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From: Matthew Rabuzzi <rabuzzi.....@loc251.tandem.com>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Green Potatoes' Poison
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 14:04:07 -0800

Dr. Ulrich Roth <rothu@uni-duesseldorf.de> writes: : > Ian York's excellent post about green potatoes from last August:
: My post from 10 Jun 96: ...

Ooh, ooh, me too, me too! My post from 9 Apr 96:

--
Subject: Re: Bananas Poisonous when Green Summary: Nope, but potatoes are

Fester Adams <gamers@in-motion.net> writes: : My sister-in-law was visiting from ND, she said she heard that a : lady died from eating too many green bananas. She swears they are : poisonous when green. Has anybody heard of this.

Nope, and I think she's confusing green bananas (safe, though not tasty) with green potatoes (poisonous). Although, how many is "too many"?

Unripe green bananas, like plantains and fufu, taste woody and tannic if eaten raw, and can give you a stomachache but won't make you sick. Cooking detannifies (if that's a word) the starches and makes them more digestible. I recall making a beef stew with green bananas 10 years ago, supposedly a Colombian delicacy though I've now lost the recipe.

Neither _Joy of Cooking_ (Rombauer & Becker, copyrights 1931 to 1965) nor _Food in History_ (Reay Tannahill, 1988) describes any dangers due to green bananas, although each makes a point of warning of other poisonous foods:

      Don't use sprouted potatoes that are green from exposure to light,
      as the green portions as well as sprouts are poisonous.
          -- _Joy of Cooking_

      People have been poisoned by the solanin in green potatoes,
      the prussic acid in bitter almonds, the cyanide in lima beans.
        [Also: caffeine, nutmeg, onions, rhubarb (leaves), spinach,
        carotene, cabbage, bran, kidney beans, watermelon seeds,
        apple seeds can all be either toxic, abortifacient, liver/kidney-
        damaging, or preventive of proper nutrient absorption.]
          -- _Food in History_

W3NI describes a solanin as a bitter toxic alkaloid like the soapy saponins, from potato sprouts and eyes, eggplant/aubergine, tomato/lycopersicon, and other members of the nightshade family such as belladonna, bittersweet, and henbane. I do not know what the symptoms of solanin toxemia are, nor what dose would be fatal.

Oh, as far as the greenness of potatoes goes, it's not a vivid virid, it's just a greenish cast to the skin (and perhaps a millimeter deep of the flesh), so examine 'em carefully. Better yet, keep 'em in the dark, as it is exposure to light that produces the solanins.

For more information, read "The Tubers in the Rue Morgue", by Edgar Allan Potato.

Matthew "Musings on Musa, Soliloquy on Solanaceae" Rabuzzi