It’s annoyingly simple to retailer a bunch of potatoes in your kitchen and easily neglect they ever existed. Typically it’s not till that yearning for a wonderfully fluffy mash hits and also you observe down your long-lost spuds that you just would possibly uncover they’re lined in spindly sprouts.

Your potato all of the sudden seems to be like a bit of alien…. Nevertheless it’s nonetheless suitable for eating, proper?

Sadly, not at all times, in response to Darin Detwiler, LPD, an affiliate instructing professor of meals coverage at Northeastern College and creator of Meals Security: Previous, Current, and Predictions, tells SELF.

“The growths that come out of a sprouted potato are primarily the beginnings of recent vegetation,” Detwiler explains. You’ll be able to thank publicity to daylight for that: “These sprouts emerge from the eyes of the potato, that are the small indentations or buds on the pores and skin. The sprouts signify that the potato is utilizing its saved vitamins to develop a brand new plant.” (When a potato sees sufficient mild, it’d flip inexperienced in some spots too.)

If the stalks are simply beginning to type—say, they appear to be little buds—the potato needs to be high quality to eat when you give it a bit of TLC (extra on that under), Detwiler says. However should you’re seeing total shoots popping out, it’s a unique story.

Sprouts don’t simply make a potato a bit of more durable to peel. These growths are full of glycoalkaloids (extra particularly solanine). These compounds produce a bitter taste and are poisonous in excessive quantities. Glycoalkaloids naturally happen in regular potatoes at ranges which are simply high quality on your well being—round 12 to twenty milligrams per kilogram. However as soon as any a part of the potato hits 200 milligrams per kilogram, it’s thought of unsafe to eat. (A median inexperienced potato, for instance, comprises 250–280 milligrams per kilogram of glycoalkaloids, whereas inexperienced pores and skin alone spikes as much as 1,500–2,200 milligrams per kilogram.)

So what occurs should you chow down on a potato that’s nicely previous its prime? You would possibly get hit with complications, nausea, vomiting, abdomen ache, and diarrhea, Francisco Diez-Gonzalez, PhD, the director of the Middle for Meals Security on the College of Georgia, tells SELF. In a single older research, for instance, researchers had individuals eat mashed potatoes that contained progressively larger ranges of glycoalkaloids and located {that a} participant began throwing up about 4 hours after having a dose that was thought of the higher restrict of security.

Sadly, cooking a gnarly trying potato doesn’t in the reduction of on its potential toxins. As a substitute, if it solely has one or two sprouts which are simply beginning to type, Dr. Diez-Gonzalez says to chop them out fully, in addition to any inexperienced elements on the potato itself, earlier than cooking it as normal.

However as Detwiler places it: When unsure, simply throw it out. “If it’s a closely sprouted potato, it’s most secure to toss it,” Dr. Diez-Gonzalez agrees. (This is applicable to any spuds which are tremendous inexperienced, mushy, or wrinkled too.)

To decrease the percentages of getting to scrap your spuds sooner or later, Detwiler recommends storing them in a cool, darkish, and dry place. Earlier than your weekly journey to the grocery retailer, take inventory of how your produce is trying. Add a bit of word on the prime of your checklist should you want a reminder to make use of up what you’ve got earlier than it goes unhealthy.

And, should you’ve obtained a inexperienced thumb, it’s doable to develop new potatoes from the sprouts. If those in your pantry look extra like a science undertaking than dinner, attempt planting them—you is likely to be welcomed with new progress you’ll be able to truly eat!

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