I know the labor force and supply chains have been irrevocably disrupted over the past few years. I know prices are going up. I know people are refusing to work unless they’re adequately compensated & regarded as human beings that exist outside of the workplace. I know there are big problems in the world, but I’m about to drill down on a small one… because that’s what I do.
Did we as a society just decide it's OK to sell green #potatoes now? Like, ¾ of every bag of potatoes is green. I mean, that's bad, right? Did they fire the #potato checker at every farm or processing/packaging plant? Do the machines need fixed? 🥔🥔🥔
Social media has told me I’m not alone. We buy a lot of potatoes. We grow potatoes. I am a huge fan of carbs in potato form. I like potatoes prepared in a plethora of ways. I like to use the whole potato. I rarely peel unless I’m mashing them and even then I leave a good bit of skin.
Studies have estimated that peeling a potato at home removes at least 30% of its toxic plant compounds. However, that still leaves up to 70% of the compounds in the flesh (4Trusted Source).
This means that in potatoes with very high solanine concentrations, the peeled potato might still contain enough to make you sick.
Unfortunately, boiling and other cooking methods, including baking, microwaving or frying, do not significantly reduce solanine levels. Thus, they won’t make green potatoes any safer to eat (9).
If a potato has just a few small green spots, you can cut them out or peel the potato. Because solanine is also produced in higher concentrations around the eyes, or sprouts, of a potato, they should be removed as well.
However, if the potato is very green or tastes bitter (a sign of solanine), it’s best to throw it away (10).
Green Potatoes: Harmless or Poisonous?
So, it’s not always a case of “just cut off the green parts.”
Apparently, I’m not alone in noticing I have seen a lot more green potatoes lately. Are they sitting in warehouses, on trucks, or in stores too long? Are they getting exposed to too much light or heat? Are they coming out green?
Money is tight everywhere. A certain amount of green every once in a while may be acceptable… but I can’t handle ¼ of every bag being waste at the same time prices are going up. I mean, I like to add to the compost bin, but not that quickly.
Unfortunately for Alsum, they just happened to be the producer of the latest bag that we purchased. Thanks, Aldi & Instacart.
So, I reached out via email.
Salutations Spud Specialists,
I hope this email finds you well. Living up to stereotypes, my Irish ancestors would be proud at my levels of potato consumption. I’ll eat them just about any way they can be cooked. Keel me over with carbs, please.
I have noticed a trend with potatoes over the last few years and it really has my gears turning. You are not alone. This applies to every bag of potatoes I have bought in the last year, no matter the source. Today I opened the bag which was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. I get a ridiculous amount of green potatoes in each and every bag I purchase. Today’s 5 lb. bag contained 8 potatoes which I planned to bake, and 2 were green all over the outside and thus unsuitable for baking. Could I skin & fry or boil or mash them? Sure. The vitamins and taste are in the skin though… as I’m sure you are aware.
I feel like if ¼ of every bag of potatoes I buy is unsuitable for consumption and I’m playing by the pound, there ought to be some rebate. The green skin is poisonous, no? I will be reaching out to all of the producers of bags of potatoes that I buy from now on with similar inquiries.
Did you all fire your potato inspectors at the farm or the processing or packaging plants? Do you have a machine that needs fine tuned? Are you willfully and knowingly shipping toxic tubers?
The cost of everything is going up, and I understand that… but I can’t accept lowering quality standards at the same time. Is it a Big Potato conspiracy?
I hope you had a restful and prosperous Thanksgiving. I stuffed myself with fresh mashed potatoes… my secret ingredients are turkey broth and buttermilk!
I look forward to your thoughts on this green ‘tater epidemic. How can we move forward into a ripe future?
Ya gotta peel for real,
-Eric
They were quick to reply!
Hi Eric,
We appreciate you reaching out to us via our website regarding your purchase of Alsum 5# potatoes. Your genuine concern to help us be better is appreciated. We are sorry to hear of this unpleasant experience. As you know, potatoes are perishable and while we do our very best to grow, source, grade, pack and deliver fresh, quality potatoes to your grocery store, no system is perfect.
Lighter skin potatoes like yellow potatoes have a greater susceptibility to turn green due to their lighter skin. For our yellow packed potatoes, we use a light blocker bag to prevent the potatoes from greening. As you know throughout the supply chain there are many factors that may cause the potato to turn green. It could happen at harvest if the tuber is above the ground during harvest, storage conditions in potato bin that might be exposed to light or if the bag of potatoes is sitting on the shelf for an extended period on the retail shelf. In our packaging facility, we do our best on our pack line with our grading team members to toss any potato with greening. We also have machines that are programmed to discard any green potatoes. Additionally, in our warehouse we minimize light exposure of potatoes by keeping the lights dim and rotate out packed potatoes within 72 hours from pack to store.
If russet potatoes turn green means they were likely sitting under light for an extended period to cause the greening on all the russet potatoes.
I’ve included a link to FAQ’s our website to scroll to the section that talks about greening of potatoes, the causes and what to do if you unfortunately experience it: https://alsum.com/faqs/
I have passed along your feedback to m QC and to help us investigate this matter further. Could you provide the following:
Was this a 5# bag of yellow or russet potatoes?
What is the 6-digit code on the kwik lok? It’s the plastic closure. This allows us to trace back to the day they were packed.
When did you purchase the product and from what store and city?
I will have to write back. I didn’t save the packaging after I found their website & email address. I’m really not looking for money back… I just want to be able to buy bags of potatoes without green ones again.
So, I’ve written about Metallica before (twice). I can see all this shenanigans about the new single. Honestly, I like it. Hating on Metallica has become low hanging fruit at best to edgelording or gatekeeping at worst, As fans, we all poke fun at our favorite stuff. I’m looking at you, Star Wars and Danzig people.
Lux Æterna
I found the new one to be a banger. It feels thrashy like KIll ‘Em All, with pop sensibilities like the black album.
I recently posted a reply to a comment of my posting of the video on Facebook, but the original comment was deleted by the author and my subsequent reply has been lost to the 1’s & 0’s I guess.
The gist of what I was getting at was as follows…
To say metallica has lost or hasn’t been good for decades? I get it, and it’s certainly a valid opinion. People have been saying they “sold out” since Ride the Lightning.
Metallica didn’t hit my radrar until …And Justice for All came out. I hadn’t listened to anything much beyond Top 40 radio or oldies at that point. I worked backwards and was caught up in the magic of Kill ‘Em All and Master of Puppets. I wasn’t aware of the punk scene in 1977 when I was born, but I wouldn’t call myself less of a Misfits fan because I wasn’t around? You could probably assume with great certainty that each Metallica album brought in new fans upon it’s release.
I could also argue that Metallic’s output is quantifiably better than most when compared to their peers or contemporaries.
Say in sheer influence in heavy music, Black Sabbath comes the closest. (OK, maybe Led Zeppelin too, but I’ll go with Sabbath here as Zeppelin ended.) You could say that there drop-offs in interest post-Ozzy & again post-Dio. Does that mean that Iommi and Geezer are any less lauded in the riff lord category? I don’t think so. Their early output is so epic and influential, they could release an album of pip farting on a snare drum and it shouldn’t detract from their legacy. James still writes killer riffs. Kirk is still a master of stringing together wah-fueled madness. Lars is a great arranger and cunning businessman. I wish they hadn’t done Newsted dirty, but Rob seems like a great fit.
In 1991/1992, Metallica and Guns N’ Roses where arguably the most lucrative and widely known hard rock acts on the planet. They were two of my favorites at the time and I still have fond memories of that epic show at Three Rivers Stadium. Look at what both bands have put out since then. Sure, Metallica dropped a Lulu turd in the sandbox, but you can scoop that out and keep playing. Guns N’ Roses pissed into the swimming pool with Chinese Democracy and everyone had to get out of the pool. This is coming from a guy that liked The Spaghetti Incident?. I liked Death Magnetic & Hardwired to Self-Destruct. Even St. (B)Anger got better with time. James, Lars, Kirk, & Rob seem on top of their game. Maybe the rhythmic chugs are more of a gallop these days. Slash has improved so much over time, Duff got sober. Axl’s voice went out the window with his grasp of reality & last vestiges of sanity. I couldn’t even tell you who else was in the band, to the end that I actually just miss Velvet Revolver at this point.
Megadeth? Sure, Dave Mustaine can arguably play guitar better than James or Kirk… may be better at writing or arranging songs… has definitely put out more albums in the same timespan… But who has heard them? There have been a revolving cast of players, each successively thrown under the bus, probably the same Greyhound that drove Dave from NYC home to San Francisco. Seriously, the only press that they have received in the last decade that wasn’t Dave commenting on Metallica has been Dave Ellefson’s whacking it on webcam. This led Dave M. to discount all of the former’s contributions over the years.
AC/DC can make the same album over & over again for decades and it can be great… but not everyone can get away with that.
I’m anxious to hear your thoughts in the comments. What do you think? I’m looking forward to the new album. Will I still poke fun at Metallica? You bet I will. Will I enjoy the rest their new stuff? I sure hope so.
Check out my Metallica related playlists. I had a good one on Spotify that I am in the process of rebuilding for Amazon Music.
I’ve had some minor yet nagging health issues lately, and mazes help me sort of zone out or meditate. I posted them on Instagram, & my account for just mazes. I thought I would collect & post them here as mazes seem to me something that brings page hits to the blog.
Check some out. Try to solve, post, & tag me on social media. Print & use a pencil like it’s 1999, or do it right on your screen like it’s the year 2000!
Halloween has the coolest music. I have made some playlists on various platforms over the years, Amazon & Spotify being the most recent. I thought I’d not only put them all in once place, but also share. I’m always adding to them and changing. I’m listening to the 1st list now.
The maze bug bit me lately. Thought I’d share here. These are scans from my phone, so not the highest quality maybe? At any rate.. post ’em if you solve ’em!
This stated as a Twitter post/thread, and is ending up here.
Streaming services like @spotify and @amazonmusic need a feature that adds in related bands. I can tell @alexa99 to play Rancid, but I also wouldn't mind Lars Frederikson and the Bastards being in there, or Transplants, or Tim's solo stuff. Or even Rancid covers.
Streaming services like Spotify and Amazon Music need a feature that adds in related bands. I can tell Alexa to play Rancid, but I also wouldn’t mind Lars Frederiksen and the Bastards being in there, or Transplants, or Tim’s solo stuff. Or even Rancid covers.
Streaming needs to get smarter already. The Spotify “super grouper” feature picks the absolute worst songs from each selected artist.
Of course, I could just make a playlist. But, with a band like Blink-182 in the news, I wanted to dig into Angels & Airwaves, Boxcar Racer, & +44. I don’t know which songs to add to a playlist.
Also, if I want to listen to ALL, I could want to listen to the Descendents too. What about Guns N’ Roses, Velvet Revolver, Izzy Stradlin and the Ju Ju Hounds, Loaded, Neurotic Boy Outsiders, Slash, Slash’s Snakepit, Miles Kennedy & The Conspirators, all of it.
Snuff, Duncan Redmonds, Dogpiss, Guns ‘n’ Wankers would be another example. As would Misfits, Danzig, Samhain, Son of Sam, etc.
Saying one phrase or typing one into a searchboith to be able to bring them all up.
Is that bandtoband.com still a thing? That could be a reference for connected bands.
Teenage Bottlerocket & the Lillingtons. Screeching Weasel & The Riverdales. Ann Beretta, Foundation, Rob Huddleston, & Sixer. Metallica & Megadeth. Green Day, Foxboro Hot Tubs, The Network, & 300 other bands.
Even unrelated bands. Can I just say “Alexa play songs by Flogging Molly and The Dropkick Murphys” and not confuse the shit out of it?
I have an Ozzy/Black Sabbath playlist on Spotify with a ton of great stuff, including a plethora of killer covers. It took time to curate. I have similar ones for Metallica, Misfits, Guns N’ Roses, & Rancid. I need to transition them all to Amazon Music… we have the family account there since we’re using the firestick. I like Spotify’s suggestions better… but I can listen to Amazon sans commercials. I refuse to subscribe to another service, sorry Spotify. Oddly, most of those transfer services have a paywall once you surpass an unreasonably low amount of songs. I don’t even my remember my Pandora logins.
I would think AI could have probably pretty quickly picked up what I was putting down & fleshed it out.
I wouldn’t expect it to go this deep, but it could link Flogging Molly to Fastway.
With Hip Hop too… say all the solo projects of the members of N.W.A.? All that in one would be awesome.
Does something like this exist and I’m just not aware of it? I miss WinAmp.
I need to rip all kinds of older, local, & obscure stuff and put it on my own damn streaming server. I understand Google Music would let you do that before it collapsed? There is really a lot of stuff out there that you can’t stream, and some of my favorites don’t have their entire catalogs available to stream.
Help me out, audiofiles, music nerds, and techno geeks!
If you don’t know about Pat Finnerty, you should. He has a YouTube channel and he does a series of videos titled What Makes This Song Stink? among others (Now there’s a podcast too!). He has some witty observations, harsh truths, and is just lampooning guitar guy videos on YouTube. The pedal mobile is a thing of genius and pure hilarious delight. He says what a lot of us are thinking. He catches some wild connections or callbacks. He takes a joke way too far, which has always been something I am a fan of. It’s defiant. It’s hilarious.
As someone who has made art for it to mostly serve as a creative outlet that happens to have a very small circle of people who may have enjoyed it to varying degrees… It’s nice to see this guy get traction.
Writing, recording, and performing your own stuff lends itself to a certain level of judgement of others’ art. There’s probably some narcissism in there, but not at an unhealthy level. It’s not necessarily mean spirited, but it can be. I remain humble and understand that my creative output is not for the masses. I cater to a very small crowd with very similar tastes and no hang-ups about production quality. You have to wonder though… on some stuff… Why is this objectively certifiable crap popular? It’s hard to pin. It’s hard to point out.
I have played with some awesome musicians that “get it.” I have encountered many who do not. We are not on the same page. You’re not wrong in your opinions, but then again… you are. Pat gets it. Pat & I would probably disagree on a lot of things…. but we’d both have arguments to back it up. I appreciate his overall music nerdiness.
So, I have blogged about it before, but that was more just the method. This time I actually measured stuff. Usually I just eyeball a bag of fresh green beans if they look good. Still don’t have a good name for it. Ham, Green Beans, & Potatoes? Ham , Beans, n’ Taters? Grandma’s Special? Daddy’s Favorite? Is it a soup or a stew? It’s delicious is what it is. I generally make enough to have a stunningly large amount of leftovers. I always try to get the ham bone, this time my son & I each got one. He’s a copycat.
Soup – In the spoon & soup in the bowl – and the post dinner text from my 9yo after she said there were too many beans and potatoes. 🤦♂️
Ingredients…
3 quarts water
2 Bone-In Ham Steaks, cubed. (makes about 16 cups / 4 quarts)
1 5 lb. bag of potatoes, cubed. (makes about 16 cups / 4 quarts)
2 “steam in bag” bags of green beans, snapped in ½ or ⅓ (makes about 8 cups / 2 quarts)
The “to taste” is just a few shakes usually. This recipe doesn’t really need any extra salt, so if I have a salt-free blend like Mrs. Dash or the Aldi equivalent, I use that. The bullion is according to directions, I think I measured it out right. I added too much water this time, but I think this measurement is still right. The beef & chicken bullion cubes and even the beer are completely unnecessary, but I feel like it adds a little to the broth. I use a big stock pot with a lid, and an 8-cup measuring cup for the big stuff.
Put your liquids & spices in the pot, put it on to boil, but don’t quite dime the knob.
Cube your ham, dump it in the pot.
Cube your potatoes (don’t peel them!), dump ’em in the pot.
Snap ends off your beans if you have any sus ones, snap them in to bite-size pieces if you want. Or chop them. Or don’t. Dump ’em in the pot.
Boil for 20 minutes.
Simmer for 20 minutes or even longer if you want. Let it cook down & get tasty.
Don’t taste it too early while it is hot and burn your tongue every time, because I definitely do not do that.
Serving suggestion – Serve it up with homemade bread (or store bought fresh baked) and butter.
Obviously, wash the beans & potatoes first. I think I broke down what you need & more details on the method the first time I wrote about this soup(stew?). I use fresh produce beans most often, but the bags are quick & easy to measure. This is also good with leftover ham from a holiday meal.
I like soups, I make them a lot. Well, I make them sometimes, when I have time. If you like this one, check these out:
![Metallica Fans: We want more sounds that sound like Kill 'Em All."
Metallica: [Releases "Lux Æterna"]
Metallica Fans: NO, NOT LIKE THAT!](https://aixelsyd13.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/picsart_22-11-30_18-49-04-262.jpg?w=520)
World (and Lunar) Domination 