Can You Eat Green Potatoes? What the Green Means and What to Do

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At first I couldn't even see the green. Next to the other potato it was clearly green, and without it there wasn't enough potato for the stew.

This keeps happening to me. I usually buy this type of potato for roasting, and I use red potatoes for mash. I love stir-fried shredded potato, even though I can't cut it fine enough. If I don't finish the bag, a day or two later, or a bit longer, the potatoes turn green or start to sprout. So I never dare buy many, and I've always wondered why they don't last.

Why Potatoes Turn Green

Potatoes grow underground and normally never see light. In a kitchen they get window light, kitchen lights, and in the supermarket the light of the chiller cabinet. Under that light the skin starts making chlorophyll and turns green.

Chlorophyll is harmless. What matters is what happens inside at the same time. Light also pushes the potato to make more glycoalkaloids, natural compounds that include alpha-solanine and alpha-chaconine. In high amounts they taste bitter, can burn the mouth and can upset your stomach. The Food Safety Information Council says the levels in potatoes are usually low, and higher levels are found in sprouts and in the peel of potatoes that taste bitter. Green is a warning sign, since it tells you light has got to the potato.

Steaming, boiling and stir-frying don't remove these compounds completely.

So Can You Eat It?

If the green is light, small and only on the skin of a firm potato, cut the green away along with the flesh just under it, peeling thickly, and check that the inside looks normal. The Food Safety Information Council says slightly green potatoes are usually fine once the green parts are removed from the skin and flesh, and that you shouldn't eat the sprouts. Healthline says peeling and trimming removes most of the toxin, and that sprouts and eyes should come out too.

Don't eat the potato if:

1. It's clearly green
2. It has a lot of sprouts
3. The skin is wrinkled or rotting
4. The inside looks wrong when you cut it open
5. It tastes bitter, numbing or burning after cooking

The Council's advice is to never eat a cooked potato that still tastes bitter. If you feel sick after eating one, get medical advice.

The two questions that decide it are how much of the potato is green and whether it tastes bitter.

Why They Go Green So Fast

Light is the cause, and where you keep them decides how fast it happens. A windowsill, a balcony, a counter under the kitchen light and a clear plastic bag all count. The soil on mine hid the green for a week.

Potatoes also keep better dry, so wash them when you're about to cook, not before storing. The Council also suggests keeping them away from onions, which can make them sprout faster. If you don't have a cool, dark spot, Healthline suggests buying only what you plan to use, which is why buying small is a sensible habit.

How to Store Potatoes

Three things matter: dark, dry and cool. Keep them off windowsills and balconies, and out of clear bags where light can reach them. A paper bag or a ventilated box in a cool cupboard works well.

Don't keep them in the fridge. The UK Food Standards Agency says potatoes stored in the fridge form more sugars, which can mean higher levels of acrylamide when the food is cooked. That matters most for roasting and frying at high temperatures. The FSA recommends a cool, dark place above about 6°C instead.

For more on making food last, there's how to stop wasting food. Potatoes and tomatoes are both nightshades, and bumps on tomato stems is another case where a plant looks wrong and is usually fine.

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