Diet taboos potatoes

There are only three situations that need to be absolutely avoided - eating sprouted/large green-skinned potatoes, drinking a lot of raw potato juice on an empty stomach, and cooking and eating it with underripe kidney beans. The rest of the statements spread on the Internet such as "potatoes cannot be eaten with eggs/bananas/beef" have no scientific basis and are just rumors spread by people.

I was cleaning up the storage room at home a while ago and dug out half a bag of potatoes I stocked up last winter. Most of them had white sprouts half a centimeter long, and half of the skin was green. My mother held it and was reluctant to throw it away. She said, "dig the sprouts deeper and peel off the green skin." I still eat the skin, I haven’t eaten anything before during the famine years.” It took her a long time to persuade her to throw it into the trash can. When she turned around, she saw someone in the group of owners saying that her old man ate potatoes with sprouts peeled off and ended up in the community hospital with vomiting and diarrhea.

Here we have to talk about the most dangerous ingredient in potatoes, solanine. The solanine content of normal fresh potatoes is only 5-10mg/100g, which is completely below the poisoning threshold. But once they sprout or the skin turns green, the solanine content around the eyes and green skin will soar to more than 200mg/100g. Just one or two bites may cause poisoning symptoms of nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain. In severe cases, it can also damage the nervous system. This area is actually controversial. Many elders insist that "it's fine if you peel it clean." The official recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is that if there are only small sprouts of less than 1 mm and the green skin area is less than 1/5 of the entire potato, completely dig out 1 cm of tissue around the eyes of the sprouts. , peel off all the green skin, and then fully heat and cook it, it is not completely inedible, but as long as it meets any of the "super-class" conditions, it is best to just throw it away. After all, a pound of potatoes only costs two or three yuan. If you really eat it, the cost of a trip to the hospital will be enough to buy dozens of pounds of potatoes.

Another controversial issue is the issue of raw potato juice. In the past two years, I have read many health accounts saying that "drink raw potato juice on an empty stomach to detoxify and cure old stomach problems." My best friend had a stomachache for a while, and she drank it for three days. The pain lasted until midnight. She went to the emergency room for a gastroscopy, and she was found to have gastric mucosal edema. From the perspective of folk dietary therapy, there is indeed a saying that the alkaline component of raw potato juice can neutralize gastric acid and relieve gastric ulcer symptoms. However, the general view in gastroenterology clinics is that it is not recommended to drink raw potato juice on an empty stomach. The resistant starch in raw potatoes has not been gelatinized by heating, which is difficult for the human body to digest. People with gastritis or irritable bowel syndrome drink it, but it will increase the burden on the gastrointestinal tract. Let alone cure gastric diseases, drinking it can cause bloating and acid reflux even if you are not sick. Of course, some people say that nothing has happened to them after drinking it for more than half a year. This is most likely because their gastrointestinal function is strong enough and is an exception. There is really no need to use their own stomach as a test field.

There is another taboo that many people don't notice, that is, don't simmer raw potatoes and uncooked kidney beans together. Unripe green beans themselves contain saponin and hemagglutinin, which are inherently prone to poisoning. Potatoes take longer to cook than green leafy vegetables. If you try to save time by throwing raw potatoes and raw green beans into the rice cooker together, it is easy for the potatoes to be cooked but the green beans not to be cooked through. Last year, I saw a food blogger showing a lazy rice cooking tutorial. This is how it was done. As a result, the whole family was poisoned after following the instructions, causing vomiting and diarrhea all day long.

As for the most widely spread "collocation taboos", to be honest, I don't take any of them seriously. Last week I made mashed potatoes mixed with boiled eggs for breakfast. I was so full that I wasn’t hungry until noon, and I didn’t feel any discomfort. ； When my mother was losing weight, she mixed steamed potatoes and bananas together every day as a modern meal. After eating it for just half a year, the spots on her face were a little lighter. There is no such thing as "eating together will cause spots". ； It is also said that potatoes and beef are indigestible when eaten together. Russian borscht and Northeastern potato and beef stew have been passed down for many years, and no one has had any problems after eating them. At most, people with weak digestion eat too much beef and potatoes that are not stewed enough at one time, and their stomachs are a bit bloated. This is a problem of eating too much, and has nothing to do with the combination.

I also have a little trick for storing potatoes. Find a dry cardboard box, put the potatoes in, and throw in two ripe apples. Seal the box and put it in a cool and ventilated place. It can last half a month longer than normal storage without sprouting. Don't put it in the refrigerator. Too much humidity will cause rot. Don't put it in the sun on the balcony. The skin will turn green after two days in the sun. It's a waste of good potatoes.

In fact, after all, there are so many fancy taboos about eating potatoes. Most of the content posted online is just a gimmick to gain traffic. As long as you avoid those minefields that can really hurt your health, such as hot and sour shredded potatoes with rice, potato stewed ribs, fresh French fries with iced Coke, you can eat whatever you want. After all, delicious food is the first priority of eating, right?