Stopping Potatoes sprouting

Today's interesting fact has to do with potatoes and how to stop them from sprouting.

Potatoes sprout when they are in the right conditions... unfortunately, being kept in the dark, and in a warm kitchen, encourages them to put out new shoots from their eyes to reach the light.  You need to keep them in the dark, to keep them from going green, when they start producing poisons that can cause illness and if consumed in large amounts even death.

To prevent this potatoes from sprouting, add a couple apples to the potato bag.  The ethylene gas produced by apples as they ripen, will stop the potatoes producing the offending sprouts.  You could use bananas as well, but they ripen much faster than apples do.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with green potatoes.

This past weekend, I was asked if it was safe to eat green potatoes.

The simple answer is that it isn’t.

I was then asked why… no one should ever ask me why if they don’t want the answer.

When potatoes are exposed to light, they turn green.

This is caused by chlorophyll becoming active in the tuber under the skin.

But it is not the chlorophyll that causes the problem, but the glycoalkaloids that are produced along with the chlorophyll.

These are mostly the chemicals solanine and chaconine, but there are others.

High concentrations of these compounds can cause headaches, diarrhoea, cramps, coma and death.

So don’t eat green potatoes.

Today's interesting fact has to do with food prices.

Overall food prices have more than doubled over the past 20 years.

Items such as coffee and tea have risen much faster than many other food stuffs, but perhaps the greatest increase has been in bottled water.

But even stapes, such as wheat, rice and potatoes have also had massive increases.

A sack of rice which was purchased two years ago for £5.00, costs more that £10.00 this year.