The Poisonous Potato

Potatoes actually originate from South America not Ireland and belong to the Nightshade family- a group of plants that are often poisonous.

The Titicaca Plateau, stretches across part of the countries of Peru and Bolivia plateau in the Andean Mountains of South America is the birthplace of the potato over 7,000 years ago.

The Aymara Indians developed more than two hundred varieties of the potato at elevations greater than 10,000 feet. Potatoes formed the basis of the Aymara Indian and Incan diet. They built terraces on the mountainside that gave nurturing microenvironments that allowed safe non-poisonous strains to be developed.

Potatoes were brought back to Europe and gradually spread worldwide. Interesting even though it was introduced in some countries so late as the 1700s potatoes it is called by many different names worldwide in different languages despite it being a relatively “newly introduced” food.

In the 1840s.The Great Irish Potato Famine (or more properly Potato Blight as one of my Irish friends likes to have corrected) affected Ireland and was caused by a fungus Phytophthora infestans that spread quickly because of heavy rainfalls. This potato blight was particularly destructive since the one strain of potato present was highly susceptible to the fungus. The Irish were very dependant on this one source of food and when it failed they suffered terrible.

In the 1800s, Irish peasants were eating a daily average of 10 potatoes per person. Potatoes supplied about 80 percent of the calories in their diet. They used potato fodder to feed their animals, animals, which provided milk, meat and eggs to supplement the peasants' diet.

More than one million of Ireland's 8 million inhabitants died of starvation and almost 2 million emigrated. The population of Ireland was reduced by almost one-fourth. Later the European continent was subjected to the same wet and cold weather and had the same poor crops.

Today the potato is still an important source of food being much removed from its poisonous ancestor and plant scientists monitoring species growth for signs of diseases.

Wild potatoes may contain solamine a toxic glycoalkaloid chemical that may cause headaches, diarrhea, and cramps and in severe cases coma and death; however, poisoning from such potatoes occurs very rarely. Modern commercial potatoe strains are also reviewed for solamine.

Plant biologists note that many of the foods we eat today have been carefully selected and bred from toxic varieties to their present forms. Travelers are told to be careful of consuming any wild or unidentifyable vegetables or berries that have not been cleared such as wild onions which may be safe in some instances but are known to be poisonous.

This can also go the other way as the UK recently called into question wether the prairie saskatoon berry was indeed safe for them to import!

Genetic modification of other foods is currently a hot topic as some of the qualties nutrition and vitamins may be sacrificed. While plant cultivation has always been present it is important to note as with the Potato Blight we need diversity in our food to be resistant against future diseases and not depend too much on monocultures.