Do I have to peel red potatoes before baking them?

Question

I recently made some potato wedges in the oven. I shared this recipe with my relative, who admonished me for not properly peeling the red potatoes before baking them.

She claims that there are disease and viruses that lie on the skin, so peeling it will get rid of it. I bake it, so I assume that even the high heat in the oven would kill bacteria and germs. And besides that, I make sure to wash potatoes thoroughly before cooking them.

Am I in the wrong here? Should I have properly peeled the potato wedges before baking them? Personally I feel they add more flavor, and from all the pictures on the recipes online, it seems they also do not peel it.

Answer 1

No peeling is needed.

A good wash and proper cooking will handle all of your food safety needs.

Answer 2

Absolutely no peeling necessary.

In addition to the above advice, if you (or anyone else) is overly concerned about 'germs' and the like on the skin, use a small plastic-bristled scrub brush to clean the potatoes properly under running water. I usually don't, unless they are really gritty from the field or have huge divots on the surface where water may not easily reach.

The peel improves the taste as well as the healthful perks.

Answer 3

I rarely peel my potatoes, I love the flavor and nutritional benefits (and ease) of retaining the peelings. If skin is too old or green, then I'll peel.

This discusses the concern of green potatoes:

Are Green Potatoes OK?

PS: I always wash my potatoes with a vegetable brush under water; I always wash all produce.

Answer 4

Not only is peeling not needed for potatoes, but in my educated opinion peeling potatoes is not recommended.

As long as you follow proper food etiquette like washing your hands and properly washing the foods before you cook them, as well as cooking at the proper temperature, then you do not need to worry about bacteria.

Make sure to wash the potato well, under water, and preferably with a vegetable brush.

Further, it is unlikely that any bacteria could survive the high temperatures inside an oven anyway.

My last point is that, in my opinion, the skin is the most flavorful part of the potato.

On the other hand, beware of green sprouts on potatoes specifically. Make sure to remove any green sprouts, because they contain a dangerous and potentially deadly toxin called solanine. See this post for more details on the green sprouts: Is it safe to eat potatoes that have sprouted?

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History Sidenote:

It's true that in the former USSR it was embedded into the culture to peel potatoes before eating them. However, this was not due to any nutritional danger, because the peels were still used and consumed separately. According to the book "Potato Ontology: Surviving Postsocialism in Russia" by Nancy Ries, on Page 195:

"Family narratives powerfully transmit potato-peeling morality. When I told her I was writing about potatoes, Marina, an erudite older friend, a Doctor of Social Sciences, plunged into a war story. She and her mother were evacuated to Kazakhstan, while her aunts remained in Moscow. When she returned after the war, the aunts told her their food stories. Always on the verge of starvation, her aunts did not waste even those dirty, unappetizing peels but saved and mashed them into pancakes." [Emphasis added.]

So, as you see, even the Soviet USSR, who emphatically peeled potatoes, still ate the potato skins (even the "dirty, unappetizing" ones), so the potato skins were not peeled because they were unhealthy, but rather merely out of tradition.

Answer 5

No, I don't think you need to peel them. That said, in some parts of the former ussr, peeling potatoes is (claimed to be) a must. So your relative's sentiment isn't without some precedent, at least.

Answer 6

As a counterpoint to the other answers:

Eating potato skin is generally not recommended, at least in Germany.

There are two main concerns:

• Solanine
• biocide treamtment (specifically anti-germination treatment)

Solanine

In Germany, most official sources caution against eating potato skin. The main concern is that the skin may contain elevated levels of solanine, a naturally occuring glycoalkaloid poison. For example, the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (Bundesinstitut für Risikobewertung) recommends:

Wenn Verbraucherinnen und Verbraucher Kartoffeln mit Schalen verzehren möchten, sollten sie hierfür grundsätzlich nur unverletzte, frische Kartoffeln verwenden. Insbesondere kleine Kinder sollten keine ungeschälten Kartoffeln essen.

English:

If consumers want to eat potatoes with their skin, they should only use undamaged, fresh potatoes. Small children in particular should not eat unpeeled potatoes.

Speisekartoffeln sollten niedrige Gehalte an Glykoalkaloiden (Solanin) enthalten - Potatoes for human consumption should have low levels of solanine, BfR, 2018-04-24

The problem with solanine is that the quantity contained in potatoes depends on many factors (type of potato, growing conditions, age, storage). In addition to that, the level of solanine that is tolerable varies from person to person.

Therefore, the "safe" recommendation is to avoid solanine as far as possible, and that means discarding the skin, because solanine is more concentrated there. For example, this paper analyzed potatoes, and found that the skin contains easily 10 times more solanine than the interior part.

In practice, modern potatoes have less solanine than older varieties - in particular, the total solanine content (including the skin) is low enough that it is tolerable for most people. Therefore many people regularly consume potato skins without issues. However, there have been cases of serious (even fatal) poisoning in the past, some of which are listed in the document above. While often the potatoes had been stored improperly, at least some of these poisonings probably could have been mitigated by peeling the potatoes.

Anti-germination treatment

In storage, potatoes have a tendency to germinate (sprout), which spoils them. Therefore, the potato skin is routinely treated with biocides to prevent this. When eating the skin, these biocides will be ingested, which is a health concern.

Whether this is a problem in practice will depend on the exact treatment, of course. For example, in the European Union the substances approved for treating potatoes are believed to not be harmful even when eaten with the skin. In particular, for certified organic potatoes only Ethylen and essential oils are authorized. In that case the biocides should not pose a problem.

There is also a separate question for this point:

Risk of eating potato skins with anti-germination treatment

Summary

If:

• you are a healthy adult
• the potatoes are of a modern variety low in solanine
• they have been grown and stored properly
• they do not have green skin or a bitter taste
• they have not been treated with a harmful biocide
• you eat moderate quantities (<500g of potatoes per day)

the skin is very unlikely to harm you.

However, if any of these conditions are not met, there is a certain risk, which is hard to quantify. In particular, eating just the skins may be risky, since you could potentially eat much more skin than when eating it along with the rest of the potato.

Answer 7

The skin of a potato concentrates not just nutrients but also many of the chemicals used during the cultivation process (pesticides, fertilisers, etc). It is therefore preferable to peel them, unless you're cooking organic potatoes.

source

Answer 8

No, you do not need to peel red potatoes before baking. As others have already said, good basic food hygiene washing and scrubbing plus removal of any eyes or sprouts suffices. I wonder if the emphasis is on red potatoes as opposed to white or black or other colours? I suppose your relative could have been concerned you would not recognise any green discolouration? On the other hand, people never ate the peel when I was a child, except when baking potatoes outdoors in a camp fire or on bonfire night. It is a relatively new culinary tradition to leave the peel on for baking, boiling and roasting. I think you should keep that in mind when hearing such warnings. And as you yourself say, all the recipes for potato wedges call for keeping the skin on as an integral part of the dish. Without the skin they would be potato pieces or slices, not wedges in my opinion.

Answer 9

When I was a kid, I would eat the potato peels of our home grown potatoes, as my Mom peeled them. If it's dangerous, it's been dormant for 50 years:)