Potatoes, also known as potatoes, are the fourth largest food crops in the world, but they are always mixed with vegetables. Our daily life is inseparable from potatoes, but you may not know that the leaves and stems of potatoes are toxic, and even the fruit-potatoes themselves may be toxic.

In recent years, people and livestock have been poisoned by eating potatoes. What is the cause of our poisoning? It turns out that potatoes contain a lot of starch, protein, sugar and other substances, and also contain some toxic alkaloids-solanine, also known as solanine. Potatoes contain this toxic substance because they have evolved a self-protection mechanism.

Immature potatoes contain a large amount of this toxin in order to prevent themselves from being eaten by insects or animals. When potatoes are cooked, there will still be toxins, but the content is rarely harmful to the human body, and this toxin is usually in the potato skin. When we eat potatoes, we will scrape off the potato skin.

If you eat poisonous potatoes, 15 minutes to two hours later will have a toxic reaction. At first, you will feel itchy and numb in your mouth and throat, and then your upper abdomen will start to feel pain, dizziness, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, and even you will be dehydrated. What's more, you may even have convulsions, coma, heart failure, respiratory center paralysis and even die. If the poisoning is mild, it will be fine in two hours. If the symptoms are serious, you should go to the hospital.

Therefore, if potatoes sprout or are immature and blue, try to avoid eating them. If you want to eat, you need to dig out the sprouting place, peel off all the skin, cut off the blue part, add some vinegar when frying potatoes, and solanine will decompose when it meets vinegar. Potatoes bought will be stored in a cool place to avoid sun exposure and produce toxins.