, sprouted sweet potatoes are fine and in fact the
| sprouts can be prepared and eaten. Very tasty
| b3morales wrote:
| To be clear, sweet "potatoes" are an entirely different genus
| and species. The similarity is just that both they and _Solanum
| tuberosum_ produce a starchy edible taproot. It 's the
| _Solanum_ that 's the key -- all the members of this genus
| produce solanine to some degree.
| morelisp wrote:
| Solanum tuberosum does not produce taproots. Potato roots are
| fibrous; the tuber forms from the stolon. (Otherwise they
| would probably not turn green - roots rarely contain much
| chlorophyll!)
| chronogram wrote:
| Just cut the roots and spots out. That's why you have the little
| knife on the vegetable peeler. I've never seen a green potato in
| my life, I'd probably just cut all the green away, maybe that's
| what happens when you don't keep them in a dry place, like
| outside of a potato sack.
| ToFundorNot wrote:
| Or plant it, if it's a decent size, it can yield over 1lbs of
| potatoes in 3 months. In my area it's low maintenance. If you
| have limited space, I've had 5 lbs worth in a 15 gallon bag, it
| has about the same footprint as an office chair.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Without trying hard (ie: just burying some buds/ears in soil,
| no hilling or anything), I got 3lb out of a 5 gallon
| construction bucket of enriched soil (ie: thirds of dirt,
| peat moss and compost)
|
| I'll probably do a few more buckets, but kale, tomatoes and
| peppers get me more value than potatoes.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Just throwing cut potatoes into my compost heap yields way
| more potatoes than I personally need.
| randomcatuser wrote:
| Is this for real?? Is it that easy? I'd like to try that
| jeffbee wrote:
| It works for me. Into a resting (no longer hot) compost I
| just bury some cut fingerlings and wait a bit.
| morelisp wrote:
| I also did this last year when some birds fucked up my
| balcony garden and left me with a spare pot in June. Cut
| leftover sprouting store potato in half, chucked it in
| dirt, watered periodically. Got about 400g of fresh
| potato back out of it some months later.
|
| The plants are pretty, but don't eat them. Check the dirt
| a week or two after the blossoms fall off.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Green is chlorophyll, which happens if they are in light,
| mostly. Chlorophyll itself isn't bad, but apparently the light
| also a accelerates the development of the alkaloids at issue,
| so it's a signal of unsafety.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| > That's why you have the little knife on the vegetable peeler
|
| I call that part the gouger
| qiskit wrote:
| Same here. Sprouted potatoes look absolutely horrible but I
| can't bring myself to throw out a bag of potatoes just because
| they look awful. Just cut away and boil or bake. It even creeps
| me out to even hold sprouted potatoes. I wonder what is it
| about sprouted potatoes that repulses people so much.
| kijin wrote:
| To be fair, the sprouts look like worms crawling out of the
| potato. I guess it's a good thing we find them repulsive,
| since they're poisonous.
| immibis wrote:
| The sprouts probably trigger heuristics for avoiding food
| with fungus growing on it.
| rr808 wrote:
| > You're better off tossing potatoes that have turned green or
| grown sprouts.
|
| Jeez no wonder there is so much food waste. Peel off a green
| part. What's the worst that can happen "vomiting, abdominal pain,
| and diarrhea", I've never heard anyone have trouble like this
| from potatoes, I'm sure it happens but no need to waste when
| people are starving.
| pdpi wrote:
| Vomiting and diarrhoea can, and will, kill you. I have
| personally had a particularly bad bout of food poisoning
| (unrelated to potatoes) where I was dehydrating to the point it
| was affecting kidney and liver function, and I needed a few
| litres of fluids IV.
|
| IF you're in a wealthy country and have alternatives, potatoes
| are cheap enough they're not worth the risk, however small. If
| you are in such a bad situation that you're at risk of
| starvation, green/sprouted potatoes might be worth the risk,
| but you're also taking a genuinely dangerous gamble.
| recursive wrote:
| I've had vomiting and diahrea and they didn't kill me. So
| that's a counter example. I also eat sprouted potatoes
| occasionally and have never experienced so much as a negative
| thought.
| ouid wrote:
| What do you mean by food waste?
|
| Most plants grow and then die and rot. We never had any
| intenton to eat them. It's not particularly tragic.
|
| In America, we subsidize the overproduction of food. This means
| that we grow more food than we eat. Food waste is exclusively a
| property of this relationship. Whether you throw it away from
| your kitchen or the grocery throws it away only matters for
| your personal expenses.
| JamesBarney wrote:
| Starvation is like 99% a logistics issue and 1% a food quantity
| issue.
|
| A more people getting sick from eating green potatoes in the
| u.s. or Europe isn't going to cause any less people to starve
| in developing nations.
| kingcharles wrote:
| Exactly. I badly need food, and I live in a major US city,
| but I can't get to it because I can't leave my house to go to
| a food bank. There is a ton of food there, it's just a
| logistical problem for me.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| If you want to name the city, someone here might be able to
| connect you with help.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I'll have to dig through the references, because what I really
| want an answer to is where the bad stuff is and how safe/risky it
| is to just cut out those areas while eating the rest.
|
| IE: Take a potato that has sprouted and take samples of different
| distances from that sprout. It's not like the potato has a
| circulatory system that moves the bad stuff around.
| spockz wrote:
| This would be good to know. I always cut out a safe distance
| from the sprout. Usually it is black and green. The rest I
| keep.
| mmastrac wrote:
| This feels like a "reduce your risk to as close to zero from an
| already ridiculously small risk" article.
|
| I've been cutting bad parts of potatoes off my entire life with
| no ill effects. If the potato is soft, take off the skin. If
| the potato sprouts, cut around the sprout (including any off-
| coloured flesh). After you cook the potatoes, look for any dark
| spots and cut those away.
| Hendrikto wrote:
| > I've been cutting bad parts of potatoes off my entire life
| with no ill effects.
|
| Another datapoint: I also do that and never experienced
| problems.
| awillen wrote:
| This is a little confusing in terms of how to handle sprouted
| potatoes - I was always taught that they're fine if you cut off
| the sprouts. The fact that it says the sprouts are heavy in
| glycoalkaloids seems to support that. But the only thing it
| specifically says is to peel before cooking - even there, I'm not
| clear if that's specifically if they're sprouted or generally a
| good idea (though potatoes are served so frequently with the skin
| on that I have to imagine it's not necessary with fresh potatoes
| at least).
|
| So what's the deal... cut the sprouts and they're fine? Cut the
| sprouts and peel them and they're fine?
|
| The bit about not storing potatoes and onions together is
| helpful, though... I always do that. Time to go separate those.
| ToFundorNot wrote:
| They're localized to the green/sprouted spots. And to a lesser
| extent the skin.
|
| I'm not sure how the skin changes in the process, but I do know
| that the white flesh has minimal changes.
|
| According to German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment
| (BfR), they provide a more in depth look at it [1]. Fresher
| potato's are okay with skin on. Damaged, or overly sprouted
| potato's are not.
|
| [1] https://www.potatopro.com/news/2018/glycoalkaloids-
| potatoes-...
| awillen wrote:
| Cool, thanks... I will peel my sprouted potatoes in addition
| to cutting off the sprouts from now on. The things you learn
| from HN...
| khendron wrote:
| This article seems to contradict itself. Near the beginning it
| says storing at a low temperature can increase toxicity. Then
| near the end, it suggests storing potatoes in a cool place. Which
| is it?
| gniv wrote:
| It's because storing potatoes properly is actually tricky in a
| house or apartment. At some point I was frustrated that my
| potatoes were turning green and I did some research. I
| remembered my grandparents storing potatoes for an entire
| winter, so it couldn't be too hard. The trick seems to be to
| store them cool, but not cold. Probably 50s and 60s F (and in
| the dark). There is no such environment in a typical home
| unless you have a cold basement or wine cooler.
| mkr-hn wrote:
| I think of low temperature as the fridge. Cool place would be
| in the shade or in a cabinet.
| desio wrote:
| Not having images in this article should be a crime.
| nikolay wrote:
| Meanwhile, raw potatoties without skins are definitely poisonous.
| Back in Bulgaria, if kids wanted to skip school, the would eat
| some raw potato, get fever, and legimitately skip school. They
| also can disable a car but stuffing a car exhaust with it [1] -
| it's another fun with potatoes kids had back then.
|
| [1]: https://carfromjapan.com/article/car-maintenance/a-potato-
| is...
| IYasha wrote:
| Trace amounts of solanin remain even in the most perfect
| potatoes. No potato is safe! >:D
| aluminussoma wrote:
| No matter how much care I take to store Russet potatoes, or other
| potatoes, they always grow sprouts after a few days. I store them
| in a paper bag, in my laundry room where it is cold and dark (and
| the dryer, which I don't use often, exhausts outside).
|
| Yet when I buy them at the grocery story, I see no sprouts.
|
| Given the time it takes to get from the farm to the grocery
| store, no doubt these potatoes have been sprouting during their
| journey. Does the grocery store remove the sprouts before they
| put them out for sale?
| ghostly_s wrote:
| Are you storing them with onions? Onions give off gas that
| indices sprouting.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| Do you store onions near them? I was having the same issue and
| it's because I also stored my onions on the same shelf.
| [deleted]
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I don't think the grocery store picks through the bags, but
| they (or a directly previous step) may break open 'bad' bags,
| sort them, and place the remaining good potatoes on the plain-
| air shelf.
|
| It's probably stored in a "controlled atmosphere" for some
| duration before getting to your grocery store.
|
| > There was almost complete sprout inhibition, low weight loss
| and maintenance of a healthy skin for all cultivars stored in
| 9.4% CO2 with 3.6% O2 at 5degC for 25 weeks. When tubers from
| this treatment were stored for a further 20 weeks in air at
| 5degC the skin remained healthy and they did not sprout.
|
| https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02358471
|
| It's possible that the controlled atmosphere is held as shortly
| as possible (ie: some of the warehousing is just done at
| certain temperatures without the gas control).
| 7thaccount wrote:
| I figured you need to leave them out some place with lots of
| light lol.
| bythreads wrote:
| You're doing it wrong ;) Potatoes will sprout if they are in
| higher temperatures and they are in the dark.
|
| Keep them in the fridge or in the light
| Hendrikto wrote:
| Does not sound like good advice...
|
| > Toxicity is increased by [...] low storage temperature, and
| storage in bright light.
| kijin wrote:
| They'll turn green when stored in a bright place for long.
| The green parts contain more toxins.
| ToFundorNot wrote:
| They use sprout inhibitors on large scale potato growing, which
| are effective in my area (we can keep most potatoes for over a
| month before there are any sprouts). If you tend to buy from
| farmers markets, there is a greater chance of them not using
| inhibitors.
|
| Depending on where you live, they can be in transit for a long
| period, or you may be in an area that has natural pressures for
| sprouting.
|
| Short note on sprout inhibitors: https://www2.gnb.ca/content/gn
| b/en/departments/10/agricultur....
| Scoundreller wrote:
| oh joy: here's a list:
|
| https://www.potatopro.com/about/sprout-inhibitors
|
| wiki links to each one:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorpropham
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maleic_hydrazide
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethylene_as_a_plant_hormone
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carvone
|
| Chlorpropham was just banned in UK/EU. Still in use in USA.
| "The study also showed that peeling removed 91-98% and
| washing 33-47%."
| hanniabu wrote:
| This is so depressing, wtf are we doing
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| I had a relative involved with a study on pesticide
| removal. Unfortunately, unless you're using a wire brush,
| the pesticide isn't coming off your fruit.
| throwaway984393 wrote:
| > I store them in a paper bag
|
| Does the bag have lots of holes? There needs to be lots of
| ventilation. You can also use a mesh net bag (the same bag
| bunches of onions come in) or just mound them in a bowl. Wash
| and scrub them before use.
|
| > in my laundry room
|
| Put a hygrometer in that room (you can buy a pack of 20 little
| battery-powered hygrometers from Amazon for $10). If the
| humidity is above 50, it's too humid. If you don't have another
| dark dry room, you can put a dessicant in the room to absorb
| humidity.
| aluminussoma wrote:
| Now I use brown paper bags I get at the grocery stole,
| without any holes. I did not notice any success with mesh.
| Maybe I will try it again.
| amelius wrote:
| What do large restaurant chains like McDonald's do with sprouted
| potatoes?
| Zircom wrote:
| Chains like McDonald's almost certainly don't cut their French
| fries onsite, they'd get them delivered already cut and frozen.
| simcop2387 wrote:
| Yep Places like McCain foods do this on an industrial scale
| that brings the cost so far down that even McDonalds wouldn't
| be able to compete with. They're still likely going to be
| doing so much business that they'll be getting a favorable
| contract for it but it'd still be silly to build out all of
| that themselves.
| luckycharms810 wrote:
| This may be inaccurate now - but a few years ago I stopped
| at Idahos potato museum. If I remember correctly - the
| McDonald's fries are actually a product of a lot of food
| scientists hard work. There are multiple types of potatoes
| involved that are turned in to potato product. Those are
| then mixed together in a specific ratio before they are
| reconstituted into fry shape. I think even the combination
| of oils and temperatures are very specific to McDonald's.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| In other words, they're probably processed soon after harvest
| and don't have these issues when frozen.
| zeta0134 wrote:
| I've worked in a McDonalds. My experience is outdated by a
| few years, but I don't think I ever once saw real food prep
| happening in store. Every ingredient is processed at the
| factory, sealed up and shipped to the store with timestamps
| and dates for when it expires and should no longer be used.
| Even the cookies arrive partially baked, with the store doing
| a minimal final round of heating, all for efficiency. The
| store workers are basically just doing final assembly for the
| vast majority of products, and the fries are certainly no
| exception.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Eggs? I think the round eggs are still cracked and cooked
| on site?. The scrambled square ones come pre-made, though,
| IIRC.
| 88913527 wrote:
| Depends on the menu item. The scrambled eggs arrive
| plastic sealed, arranged in a 2d array. The eggs for
| McMuffin's are are a regular egg, cracked open on the
| spot.
| kube-system wrote:
| This is correct. McDonalds fries are delivered in a bag,
| frozen. There are chains that fresh cut their fries, but they
| definitely advertise it when they do, because it is not the
| norm. (In-N-Out, Five Guys)
| stormbrew wrote:
| In-N-Out is so infuriatingly proud of doing fries wrong,
| not parboiling or double frying them, and then crowing
| about how great it is that they dump just-cut potato into
| the fryer and serve it to you. Of course you have to pile
| on a bunch of other stuff to make them good, so the 'secret
| menu' is essential.
|
| Sometimes putting something in a fridge or a freezer is
| part of the cooking process, but there's all this stigma
| around it and bonus points given to things for being
| "fresh." Fries that get chilled between rounds of cooking
| are part of what changes them from "deep fried potato" to
| "french fry".
|
| Five Guys and that peanut oil though.. that's the stuff.
| foobarian wrote:
| I suspect they pre-boil their fries too. It's the secret to
| amazing fries.
| account-5 wrote:
| When it says sprouted does it mean roots or the above ground bit?
| Because if they mean the roots then I've nearly poisoned myself
| all the time.
| SamBam wrote:
| The sprout (the above ground bit) comes quite a bit before the
| roots -- the roots actually emerge from the stem itself after
| it has grown quite tall, not from the potato itself.
|
| "Sprouted potatoes" refers to this initial stem starting to
| emerge.
|
| You've almost certainly been eating potatoes with the above-
| ground bit growing. They do look a bit like roots.
|
| But, really, it's not that poisonous unless the potato itself
| is also bright green.
| ehaskins wrote:
| My grandparents owned a food processing business until the early
| 90s. One of their main businesses was slicing potatoes to be used
| in grocery store potato salad.
|
| They had a room dedicated to removing eyes before running them
| through the peeler.
|
| From the stories I've heard they'd use anything. Potatoes where
| half the bag is rotten mush, sure. Rotten potatoes where the
| sprouts have big enough spuds to process, use the sprouted spuds.
|
| I think those were the extreme cases, since they're stories I've
| heard, but I doubt any similar facility isn't cutting out eyes
| and processing them today.
| kingcharles wrote:
| From experience, a lot of this stuff gets redirected to jail
| and prison kitchens where the labor is free or cheap. Then
| those guys get to spend their days cutting out eyes and sprouts
| and sorting the ones full of maggots out as best they can
| (they're not 100% effective). And then they get served to the
| denizens.
|
| [the jail I was at would regularly receive entire 40ft semi
| trucks filled with wet bags of potatoes that were rotting and
| covered in flies]
| Hendrikto wrote:
| > From the stories I've heard they'd use anything.
|
| Good. There is enough food waste already. People are just
| overly sensitive.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| I grew up on potatoes from the farm. Tons had small sprouts on
| them by the time spring came around, we cut them off, ate them,
| nothing bad ever happened.
| Hendrikto wrote:
| I have also eaten sprouted potatoes my whole life, without ever
| experiencing adverse effects.
| helge9210 wrote:
| Potato is a poisonous plant. Only roots are safe to eat. When
| introduced in some regions of Eastern Europe people actually died
| eating wrong parts.
|
| With roots, peeling will remove anything remotely dangerous.
| morelisp wrote:
| A nitpick: Not all tubers are roots, and in particular potato
| tubers are stems.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I think this is a perfect example of why there is so much bad
| "logic" in nutrition science. Everything in this article may be
| true (potatoes with sprouts have a higher concentration
| glycoalkaloids), but there is 0 evidence that is something any
| human actually needs to worry about, especially given the other
| comments in this thread.
|
| It's similar to the bad advice that was prevalent in the US for
| decades that eggs are bad for you. Thinking was just basically
| "People with high cholesterol are at greater risk of coronary
| disease, and egg yolks have a lot of cholesterol, thus, egg yolks
| bad." When they did actual studies, they found this to be
| nonsense for the vast majority of people because eating more eggs
| did _not_ raise their serum cholesterol levels.
| doodpants wrote:
| Did you see the "This Really Happened" sidebar next to the
| article? Sure it's anecdata at best, but certainly worthy of
| some concern if true.
| morelisp wrote:
| So one of those Egg Council creeps got to you too, huh?
| funcantor wrote:
| And too add to this, dietary intake of cholesterol in general
| has less of an effect on serum cholesterol levels then people
| realise. This is especially true for eggs iirc due to the how
| the cholesterol is found within them.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| They provide 2 cases at the bottom, one of a woman getting
| slightly ill and one of a man being hospitalized for 3 days.
| Sources not listed but I don't really have any reason to
| believe poison.org is fabricating stories about potato based
| sickness.
| Mondialisation wrote:
| Source?
|
| Here is a cohort study of 521,120 participants recruited
| between 1995 and 1996 and prospectively followed up until the
| end of 2011:
|
| ''intakes of eggs and cholesterol were associated with higher
| all-cause, CVD, and cancer mortality. The increased mortality
| associated with egg consumption was largely influenced by
| cholesterol intake. Our findings suggest limiting cholesterol
| intake and replacing whole eggs with egg whites/substitutes or
| other alternative protein sources for facilitating
| cardiovascular health and long-term survival.''
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33561122/
| saltdoo wrote:
| I wonder if the whole egg eaters also ate more bacon?
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| yeah the nitrates would be a quicker way to cancer in my
| intuitive brain
| trophycase wrote:
| It could even be the teflon from the frying pan.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I was specifically referring to when the US, relatively
| recently, changed the dietary guidelines regarding egg
| consumption: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-
| news/eggs-fats...
| zamfi wrote:
| This is a suggestive study, but far from conclusive on its
| own.
|
| Given the popular zeitgeist around egg consumption, it's
| quite likely that those who eat eggs are also more likely to
| engage in other riskier or unhealthful activities.
|
| This study seems to try to look for confounds, but in the end
| is a self-report study, which (again given common attitudes
| around egg consumption) means that I'd be looking for huge
| effect sizes to believe there is something real going on.
|
| As it is, you'd have to believe that people who care about
| health but eat eggs anyway are less than 7% more likely to
| underreport their cholesterol consumption. (Number made up,
| but the effect size in the paper is about a 7% greater risk.)
| jnwatson wrote:
| Potatoes are nightshades. It is entirely reasonable that in
| some situations they might be bad for you.
| OJFord wrote:
| We stored them for months in root cellars before electric
| refrigeration.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Root cellars are better for storing them than
| refrigerators.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| I mean growing up in a third world country we did have a
| grandma's knowledge kind of a thing about sprouted potatoes and
| avoiding them if it's sprouted quite a bit. However we also
| were taught to remove the "eyes" and the side of the potato
| that's turned green and the rest is completely edible. I've
| been doing this for decades and haven't been even remotely sick
| even once.
| [deleted]
| antattack wrote:
| "consumption of moderate quantities of potato tops (2-5 g/kg body
| weight/day) is unlikely to represent an acute health hazard to
| humans"
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8655092/
| verelo wrote:
| So if i take the upper end and the standard winter weight of a
| male 12 or above (as per Transport Canada weight and balance
| calculations: https://tc.canada.ca/en/aviation/reference-
| centre/advisory-c...) of 96.2kg we're looking at thats 481g of
| green potatoes (or 1.06042lbs for the Americans out there). I
| don't know about you, but that's a hell of a lot.
| andylynch wrote:
| More - that study is about the tops i.e. leaves, which are
| not widely eaten.
| SamBam wrote:
| ... way too many significant figures...
| croisillon wrote:
| i had read somewhere that, while the green part may be poisonous,
| you'd to need eat like 2kg of pure green part "at once" to be in
| danger
| hulitu wrote:
| > Now the month-old potatoes are green and have little sprouts
| growing out of them.
|
| The month old potatoes do not change colour. If they are green
| than they were green before. They are safe to eat if you remove
| the green part (which is sour). Sprouts are ok, you just need to
| remove them and when they are grown it is pretty hard. Basically
| at the end you need a completely yellow potato to have something
| edible.
| zby wrote:
| I have seen it many times with my own eyes that potatoes turn
| green on sides exposed to light. This is mostly not related to
| sprouting which happens when they are in a warm place.
| hulitu wrote:
| To light or sunlight ? I have never seen a potato turn green
| in basement although there is a little light.
| throwaway984393 wrote:
| This is one of those "life facts" that I wish we were taught in
| school, because it's potentially dangerous but doesn't seem like
| it. I learned about it in my 30s when a partner told me to be
| careful of the green sprouting potatoes I was about to cook.
| msrenee wrote:
| The green parts are really bitter. I always figured that was
| the reason you don't hear much about people being poisoned by
| green potatoes. They taste nasty enough that it's usually just
| not a problem.
| Hendrikto wrote:
| I, for one, am glad this isn't disseminated widely. There may
| be a theoretical risk, but it's minimal, and food waste is a
| much larger problem. I always eat my sprouted potatoes.
| kergonath wrote:
| > This is one of those "life facts" that I wish we were taught
| in school, because it's potentially dangerous but doesn't seem
| like it.
|
| It really isn't. You need to eat absurd amounts of stuff you'd
| not want to eat instinctively (green skin and sprouts). Remove
| those and there is nothing to be afraid of. On top of that the
| chemicals in question are very bitter. You wouldn't eat them
| even ignoring the visual cues.
|
| Same for courgettes [zucchini] and tomatoes. Yes, the plant has
| some toxic compounds. No, it's not really dangerous (though the
| risk is higher with courgettes than either tomatoes and
| potatoes, but bad courgettes are _very_ bitter).
| throwaway984393 wrote:
| I'm literally saying I didn't know I shouldn't eat the green
| parts for 30 years, and your response is "Remove those and
| there is nothing to be afraid of." I didn't know to remove
| them for 30 years!!
| kergonath wrote:
| Yeah. What I am saying is that they are gross, and bitter.
| So most likely is, you'd have removed them without knowing
| a thing about them or, having left them, you wouldn't have
| eaten them because the taste would be bad.
|
| And had you eaten them anyway, you'd be in for a mild
| stomach ache.
|
| Long story short, it is not very dangerous, even if you are
| completely unaware.
| intrepidhero wrote:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7417869/
|
| In haven't done the math myself but my understanding from a
| summary I read (back can't find now of course) is that you'd have
| to eat an absurd amount of green potatoes (specificly the skins)
| to get near the dose required for ill effects. Don't feed a child
| or a dog a bag of green potatoes and if you're worried about
| inflammation yourself, just peel the potato.
| Mezzie wrote:
| Or small women.
|
| My maternal family is full of fully grown adults less than 5'2"
| who weigh less than 90 lbs. My mom, grandma, and even my uncles
| would not have a good time.
| aszantu wrote:
| Don't know exactly why but suspect that some ppl don't
| metabolise potatoes well and get very tired after eating them
| with a meal
| WheelsAtLarge wrote:
| This used to happen to me after I visited a favorite
| restaurant of mine. After I ate there I was so tired I had to
| rest for a few hours. It turns out it was the amount of white
| rice I ate there relative to my everyday. Rice was always a
| big part of the meal.
|
| It's commonly referred as a carb or sugar crash. Formally,
| it's called "Reactive hypoglycemia." It can hit anyone.
| People have different sensitivity to it but it can really
| tire you out when it hits.
|
| https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-
| conditions/diabetes/expe...
| dekhn wrote:
| What I'm trying to understand from your comment: do you think
| that people haven't died from potato-based solanine poisoning
| ("I haven't done the math myself..."). It's rare but it happens
| even if you don't eat massive amounts of potatos.
| intrepidhero wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solanine
|
| It seems like most of the fatalities were related to food
| shortages, ie people eating very bad potatoes they wouldn't
| have normally eaten. Alkaloids have a strong bitter taste
| that makes it difficult to consume enough of them to do harm.
| Unless you're starving.
|
| My point was just that concentrations in a normal potato,
| that's turned a little green on the counter are far below
| anything you need to worry about. If you want to be
| especially cautious, peel it. But it's a bit of waste to
| throw them away.
|
| Definitely don't eat the sprouts, or the greens of any
| nightshade.
| ransom1538 wrote:
| Also depends where you live. I used to live in CA never saw a
| sprout on a potato unless I left it on the counter for a month.
| Here in FL, potatoes sprout the next day you buy them OR even in
| the bag at the store. Your best bet in a hot climate is the
| fridge.
| Hendrikto wrote:
| You shouldn't keep them in the fridge either:
|
| > Toxicity is increased by [...] low storage temperature
| NiagaraThistle wrote:
| I'm not sure if my household is immune to potato poisoning or if
| you need an insane amount of bad potatoes to be affected, but I
| sadly feed my family month old potatoes quite often. I do peel
| them (as I do 90% of the time when I make any potatoes). I do pop
| off any sprouts (wouldn't this be common sense?). And I do "peel
| out" or cut off any blacking bits on the potato (again wouldn't
| this be common sense?). And if any potatoes are truly moldy I
| just toss them.
|
| Who is eating potatoes that are so far gone that they are getting
| sick from them? When a potato is bad, you KNOW it by it's funky
| smell.
|
| Oh and I store my potatoes and onions in the same container until
| for days or weeks.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Month old? If you're in Niagara, you're eating several month
| old potatoes in March.
| canadianfella wrote:
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| I though this was common sense... first check if it's not
| really soft, and if it's not, just cut peel and remove the dark
| spots, and then eat the rest.
| sornaensis wrote:
| Peel them and boil them. : /
| [deleted]
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