Community Chat

[RedTop]

Responding to the OP as to bad potatoes.   

This time of year my trucker daughter is hauling mainly apples, potatoes and onions, from WA, ID and CO.

All of these products are in COLD storage in huge warehouses.  My daughter must wear a winter weight jacket and gloves when she is watching her product being loaded.   The bags of potatoes you buy in the grocery store are hand stacked on pallets as high as 6 ft., then wrapped in plastic to keep them together.   Those pallets are then loaded in the trailer.  It is not unusual for my daughter to do several pickups at different warehouses, in different states, in order to fill her trailer.   Her running weight fully loaded is usually around 79,000 lbs.   

It takes 2 1/2 days for my daughter and her co-driver to cross the US, and bring their load to the yard of the company they work for, so that an east coast driver can deliver it to the next destination.  

As soon as the potato leaves the storage warehouse, conditions start changing, which in turn causes deterioration and rot.  The potatoes are transported inside a climate controlled trailer, but that temperature is not the same as the long term storage warehouse.   The bag of potatoes you buy may well have been at the bottom of the pallet, with hundreds of pounds of potatoes piled on top of it, and bounced over 3000 miles before it reached your grocery store.   

Apples, potatoes, and onions do not store well stacked on top of each other.   Right now I have 100 lbs each of onions and potatoes in different corners of my garage.   They are in single layers in cardboard boxes, and will be fine until the garage warms up in May.   

[chickenbutt]

Oh wow!  That's actually pretty huge!  I've read that you should never store onions near apples or potatoes.  Maybe some others too, but that's all I remember.  So, transporting them together seems like a really bad idea.

[Irshgrl31201]

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@Tinkrbl44 wrote:

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@Noel7 wrote:

Years ago, there was a WW recipe going around that we all tried.  I loved it then and I still do.  I go years forgetting about it, then I'm reminded and make it:

Take half a baked potato, break up the inside a little with your fork, top with up to 1/2 cup of cottage cheese and eat.

I love that!  And I'm not necessarily a big fan of cottage cheese, but I love the potato half with Safeway cottage cheese with chives, which is low fat and small curd.  Or you could just add sliced green onions to cottage cheese.

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@Noel7

If cottage cheese with chives isn't available, you can use plain cottage cheese and top with a TBSP or two of your favorite salsa.

Thanks for the sweet potato/yam info.   At the grocery store I wouldn't be able to tell the difference if they didn't have signs!   

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I love them with greek yogurt and chives. 

[golding76]

Lately, I have been having trouble with regular yellow onions.  Even if they appear sound on the outside and fresh-looking, I find that they oftentimes grate into mushiness.  What's with that?

Some potatoes have gone bad, but they were spuds I bought as individuals.  Only last week did I return to buying potatoes by the bag.  I'm nearly finished this bag of Yukon Golds, and so far, so good.

[Puzzle Piece]

@golding76 I've had the same thing happen with the onions.

Potatoes - Well, it's only the two of us so I don't need to buy large bags of potatoes.  I usually refrigerate mine so they do last until used. 

Maybe someone could write a letter of complaint to the farmers.

[kelsey17]

I definately noticed at my regular food store that the potatoes (individuals) have been in terrible shape in the last year..............like said by others, bruised , damaged, etc.

Not sure why

[forsythia1]

That is my take on it also.  

They have been in storage too long.

[PamelaSue72]

I buy a 5-pound bag of potatoes, put half of them into my potato basket in the kitchen and then store the other half in an ice chest in our basement.

I usually buy onions in 3-pound bags Buy One, Get One. Store one bag in the kitchen and store the other bag on a hook in the basement. For onions from our garden in the fall, I do wrap them in old pantyhose and put them on the hook. It seems to work out well for us.

I use russets for mashed potatoes and for baked potatoes. I use Yukon Golds or reds for potato salad. Lately, though, especially with russets, I have noticed that they're going bad quicker than normal. It's almost like they go through a "season" where they go bad quicker. 

Like many, we have switched over to using a lot of sweet potatoes or yams. I've even made potato salad with a mixture of sweet and white potatoes. And nothing is better than roasted chunks of sweet potatoes in a wee bit of olive oil and a scant sprinking of kosher salt.. 

[madzonie]

Have you tried joining a CSA @madzonie (community supported agriculture)? We do eat meat in our family but we eat a lot more than the recommended daily servings for fruits and vegetables and the quality of the fruits and vegetables we get from our CSA is just great.

Thanks Irishgrl31201.  We live in an area that doesn't afford us the luxury of this type of purchasing options.

[madzonie]

Wanted to thank everyone for the interesting posts and info.  Right after I posted I had something come up that kept me away from my computer so wasn't able to respond or reply.

RedTop  -  great info on the shipping side of things!!  That makes a lot of sense.  I know that how "fresh" food is handled can make a huge difference in the end quality when you finally purchase it in the store.

I love sweet potatoes.  Hubby doesn't like them at all, so we do buy white potatoes now and then.

I bought some of those so-called "storage" bags for potatoes & onions....made out of fabric...and found they didn't help at all.  

Again, thanks for all the comments and suggestions.