Sprouting potatoes should be treated differently according to the situation of sprouting, if the degree of sprouting is light can be eaten, if the sprouting more and potato surface mold, greening the situation is serious can not be eaten.

Sprouted potatoes contain toxic alkaloids, the more important is lobelia toxin. Lobelia toxin is mainly through the inhibition of cholinesterase activity and cause gastrointestinal tract damage, respiratory center and motor center paralysis, but also can cause cerebral edema, gastroenteritis. Fresh potatoes contain trace amounts of lobelia alkaloids, which are not harmful to the human body, but the content of lobelia alkaloids will gradually increase during prolonged storage.

When potatoes are just sprouting or the buds are not big enough, you can dig out the buds as well as the eyes of the buds, and the rest is still edible. This is because the toxins are still concentrated in the eye of the sprout and nearby parts, and the toxins have not yet expanded. Usually, if you don't eat a quantity of potatoes large enough to cause food poisoning, you won't have a problem.

But if the surface of the potato is heavily molded or green, or if a potato has several sprouts it should be thrown away without hesitation. Such potatoes, even if you dig out the part of the buds, eaten without the occurrence of toxic conditions, contains little nutrition has been left, and the taste is also very poor.

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Potato Preservation

Potatoes are one of the common food items, which last longer as compared to green leafy vegetables. However, long sprouts have always been a problem for potato storage. Long-sprouted potatoes contain the toxin lobelia, which can cause food poisoning in humans...?

Like bananas, apples release ethylene gas, which promotes faster ripening in some fruits but prevents potatoes from sprouting, said Gijun Liju, a designer at the Design Academy in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. To do this, place a potato in a plastic bag with an apple inside. A 10:1 ratio of potato to apple is usually sufficient.

The U.S. TV program "Delicious Kitchen Test" completed a comparison experiment also confirmed that, compared with the potatoes stored without apples, the potatoes stored with apples still do not soften and do not sprout after 8 weeks of preservation.

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