# Potato Eyes, Edible? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 8, 2001, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potato-eyes-edible/75510 "2001-08-08T22:51:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Chubbs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/47e85d/32.png) [@Chubbs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chubbs)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2001, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potato-eyes-edible/75510/1 "2001-08-08T22:51:12Z")
My Grandmother used to throw away the potatos after they sprouted eyes. Why not cook em or cut them out? ---
**Author:** ![Zumba\_The\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/779978/32.png) [@Zumba\_The\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zumba_The_Cat)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2001, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potato-eyes-edible/75510/2 "2001-08-08T22:56:53Z")
I do cut the eyes out (before I cook them) unless the potato is too soft or rotten. ---
**Author:** ![cher3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cher3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cher3)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2001, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potato-eyes-edible/75510/3 "2001-08-08T23:18:42Z")
I believe that potato plants, including the new shoots, are considered poisonous. Also, the shoots are using the potato as food, so it becomes less appealing by that point. I’ve just cut out the eyes and cooked the potato many times, though. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2001, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potato-eyes-edible/75510/4 "2001-08-08T23:29:26Z")
[Potatos produce solanine, a poison, when they become green](http://www.panhandle.unl.edu/potato/Physiological_Disorders/Greening_Problems/greening_problems.htm). I’ve never heard that the eyes themselves are toxic, but if they are growing in the bag there’s a good chance that the potato is greening up. ---
**Author:** ![barbitu8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2001, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potato-eyes-edible/75510/5 "2001-08-09T00:26:23Z")
The eyes contain mucho alkaloids, which your link refers to as solanines, a specific type of alkaloid. Alkaloids are common in plants and in large quantities are toxic. There are some strong alkaloids which are toxic in small potions, such as those found in nightshades. Plants produce alkaloids as a defense to predators, who would otherwise eat them. Not good for the plants to be eaten. Especially before reproduction. As the link points out, tomatoes also contains alkaloids, and tomatoes at one time were thought to be toxic. I eat the eyes. The eyes in a potato or two do not contain enough alkaloids to be a problem. I also eat the cores of such fruits as apples, even though they contain cyanide, another poison. In the quantities found in the cores of such fruits, they are not a problem. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2001, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potato-eyes-edible/75510/6 "2001-08-09T02:38:10Z")
Solanine is sometimes produced in large enough quantities by greening potatos to make you very sick; vomiting,cramps, delerium, etc. [According to this nice report on potato alkaloid toxins:](http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/courses/as625/1999term/andrew/index.htm) > [@](#): > > Contents as high as 100mg/100g have been measured in the skin along with lethal amounts in the sprouts This is why green potatos are considered unfit for human consumption. Eating sprouted potato eyes is probably perfectly safe if the potato has been kept in the dark and has not stared making chlorophyll. On the other hand it’s safer to just throw the old spuds into the trash. Now it’d be a different thing entirely if green eyes were loaded with barbitu8s 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2001, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potato-eyes-edible/75510/7 "2001-08-09T03:27:58Z")
_[Also](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_055b.html) sprach_ Cecil: > [@](#): > > …the same process of photosynthesis that produces chlorophyll also produces compounds called glycoalkaloids, such as solanine, that are toxic in large amounts. > > In a normal potato plant, the glycoalkaloids are concentrated in the leaves and the sprouts. The story is told that during World War II some refugees broke into an abandoned house and found a quantity of old sprouted potatoes in the basement. The potatoes themselves were too dried out to eat, so the refugees made a stew out of the sprouts–and got incredibly sick as a result. Thus Mom’s injunction never to eat the eyes in a potato, eyes, of course, being sprouts as yet unborn.