Potato glycoal kaloids: Some unanswered questions

Despite its status as a food of global importance, the potato tuber contains toxic glycoalkaloids (GA) that cause sporadic outbreaks of poisoning in humans. Probably because GA are natural compounds present in a staple food that has been used for millenia, their effects on humans have not been in-vestigated as thoroughly as they would have been had they been synthetic additives-the use of which is stringently regu-lated. As a result, a number of lingering uncertainties remain concerning both the presence of GA in potato tubers and potato products and their effects on humans. As one of the world’s major agricultural crops, the cultivated potato (Sohum tuberosum L.) is consumed daily by millions of people from diverse cultural back-grounds. Potatoes are grown in-80 % of all countries, and worldwide production stands in excess of 300 mil-lion tonnes per annum, a figure exceeded only by wheat, maize and rice’. Although the success of the potato as a starchy staple has been enhanced by breeding for re-sistance to diseases and pests, early domestication was probably more concerned with reducing or eliminating the levels of the natural bitter-tasting steroidal toxicants in the tubers, known as glycoalkaloids (GA). Despite the fact that levels of GA are much lower in modem cultivars than in wild progenitors, if the potato were to be introduced today as a novel food, it is quite possible that its use would not be approved because of the pres-ence of these potentially toxic compounds. GA were first identified in potatoes by Baup2 early in the 19th century, since when a vast body of information on their chemistry, biochemistry, distribution, physiology and toxicology has accrued, and been reviewed3”. Th