On Tue, 5 Oct 1999, Alan Lundin wrote: > > Growing up, I would always scarf a whole potato or two that my mom had > > just peeled and gobbled them down; sometimes I probably ate several raw > > potatoes I loved the taste and texture and had absolutly no ill effects! > > I not only ate lots and lots of raw potatos as a child, > I went for long periods of time in college where raw > potatos were all I had to eat. Turns out I didn't die, > nor did I even get the slightest bit sick. I have to say, this is pretty interesting. I don't know much about potatoes, and I have no experience eating them raw. I took Ray and Troy's word for it that raw potatoes are inedible, but we have a surprising number of people here who have eaten them raw without any discernible ill effects. If people can eat them raw now without getting sick, then presumably people in the Pleistocene could have done so, unless the potatoes available to them were toxic in ways that modern potatoes are not. This is certainly a possibility, but do we have any actual information about it? Another thing about potatoes is that they are easy to cook with minimal technology: you can impale them on a stick and roast them over a fire, or drop them right into the coals. If the availability of fire goes back as far as some researchers are suggesting then people may have been eating potatoes and other tubers for a very long time indeed. Personally, I am not inclined to eat potatoes just because they are so high in carbohydrate. Todd Moody [log in to unmask]