Can You Still Eat Sweet Potatoes That Have Sprouts?
It is generally safe to eat sweet potatoes that have sprouts, although the texture and flavor of the potatoes may be slightly different. Sweet potatoes that have sprouted may be more fibrous and less tender than those that have not, and the flavor may be slightly bitter. However, as long as the sweet potatoes are not spoiled or moldy, they are still safe to eat.
Sweet potato greens are not only safe to eat, they are very nutritious and versatile, whether you just use the sprouts or let them grow leaves too. While sweet potatoes provide a high amount of nutrients and minerals, they may not be suitable for those taking beta-blockers, the medicine doctors prescribe to treat heart disease, due to their high potassium content. Although sprouted sweet potatoes are lower in nutrition, they still provide a high amount of vitamins A and C, fiber, manganese, potassium, and calcium. Sweet potatoes are tube-shaped vegetables that provide macronutrients such as starch, fiber, and protein, and also provide many micronutrients such as manganese, copper, potassium, iron, Vitamin B complex, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, and provitamin A.
Sprouting does not remove nutrients from sweet potatoes, making them completely safe for anyone to eat, including pregnant women, lactating mothers, as well as babies born during pregnancy. On the one hand, some people think that sprouted potatoes are completely safe to eat, provided that the sprouts are removed. On the other, many caution that sprouted potatoes are toxic and can lead to food poisoning – and possibly death. What is more, several small studies have suggested that eating sprouted potatoes while pregnant can raise your risk of birth defects.
Eating potatoes that are sprouted may lead you to consume an excess amount of these compounds. When left sitting around in storage too long, potatoes may start sprouting, creating a debate about whether it is safe to eat them. While most potatoes are perfectly safe to eat, they contain a kind of naturally occurring toxin, which, if built up, may make you ill after eating.
There have been some cases of death following the ingestion of toxic potatoes, but you can usually manage symptoms at home. Sprouting means that the levels of the toxins are too high, and the potatoes are no longer safe for eating. Ultimately, the best way to keep safe is to throw away potatoes containing any green spots or sprouts.
If the skin looks greenish, or there are sprouts, then you need to pull off the sprouts or throw the entire potato, depending on the severity. If you really do notice sprouting or a greenish color in certain areas, you can try and remove it with a sharp paring knife and still bake it along with the rest of the potatoes (although it is not recommended). If sprouted potatoes also have mushy, wrinkled skin, it is a sign the potato has lost nutrients, so best to compost them. As the process goes on, your potatoes will start to wrinkle, because more starch is converted into sugars and used by the sprouts.
Once your sweet potatoes have formed sprouts, and sprouts form roots, you will have slips ready for planting (you can pull these off of your sweet potatoes near the point they emerge). Sweet potatoes will break their dormancy and start sprouting when there is high heat and humidity (this signals them that it is growing season is approaching, it is time to breed). Sweet potatoes may take up to 2 weeks to sprout — longer if conditions are not ideal (or they are treated with a spawn inhibitor to store them long-term). Store quality potatoes correctly, and they are unlikely to spoil or prematurely sprout.
Even if potatoes get a bit mushy or spongey in time, we know for sure that they are still edible when prepared correctly. While keeping raw sweet potatoes in the fridge may extend their shelf life, you should not because cold temperatures create a tough middle with white spots, making them flavorless, have poor texture, and are hard to eat. Anecdotal reports indicate that you should also avoid storing potatoes with onions, since the combination of both may speed up sprouting. He explained that sprouts do not alter the taste or texture of potatoes, but are unpleasant, and excessive sprouting can make consumers ill.
Sweet potato sprouts will not provide the same levels of nutrition benefits that the whole grown-up version of them would, but these little tuber shoots are still going to be healthy, too — and they are an interesting thing to toy around with, as well as adding to dishes for some added fun and conversation starters. Sprouts are a great green veggie for their high fiber and protein and low oxalic acid. In addition, young leaves from stem tips have a substantially higher amount of protein, powerful antioxidant beta carotene, vitamin C, calcium, phosphorus, and iron compared to the roots of sweet potatoes.
Sprouts contain glycoalkaloids, compounds that make potatoes turn green and are potentially toxic. When potatoes begin sprouting, they develop eyes, which generally begin as small, reddish-white lumps that quickly become centimeter-long growths. The part of a potato plant that we eat is its tuber, and the tuber stores extra nutrients until the spring, when it converts these nutrients to energy and starts growing sprouts. The potato tuber stores extra nutrients.
This may not be the case for ordinary potatoes, as well as for other food vegetables in the family Solanaceae, which produce toxins such as glycoalkaloids and solanine. In this article, we answer whether sprouted sweet potatoes are safe to eat, what toxins they may contain, how to store your sweet potatoes to keep them from sprouting, and which recipes are best made with sweet potatoes.
Can I still use potatoes that have sprouted?
Recent sprouting potatoes are still safe to eat as long as you remove the sprouts, despite the unpleasant appearance. Simply snapping them off with your fingers will accomplish this. The sprouts shouldn’t be consumed since they contain harmful glycoalkaloids such as solanine and chaconine.
What to do with a sweet potato that has sprouted?
You must divide your sprouting sweet potatoes into slips that will be planted. To accomplish this, gently twist each sprout away from the sweet potato with your hands. Each sprout should be placed in a shallow dish with the water covering the lower half of the stem and the leaves drooping over the edge.
When not to eat sweet potato?
Discard your sweet potato if it is leaking, mushy and mushy, discolored, odorous, or has a lot of sprouts. You may either chop off the sprouting section, prepare it right away, and eat it, if there are just a few sprouts and its solid form is still retained or you can plant it.