Conference turris::cooks

    
    The green stuff is probably not mold but it's caused by the potatoes
    being exposed to sunlight.
    
    keep'em in the dark...
    
    Peter

    I've read you aren't suppose to refrigerate potatoes because the starch
    turns to sugar and the taste changes...?  Also, keep the in the dark
    and in as cool a place as possible (not frig, but away from the stove
    and the heater, etc.)  At very least, you could try keeping them in a
    paper bag instead of out on the counter...
    
    D!

  I have been keeping them in a dark spot, but not total darkness. Unfortu-
nately, the potatoes are in bright artificial light all day in the store; I
suspect the green stuff is getting started there but has not gone far enough
to be visible.
  I will try storing them in a paper bag.
  I know my kitchen is warmer than the ideal storage temp, and the fridge
(all compartments) is too cool. I wish someone would invent a "potato cooler"
that keeps things at 60 F or so.

    Potatoes should be kept away from all light.  Light can cause the
    development of selenium, which is poisonous in large doses.
    
    After several months' storage, potatoes held at 35 F. may become sweet. 
    If they do, remove them to storage at 70 F. for a week or so before
    using them.  Potato sprouts must be removed whenever they appear,
    especially toward the end of winter.  Early sprouting indicates poor
    storage conditions.
    
    Potatoes make apples musty, so don't store these two near each other
    unless the apples are well covered.
    
    Potatoes freeze at 30.9 F.  Ideal storage temperature is 35-40 F.
    
    The above from "Putting Food By" by Ruth Hertzberg.  It includes
    information on long term food storage in a variety of ways.  Just
    happended to have it in the office to copy a page for my
    daughter-in-law.
    
    We've used the book as a reference to build a "cool cupboard" in our
    basement to substitute for the root celler.  Sorry, the instructions
    are too long to enter.  But the basic idea is an insulated from heat
    cupboard or room around a window on the north side of the house.  The
    window is opened or shut to control the temperature inside the cupboard
    of room. 
    
    mj

    The green layer in potatoes is slightly poisonous, but it has nothing
    to do with selenium.  (Selenium is an element.  Any potato that can
    "develop" selenium is (1) very radioactive but (2) can probably be
    made to develop gold.  Send it to me immediately in a lead-lined
    case. :-)  It may have something to do with the potato's distant
    relative, the deadly nightshade.
    
    							Ann B.

RE: .5

That's right.  The potato plant is a member of the nightshade family, and like 
most members of that family of plants, its tissues produce extremely toxic 
alkaloids.  The only edible part of the potato plant is the tuber, which is 
almost entirely starch.  This is why you have to be careful with potatoes that 
have sprouts, or roots coming from the "eyes", or a greenish tinge to the skin. 
These are indications that the tuber is starting to grow the other parts of the 
plant, the parts that contain the poisonous alkaloids.

--PSW

   I've also understood that it was alkaloids (visually signalled by
   the presense clorophyll) that were poisonous - never heard of selenium.

   Actually, it's well to remember that things like potatoes did not
   origionally evolve to be foodstuffs - that poisonous coating under the
   skin is there to make them inedible!  It's just that we have mostly bred
   the poisons out in domesticating them.

   - Jim

I used to keep my potatos in the cupboard, where it was dark, and not
particularly cool. And, they always sprouted after a while. Sometimes,
if I didn't pay attention frequently enough, they'd go soft, and, well,
you don't want to know any more about _that_.

Then someone told me they'd keep longer in the fridge. So I started keeping
them in there. Now they don't sprout. And they don't go soft. And I haven't
yet noticed that they get sweet, and it's been three months.

So, I'd say that if you buy them a few times a week and keep them for no
longer than a few days, the fridge should be an excellent place to store
them.

-Jack

    
    I have been storing my potatos in the fridge for a few years now
    and have no problem with a change in the taste.   They do keep
    longer.
    

    The potato belongs to the Solanaceae family, and yes the greening
    is indicative of the presence of the toxic glycoalkaloid SOLANINE.
    
    not selenium, but close! :)
    

    When I was in grad school I helped several friends move.  One fellow
    had one of those old refrigerators with a veggie drawer under it.
    When we went to move the fridge, we noticed there was something in the
    drawer, "Al, what's in the drawer" "I dunno"
    
    Well, it was potatoes, once upon a time, long ago.
    
    :-)
    
    ed

   Re .11

   Equally off the subject, that reminds me of getting ready to go
   camping with some fellow hackers one summer day.

   Looking in the open trunk...

   "What's in the DEC turky box, John?"

   "Would you believe the DEC turkey?"

   - Jim

  Thanks for the explanation of what the green stuff is, and the advice that
storing potatoes in the fridge is OK. For now, storing them in a bag on the
counter seems to be working.
  This may be beyond the scope of this conference, but what does the green
stuff do to you over the short term if you eat it?

    Re .13: Very short-term, nothing - in my experience. (I may have noticed
    a teensy burning sensation, but then again it may be my memory working
    overtime. Certainly nothing to remark on at the time.) Now, mind, I've 
    never eaten a *lot* of "green" potato at one time, and I don't tend to
    be sensitive to foods - no allergies, few bad reactions at all, so my
    results may not be typical. But as far as I recall, a meal made up of a
    couple of small potatoes that were noticeably green around the eyes, so
    to speak, gave me no unpleasant side effects at all.
    
    -b

  I have had good luck keeping my potatoes from turning green. Now I have an-
other problem. The loose baking potatoes at the supermarket in Littleton, MA
where I shop (and at the two other local supermarkets I shop at occasionally)
have, over the last 6 months or so, been mostly black on the outside. When I
bake them, about half of them have black or gray streaks inside. The discolor-
ation is not noticeable before cooking if I peel them. After I bake the potatoes
and cut them into quarters, the discoloration spreads and gets darker as the
potato stands for 10 minutes (which I often do to let it cool).
  I never keep potatoes more than three days. I am 90% sure that this spoilage
is occurring before I purchase the potatoes.
  What causes this discoloration? Mold? Fungus? Should I complain to the store
about this?
  Is this problem less likely to occur with bags of potatoes? I would rather
not buy potatoes in a bag because it would take three weeks or more to use
up a bag and I don't want to keep them that long, especially in summer.

    Two possibilities I can think of:
    
    The gray streaks are quite likely the result of either bruising or
    freeze/thawing.  Your supermarket may be reaching the bottom of the bin 
    (or their supplier might be).  I don't understand the "mostly black on
    the outside" comment - I wouldn't touch a potato that was moly black,
    unless you're talking about scab, which usually shows up in black lumps
    (most noticeable on red potatoes)
    
    The other possibility would be the potatoes were grown in a
    boron-deficient soil.  This usually manifests itself in a hollow   
     potato, with the hole running lengthwise and 'lined' with brown
    tissue.  You can't see the hollowness until you cut the potatoe open (a
    real bummer when you're serving baked potatoes to guests)
    
    I'd go with the freezing/thawing theory, and complain to your store's
    produce mnager.
    
    
    Dana

>    (or their supplier might be).  I don't understand the "mostly black on
>    the outside" comment 
  What I mean is the potatoes have black blotches all over them; that is the
only way I can describe them. This is not soil and doesn't wash off.
  One test I have devised is to see if the potatoes feel firm. If they don't,
I don't buy them, but that eliminate all the bad ones. I also, of course, don't
buy any that have obvious bruises on the surface.
  I have bought potatoes that have the mottled black skin that are OK inside.

>    boron-deficient soil.  This usually manifests itself in a hollow   
>    potato, with the hole running lengthwise and 'lined' with brown
>    tissue.
  These potatoes occasionally have a small hole in them, but that is not a
problem.
  I would still like to know if those black streaks on the inside are mold.

>  I would still like to know if those black streaks on the inside are mold.

 I don't think so; it does not appear to be any form of fungus.

For some time now we've been encountering white potatoes that have a distinctly sweet
taste. This has occurred with a variety of potatoes (new, russet, etc), from various
suppliers. It's really annoying!!

Earlier replies to this note indicate that refrigeration can cause potatoes to turn sweet.
We store ours in a not-very-cool basement. So if refrigeration is the culprit then it
means that more than one supplier is storing them at too low a temperature.

Is there anything else that can cause this sweetening to occur.

Has anyone else noticed this? Thanks.

							Bill