ArtsAutosBooksBusinessEducationEntertainmentFamilyFashionFoodGamesGenderHealthHolidaysHomeHubPagesPersonal FinancePetsPoliticsReligionSportsTechnologyTravel

The Humble Potato Can Kill You!

Updated on November 13, 2010

The Irish wear the green, they shouldn't eat it!

Click thumbnail to view full-size
"I'm Mr Green, your clock I'll clean!!"Sprouting or green spuds should be treated with caution.
"I'm Mr Green, your clock I'll clean!!"
"I'm Mr Green, your clock I'll clean!!"
Sprouting or green spuds should be treated with caution.
Sprouting or green spuds should be treated with caution.

If GREEN appears, stay well clear!

Potatoes Can Be Toxic!

A few years ago, a community in Haiti or Cuba, I forget which, were starving due to crop failure or one of the other woes visited on the world's disenfranchised. Some bright village elder hit on the idea of feeding them on the tops and seed fruit (the little green fruits like cherry tomatoes) of potatoes and the green leafy parts - not surprisingly once you know the facts, about 20 people died.

The same think happened in Europe when Raleigh, or Drake, or some other of the queen's pet pirates, first brought potatoes to England. The population looked at them and thought, "Aha, throw that dirty, earthy looking "root" away, it must be the tops and the little green fruit you have to eat." Same result, deaths happened and people soon gave them up until the correct part began to be eaten, the tuber, or spud. These same buccaneers brought tobacco, too, another member of the same toxic group of plants, among which is the deadly nightshade.

Potatoes are a member of the Solanaceae family of plants. This includes tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, tobacco, jimsonweed, mandrake, petunia and deadly nightshade, (belladonna a classic poison used for centuries).

With potatoes, the opposite of traffic lights holds true, "When you see red, go ahead, when green appears, stay well clear." Well, you don't see red in most cases, but the thing to beware of is any green part of the potato: the tops, green fruit, the sprouts coming out of the domestic potato and the green sheen they develop when old or exposed to light and damp. The green is actually just harmless chlorophyll, but it should act as a warning: the potato is unsafe.

Your spuds for consumption should be kept as a mild temperature, dry and away from light to stop growth occurring and the dreaded green - actually signals a concentration of toxic alkaloids called Solanine - appearing on the skin of the potato. It's not ideal, either, to just skin or cut away the green parts and then eat the potato, it should be thrown away when the alkaloids appear.

Why? Well, you might have to eat a lot of them to make you very ill at this stage - maybe 2 kilos or so - but Solanine at higher concentrations, such as found in other family members, is a dangerous substance indeed and can cause a whole host of nasty symptoms, even resulting in death. These are dry mouth, dilated pupils, ataxia, urine retention, hallucinations, convulsions, coma and...call the mortician!

Unfortunately, Solanine does not dissolve in water, so soaking the potatoes does not help, neither is it destroyed by cooking.

Supermarkets are contributing to the problem by storing potatoes in clear plastic bags which expose the contents to strong light. The toxin content doubles every 24 hours in this situation; potatoes were better served in the old days when grocers kept them in heavy jute, or paper sacks away from daylight.

The tomato has hardly any harmful alkaloids at all, only traces of solanine, so is not considered dangerous as is the potato.

If the potato had been discovered in the 21st Century, instead of the 16th., the good old ‘ealth and safety wallahs in Brussels would have surely banned it. (using The Novel Foods Legislation).

Not that all the watchdogs do is bad. A new variety of potato was introduces to the USA and Europe in the 1960’s, The Lenape, that was discovered to contain unsafe levels of glycoalkaloids after a consumer had nearly died! The potato was hurriedly withdrawn in 1964, although is was considered safe for chipping with the skin, etc., removed. Many other strains have been developed over the last century which have had to be discarded because the potatoes’ “defences,” the toxins, were too high from the gate.

As the burning at high temperature of the tobacco in a cigarette partially destroys harmful alkaloids, it’s far safer smoking one - at least in the short term - than eating one, or chewing the tobacco as is popular in the South of the USA. Then you can live to the ripe old age of 55 and die of lung cancer or other smoking related diseases.

I might add that eating a lot of potato has made me feel a bit under the weather from time to time, I put it down to not doing too well with carbohydrate and high blood sugar. But I might just have eaten spuds I had around too long. I’m going to watch that in future: so should you!

 

working

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy

Show Details
Necessary
HubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons.
LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service.
Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)
AkismetThis is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.
Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)
CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)
Google Hosted LibrariesJavascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy)
Features
Google Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)
Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
Google ChartsThis is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)
Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Google YouTubeSome articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
PaypalThis is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)
Marketing
Google AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)