Can I eat the berries?

[zeroma]

I discovered berries on Yukon Gold this year. At first I thought it had crossed with a tomato! Didn't know what they were.

My daughter send me some info saying stuff like No this is not a seed, can't be planted. Well this site has proven that to be wrong!

So is the berry something one could eat? If so, what would you make with them? How do they taste, or would they be too high in the toxin associated with the green skin from too much sun?

[JamesL]

I don't grow potatoes, but I grew up in Long Island potato country and worked on many a potato farm moving irrigation pipe as a kid.
Unless something has changing with respect to varietal differences, my understanding always was that they are loaded with alkaloids and therefore toxic.

[Tom Wagner]

All potato berries, even when they are fully ripe and aromatic, are toxic. The alkaloid, glycoalkaloids, solanine...whatever you want to call the chemicals are there to protect the fruit from wholesale consumption. The bitterness alone would make you spit them out, but once they are eaten to a certain very small amount can lead to stomach or intestinal bleeding, etc.

A fully ripe potato berry can be very pleasant to the nose, and some varieties more than others.

[joseph]

I tasted potato berried last winter, several months after harvest. They had turned yellow and soft. I would classify them as edible. They didn't have the slightest bit of bitterness about them. I wouldn't say that about a green potato berry though!!!!

[zeroma]

Thank you, especially Tom! I figured as much, but now I know! The expert has spoken.

[Tom Wagner]

I somewhat concur with Joseph about the seemingly edible nature of a ripe, soft potato berry. Seems to have a lower sensation of the solanine complex. However, my instinct is to say it is still toxic in some measure...bitterness put aside. Edible is not the choice of a word for the potato berry. To err on the side of safety, I will offer a no on this subject and suggest a review of the information from the internet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_poisonous_plants

Potato (Solanum tuberosum). Potatoes contain toxic compounds known as glycoalkaloids, of which the most prevalent are solanine and chaconine. Solanine is also found in other members of the Solanaceae plant family, which includes Atropa belladonna ("deadly nightshade") and Hyoscyamus niger ("henbane") (see entries below). The concentration of glycoalkaloid in wild potatoes suffices to produce toxic effects in humans. The toxin affects the nervous system, causing headaches, diarrhea and intense digestive disturbances, cramps, weakness and confusion, and in severe cases coma and death. Poisoning from cultivated potatoes occurs very rarely however, as the toxic compounds in the potato plant are, in general, concentrated in the green portions of the plant and in the fruits,[16] and cultivated potato varieties contain lower toxin levels.[17] Cooking at high temperatures (over 170 °C or 340 °F) also partly destroys the toxin. However, exposure to light, physical damage, and age increase glycoalkaloid content within the tuber,[18] the highest concentrations occurring just underneath the skin. Tubers which are exposed to light turn green from chlorophyll synthesis, thus giving a visual clue as to areas of the tuber that may have become more toxic; however, this does not provide a definitive guide, as greening and glycoalkaloid accumulation can occur independently of each other. Some varieties of potato contain greater glycoalkaloid concentrations than others; breeders developing new varieties test for this, and sometimes have to discard an otherwise promising cultivar. Breeders try to keep solanine levels below 200 mg/kg (200 ppmw). However, when these commercial varieties turn green, even they can approach concentrations of solanine of 1000 mg/kg (1000 ppmw). The U.S. National Toxicology Program suggests that the average American consume at most 12.5 mg/day of solanine from potatoes (the toxic dose is actually several times this, depending on body weight). Douglas L. Holt, the State Extension Specialist for Food Safety at the University of Missouri, notes that no reported cases of potato-source solanine poisoning have occurred in the U.S. in the last 50 years, and most cases involved eating green potatoes or drinking potato-leaf tea

http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/hortn...atopotato.html


Tomato-like Fruit on Potato Plants
This article was published originally on 7/2/2004
Byline:
by Richard Jauron, Department of Horticulture

Occasionally gardeners are surprised to find small, round, green, tomato-like fruit on their potato plants. These fruit are not the result of cross-pollination with tomatoes. They are the true fruit of the potato plant. The edible tubers are actually enlarged, underground stems. Normally, most potato flowers dry up and fall off the plants without setting fruit. A few flowers do produce fruit. The variety 'Yukon Gold' produces fruit more heavily than most varieties

However, the same article says:

The potato fruit are of no value to the gardener. Potato fruit, as well as the plant itself, contain relatively large amounts of solanine. Solanine is a poisonous alkaloid. The small fruit should not be eaten. Since potatoes don't come true from seed, no effort should be made to save the seed.

What is funny to folks like Joseph and myself, who grow potatoes from potato berries...TPS...we value the fruits and couldn't care less about whether or not the potatoes don't come true from seed. Hah!

[joseph]

Yup. Potatoes can come true at any time: Plant of clone of the tuber!!!!

To my tastebuds, a supposedly edible solanum fruit like Garden Huckleberry is definitely poisonous. Tastes way too nasty to consider eating.

[TZ-OH6]

On a related tangent, I read where potatoes were first rejected by the English because (roughly as I remember it) the green tops were served to Queen Elizabeth and her people instead of the tubers and everyone got sick.

But that is not a common story AFAIK, so I wonder if it is just made up.

[Doug9345]

I suspect that it's made up. I can see some novel food being served by a cook to a queen without someone having eaten it before, particularly when the penalty was most likely to be executed.

[joseph]

It took a long time for Europeans and especially for American Yankees to adopt the tomato as being edible. It was still considered poisonous by the settlers that homesteaded my farm.