Topic: Green Potatoes

[bluecar]

Hi all.

I know green potatoes are poisonous, but I have just dug half of my second earlies and some have a tinge of green. Is the whole spud poisonous or can I cut a chunk of the spud where the green is and use the rest?

[Chrispy]

Yes, just don't eat the green bits.
If they only have a green tinge you may find just peeling them is enough.

[lincsyokel2]

You have to ponder who and how they worked this thing out about green potatoes - there must have been at least one person died at 10,000 BC to test the theory

[davyw1]

They are only supposed to be poisonous if eaten raw, when cooked they are fine.

[bluecar]

That's good news that they can still be consumed (cooked).

lincsyokel2 - yes there are so many mysteries like that. How many people did it take to find out that rhubarb leaves are poisonous but the stems are edible!

[Robert_Brenchley]

I think it was the other way round in the case of rhubarb. It was a medicinal plant, and its use as an edible is relatively modern.

[artichoke]

I have been employed to illustrate a book on medicinal plants in Oman.

I too wondered about the people, going back centuries, who died from plant toxins, or achieved very painful cures, or lived to pass on the knowledge. We consulted several different hill tribes who still use this hard won knowledge, and they are quite consistent about the useful plants. Mostly it is grandmothers who have the knowledge, and they are dying out. Our book was intended to preserve their knowledge.

I had some trouble collecting the plants to illustrate, because people would nibble them, as we might nibble radishes

[Kepouros]

The amazing thing is that a lot of the time they had no idea what the problem was that they were treating.  They had no conception of bacteria or viruses, and although they understood the bony skeleton they had virtually no understanding of the workings of the `soft` organs, and yet nevertheless many of their remedies and treatments were so successful as to have survived in much modified forms today

[lincsyokel2]

but look at fungus. Its completely impossible to determine if a fungus is poisonous any way other than to eat it and see if you die.  I suspect a lot of peasants, serfs and slaves died working out what was edible!!

[pigeonseed]

I have been employed to illustrate a book on medicinal plants in Oman.

That sounds really interesting, artichoke. Have you been to Oman to do it?

[Kepouros]

but look at fungus. Its completely impossible to determine if a fungus is poisonous any way other than to eat it and see if you die.  I suspect a lot of peasants, serfs and slaves died working out what was edible!!

I doubt if the peasantry was quite that dimwitted.  I should think they probably tried it out on the dog (or someone else`s dog) first.

[lincsyokel2]

but look at fungus. Its completely impossible to determine if a fungus is poisonous any way other than to eat it and see if you die.  I suspect a lot of peasants, serfs and slaves died working out what was edible!!

I doubt if the peasantry was quite that dimwitted.  I should think they probably tried it out on the dog (or someone else`s dog) first.

I think a lot of the people who tested the theory hundreds or thousands of  years ago didnt have any choice in the matter.

[Kepouros]

I rather suspect that most of the discoveries were made not by the deliberate sacrifice of human life, but as a result of either curiosity or mistake on the part of the discoverer, who probably carried on living long enough to inform his anxious relatives of the cause of his impending demise.

Where fungi are concerned it is very easy to confuse poisonous with harmless - people still do it today - but a look at the leftovers would add yet another shred to the bulk of human knowledge, and no doubt the hunter/gatherer who had had a blank day would have been tempted by those big, plump brightly coloured berries and after eating his fill took a few sprigs back for the missus and kids, and his prompt expiration immediately after presenting them would raise some grounds for suspicion.

Where potatoes are concerned South America produced a large number of different cultivars, most of which are poisonous, but rather than hundreds of slaves being lined up by an Inca King to test each variety in search of an edible one, I suspect that someone who`d never seen a potato before found an edible one by chance, and the subsequent discovery of the poisonous nature of the others was made by those who ate them in the mistaken belief that all potatoes were the same ,

After all, most of the major discoveries by the human race have been made more by accident that design.

[lincsyokel2]

I rather suspect that most of the discoveries were made not by the deliberate sacrifice of human life, but as a result of either curiosity or mistake on the part of the discoverer, who probably carried on living long enough to inform his anxious relatives of the cause of his impending demise.

Where fungi are concerned it is very easy to confuse poisonous with harmless - people still do it today - but a look at the leftovers would add yet another shred to the bulk of human knowledge, and no doubt the hunter/gatherer who had had a blank day would have been tempted by those big, plump brightly coloured berries and after eating his fill took a few sprigs back for the missus and kids, and his prompt expiration immediately after presenting them would raise some grounds for suspicion.

Where potatoes are concerned South America produced a large number of different cultivars, most of which are poisonous, but rather than hundreds of slaves being lined up by an Inca King to test each variety in search of an edible one, I suspect that someone who`d never seen a potato before found an edible one by chance, and the subsequent discovery of the poisonous nature of the others was made by those who ate them in the mistaken belief that all potatoes were the same ,

After all, most of the major discoveries by the human race have been made more by accident that design.

Bread has always baffled me. Making bread is a very complex series of steps, it cant have been accidental, there must have been a seriously clever stone age hunter gatherer somewhere worked that one out.

[artichoke]

Pigeonseed, yes, I stayed in Oman several times and travelled about with various tribe members to find the plants they used. Even then (1980s) they would complain that in their youth various plants were common and the best places known, but now they were becoming harder and harder to find.

I was just the drawing machine, it was my sister (co-author of the book, with a botanist) who had lived with them, learned their languages and studied their uses of plants.

No potatoes of course, but several succulent underground roots and tubers and rhizomes that were edible. Not that succulent, actually, some of them - these would be used in times of famine and desperation when the side effects were less serious than dying of thirst and malnutrition. I tried most of them, including a sort of chewing gum made from euphorbia sap, ugh!

How completely sure is anyone that green potatoes can be trimmed and eaten safely? I have a lot of green ones at the moment, disturbed and brought to the surface by some animal (badger? Fox?)

[Kepouros]

Bread has always baffled me. Making bread is a very complex series of steps, it cant have been accidental, there must have been a seriously clever stone age hunter gatherer somewhere worked that one out.

It would probably have bothered the seriously clever stone age hunter a little more than somewhat as well, since the equipment for making it wouldn`t have been invented until at least the iron age.  The seriously clever stone age warrior probably got no further than mixing his coarsely ground meal with water and pouring it onto a hot flat stone to cook - and he probably only learned to do that after spilling it by accident the first time.

I imagine that the first incident of bread in anything like the form we recognise would have occurred when the grain meal used had became damp in primitive storage and got contaminated with a natural yeast, and they probaby wouldn`t have eaten  the resulting product at all if SHE hadn`t used all the meal and there was nothing else left to eat

[Robert_Brenchley]

Bread making couldn't really have preceded agriculture, but emmer and einkorn wheat have been around since neolithic times, as has the earth oven, so it could be quite early.

[bluecar]

Thanks for all the comments. It's fascinating what the original post has developed into and I've read the details with great interest however Artichoke has raised some doubts in my mind.

What is the answer as to whether green potatoes can be trimmed and eaten safely?

[calendula]

'trim' them well - all the solanum family are poisonous (tomatoes, spuds, aubergines etc), probably why so many people are allergic to spuds and the 'green' is an indication of being less ripe and so will increase the risk of poison  8)

[artichoke]

Going back to early bread: one mountain outing I was taken on, in Oman, was led by a man who carried a bag of sorghum wheat, which he did indeed mix with water, and laid a thick lump on hot stones (heated by burning dead wood we all had to collect - no tree destruction allowed, only fallen twigs and branches).

The result was very hard, and difficult to chew and swallow, but in hard times you would make the effort, and these mountain tribes have always had hard times until the discovery of oil - even then, the benefits took decades to reach them.

Given more time, this mixture would have fermented with natural yeasts and produced a softer bread. I don't find it hard to imagine how leavened bread developed, once fire had been discovered. The use of grains ground in querns or similar has a very ancient history.

On the subject of green potatoes, I was sent this message by john_muller, for which I am grateful:

"Green potatoes indicate a high level of the alkaloid solanine, which is toxic in large quantities or otherwise causes distress to the stomach in non lethal quantities. It occurs naturally in all  potatoes but increases in response to sunlight (which is what also induces the greening by production of chlorophyll). It concentrates in the skin and especially around the potato eyes. Peeling will remove almost all the solanine. Solanine will also be reduced by deep frying as the changes in the physical characteristics of the potato flesh during frying allows it to leach into the fat."