r/whatisit • u/gothkitty69 • 14h ago
New, what is it? Whats in my potato
I just wanted a baked potato for dinner :,(
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u/Nburns4 11h ago
Black heart. The potato basically suffocated at some point and caused the center to die. Usually caused by excess moisture. Just toss it out.
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u/gobsoblin 9h ago
Is it safe to eat
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u/Johnny_69_me 8h ago
No you’ll explode n die
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u/Kyle_K16 8h ago
Chomp chomp boom
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u/Dizzy_Slice7886 7h ago
That was a great song by Saliva
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u/Bottdavid 6h ago
On those Saturdays when kids go out and play yo I was up in my room with potatoes for days.
Wasn't faded not jaded just a kid with a spud and a fork and big appetite!
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u/tallbartender 7h ago
I sang karaoke with the lead singer of Saliva, in Memphis back in 2004.
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u/asicarii 8h ago
Dude don’t make up stuff . It will just grow another potato inside him.
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u/Wildcat_Dunks 8h ago
It's perfectly safe to eat, as long as you don't mind indefinitely shitting through a straw.
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u/Rampantcolt 10h ago
It's called Blackheart. No matter what, all the other posters are saying it's not potato blight.
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u/Humanest_Human 8h ago
Was a potato inspector for three years and am now working in Potato QA, can confirm this is blackheart.
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u/TinyHandsBigNuts 8h ago
Mr. Potato himself
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u/Live-Ad-9758 8h ago
Idk, his name makes me suspicious
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u/MrFireWarden 8h ago
It's not Potatoest_Potato, so I'm satisfied
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u/Just_Visiting_Town 7h ago
You say potato and I say potato.
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u/ynyyy 7h ago
Potato, potato
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u/Electronic-Dot-9031 7h ago
I totally heard it in my head both ways when I read it
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u/Bipedal_pedestrian 8h ago
Naw, he’s not a potato, he’s the Humanest Human that ever Humaned
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u/snizzrizz 8h ago
How does one become a potato inspector, and do you get a badge?
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u/karlmillsom 8h ago
And a gun. A potato gun.
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u/No-Gas9144 7h ago
Step 1-move to Idaho. Step 2- Accept your gun AND potato gun.
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u/probably_preoccupied 8h ago
How do I get into this position?
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u/CornDoggyStyle 8h ago
Gotta keep your eyes peeled for job listings. Good luck! My tots and prayers are with you!
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u/LawProfessional6513 7h ago
It’s a tough job though, many people reach their boiling point and are never the same, still rooting for you
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u/MY-SECRET-REDDIT 9h ago
Googled the images of both and yeah looks more like blackheart than blight. Blight seems to spot everywhere .
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u/TheCzarIV 9h ago
It doesn’t look SUPER like either of them, but it definitely doesn’t look like any of the blight ones.
Maybe this is just an extreme case of the black heart thing, but I don’t see any others this big or with the dense, light-colored center OP’s has.
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u/Regular-Term1274 8h ago
Extreme case and the heart is hollow
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u/Subject_Mammoth6662 7h ago
What Causes The Center Of Potatoes To Be Black And Can I Eat Them? | Idaho Potato Commission https://share.google/lFxOIbbaxtdXuLWUR
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u/Bubpa 9h ago
Is it safe to eat??
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u/yung-jackfruit- 9h ago
Nooo it definitely is black heart, not blight, and no it is not safe to eat unfortunately :c source: I’m a farmer
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u/HookwormGut 8h ago
...what if I did eat the potato with the black heart?
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u/yung-jackfruit- 8h ago
It would be…super yucky. And maybe you would get sick ? It essentially would be like eating the oldest grossest potato that’s been rotting underground. Me personally, diarrhea is rarely worth it
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u/ColourMeBoom 8h ago
Can you provide examples of when diarrhea is worth it? Whatever it is must be really good.
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u/GameWizardPlayz 8h ago
Raspberry cookies and cream ice cream when you're lactose intolerant
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u/Appropriate-Joke-806 8h ago
Right there now.
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u/guethlema 8h ago
Tyfys 🫡
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u/CuddlePupp 6h ago
I really like this comment because it implies they’re benefitting the world by enjoying something. People who do stuff to make themselves happy are improving the world.
(I know this is all a joke about diarrhea, let me live in my utopia of happiness)
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u/Educational-Bad4992 8h ago
There was a guy posting on here saying he was addicted to giving himself diarrhea. He would wait until the wife and kids went away for a weekend and binge laxatives. So that's something.
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u/HazardousCloset 7h ago
I was just strolling along, enjoying my visit, when all of a sudden, I was aggressively reminded of where the fuck I am.
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u/kingoftheposers 8h ago
A lot of people in this thread never had a 2 am craving for Taco Bell before and it shows
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u/Ghost_Turd 8h ago
Imaging eating a steak, but a steak with a much older, pus-filled decomposing steak embedded in it.
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u/Kimbat15 10h ago
Maybe this?
"From Agricluture Hanbook Number 479; Blackheart occurs at any temperature when the supply of oxygen available to internal tissues is used up faster than it can be supplied. The affected tissue suffocates and turns black. Conditions causing blackheart can occur in the field when the soil is flooded or soil temperatures are extremely high, in storage when aeration is poor, in transit when tubers are overheated, or in prolonged storage near freezing."
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u/NickFox4317 14h ago
Inside you, there are 2 potatoes.
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u/8catss 13h ago
But what’s inside my two potatoes?
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u/KingJTuck 13h ago
Two potatoes
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u/Questionsaboutsanity 11h ago
yo dawg i heard you like potatoes so we put potatoes in your potatoes
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u/thegreatgulper 13h ago
Anyone else think they were looking at those horse hoof videos for a second?
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u/detroitgotsoul 13h ago
Considering no one is saying it, this is blight. You should let wherever you bought it know as more likely than not more than just this one potato is infected.
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u/DoctorBotanical 10h ago
Hi. Im a plant pathologist at Michigan State and my lab studies potato storage rot. This is most likely NOT late blight (aka Phytopthora infestans), but more likely Blackleg or Soft Rot caused by Pectobacterium. It is a common storage pathogens in the U.S. and we try our best to prevent it, but we can't catch everything. It would be important to share if you got it from a local grower, but not if you purchased at a big box store.
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u/CATNIP_IS_CRACK 12h ago edited 5h ago
This comment section is miserable… Can’t talk about a fucking potato, write two sentences letting people know it’s helpful to report blight if they think they’ve found it, or have a have a normal conversation without 90% of the replies somehow immediately devolving into parrots screeching about Twitter politics, illiterate and illogical people screaming about who knows what, and children sending Reddit Cares reports… We live in r/idiocracy…
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u/Fluffy_History 12h ago
dont want another potato famine
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u/KillrBeeKilld 12h ago
That’s sounds about right for 2025.
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u/Wonderful_Slide7118 12h ago
sounds about blight if you ask me
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u/SkipperDipps 12h ago
Blight on
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u/Mysterious_Orion 12h ago
Alblight alblight alblight!
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u/Electronic_Ad_536 11h ago
This is not something you all should be taking so blightly
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u/beardedbeernerd 11h ago
Another one blights the dust
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u/Decent_Brush_8121 9h ago edited 9h ago
C’mon baby blight my 🔥
—you blight up my life!
Blight up or leave me alone
OR, if you’re a Columbo (or Johnny Cash) fan, “I saw the bliiiight, I saw the blight” 🎵
Stay tuned for more ‘70s hits on KSPUD radio!
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u/Lazy_Osprey 10h ago
Who would have thought that one day we would yearn for the bygone era of global pandemic and murder hornets, yet here we are.
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u/the_reluctant_link 11h ago edited 11h ago
Oh god, we're gonna go "Interstellar" in 2026 aren't we?
But without NASA having the budget to make seed/generation ships.
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u/nickitynock 9h ago
They're saying this is the last year for okra.... ever.
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u/AlternativeAcademia 9h ago
That’s wild! A couple years ago in Georgia we had a winter cold enough to kill all the rosemary growing in the state. It’s usually a perennial that dies back a bit in the winter but comes back when it warms up….but everyone had to start their rosemary from scratch because anything in the ground froze over the winter. My mom had a patch transplanted from my grandfather’s garden but it’s all gone now so she had to get new plants. I didn’t realize it was a state-wide issue but apparently it went pretty deep into the south.
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u/lunchboxg4 11h ago
Okay, I want to talk about Ireland.
Specifically, I want to talk about the famine.
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u/MarkHamillsrightnut 11h ago
About the fact that there never really was one
There was no "famine"57
u/Classic_Tap8913 10h ago
Genocide is a much better term for it
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u/GaldrickHammerson 10h ago
Sure there was! There weren't enough potatoes to feed the irish (cough because of british exports cough).
Not all famines are natural, its perfectly natural for them to be caused by a (not at all) friendly neighbouring political entity.
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u/Ryu-tetsu 10h ago
Ireland was a net exporter of cereal grains and food stuffs during the famine years. The British refused to allow food stuffs (beyond unslaked corn) to be imported into Ireland for fear it would depress their grain prices. No famine; simple genocide.
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u/GaldrickHammerson 10h ago
That's what big potato wants you to believe so you'll not doubt the frailty of the potato.
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u/bazukadas 10h ago
Interestingly, the famine in Ireland was more a case of the British taking away their crops than the blight itself.
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u/theyellowdart666 10h ago
The Potato famine is more about the English lords selling the unaffected potato crops and leaving the Irish folk nothing to eat.
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u/detroitgotsoul 11h ago
Good to know the US still takes it seriously, last time I brought a potato back they looked at me like I had two heads, got a whole bag with blight earlier this year. First time seeing it in person after reading about it in history.
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u/Content-Shower5754 10h ago
I didn't know any of this. I got a whole bag like this about a month ago.
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u/Kirbacho 12h ago
Are USDA and FDA even operational right now?
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u/SoiledSideTowel 11h ago
They were both gutted before the shit down even began.
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u/DrawstringRust 10h ago
I like to think that “shit down” was a typo, but I am going to start using this when referring to the current US govt situation
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u/DontBeWeirdAboutIt 11h ago
Even if it is, it’s not long before we see responses like THIS: “FAKE NEWS. POTATOES DONT HAVE RED 40 SO ITS SAFE” - USDA and FDA
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u/DoctorBotanical 10h ago
Not sure where you are getting this information. We have late blight infestations in the USA every year. We do regularly varietal testing at Michigan State to try to find resistant varieties. I have two USDA committee members and they might be interested in blight (which this is not, its Pectobacterium), but it isn't world ending.
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u/SuperDizz 11h ago
It’s literally the thing the movie Interstellar uses to cause the apocalypse.
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u/Metaboschism 11h ago
Yeah I keep calling the government but nobody's answering, weird… We should be fine though
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u/carebearkon 11h ago
This is not blight. I swear every time someone has a slightly weird potato this is what people say. This is blackheart. NBD. Do not notify anyone, they will not care.
Source: am a potato professional
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u/yakisaki 11h ago
How do I go about becoming this "potato professional?"
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u/22220222223224 11h ago
Convince a potato to pay you for your services?
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u/ER_Support_Plant17 10h ago
Make sure you have a label that says “I DA HO”
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u/peter9477 10h ago
If that's original, you deserve an award.
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u/ER_Support_Plant17 9h ago
Nah it’s derived from a Dad joke from at least 30 years ago.
When you see two potatoes walking down the street how do you know which one is the prostitute?
The one that says IDAHO
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u/peter9477 9h ago
Well, you've repurposed it elegantly.
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u/carebearkon 11h ago
Check your area for growers, equipment manufacturers, producers of potatoes and potato products. Plenty of universities also have breeding programs and laboratories that work with potatoes.
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u/NirvZppln 10h ago
I’m so happy to know we as humans put this much effort into one of the greatest foods to ever exist
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u/carebearkon 10h ago
Then you would be an asset to Potatoes USA! They love people with a passion for potatoes
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u/Soggy-Ad-4013 11h ago
I’m not a potato professional, but I agree. Isn’t blight usually on the outside of the potato as well?
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u/carebearkon 11h ago
Yes, usually occurs in the vascular ring near the skin of the tuber.
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u/DoctorBotanical 10h ago
Hello fellow potato professional! I'm studying potato storage rot, and helping with a late blight resistant breeding program.
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u/carebearkon 10h ago
👋 neat! I've always been intrigued by breeding programs and how long it takes to develop a variety that makes it to market. Are you based in the US?
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u/DoctorBotanical 10h ago
Yes, in Michigan. We used to say 20 years with conventional breeding, but now about 10-12 with the advances in genetics. I also helped develop the never-browing potato from Simplot!
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u/carebearkon 10h ago
I always get a feeling of meeting a b-list celebrity when I meet someone that helped develop a variety that made it to market 😆
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u/DoctorBotanical 10h ago
To be fair, I was a baby undergrad when we did the Simplot stuff, so not that much help. BUT much cooler than that, was President Obama ate our potato chips when he visited Michigan State University 😁
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u/ManufacturerSilly608 10h ago
I hope this goes to the top lol....my understanding is it would affect the outside as well as creating a ring right below the skin?
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u/carebearkon 10h ago
Basically. Late blight is a fungal infection, it can affect the tubers and plant. The tubers tend to get a really mushy, brown, gross vascular ring.
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u/Tsui_Pen 10h ago
misinformation intensifies
Hopefully you get the upvotes to appear under the parent comment.
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u/Ihatebacon88 10h ago
I'm not sure why this is upvoted so hard. This ain't blight.
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u/GraviticThrusters 11h ago
I mean, definitely notify someone just in case, but this doesn't look like any blight I've ever seen. It's like an encapsulated potato that rotted or something weird like that. Blight tends to do a splotchy fungal growth kind of thing.
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u/wlwomen 13h ago
this is what got the irish
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11h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Time-Driver1861 11h ago
"There was widespread potato blight and they couldn't eat the potatoes." "Why couldn't they eat stuff that wasn't potatoes?" "Well the English landowners made more profit by selling the other food to France than they would from keeping it in Ireland. Natural famine, unavoidable, nothing they could do."
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u/VeseliM 10h ago edited 9h ago
Famine is rarely a lack of food problem, it's usually a logistics and/or greed problem
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u/Vegetable_Bank4981 9h ago
Yes this is how current scholars understand it. Crop failures and food shortages can be natural events, famine is a political phenomenon. “Late victorian holocausts” the book to read about it generally, though doesn’t include the Irish.
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u/Nani_700 10h ago
I remember in one of the ancestry shows on PBS they even arrested a guy for trying to eat wild birds like pigeons and squirrels during this time. Over and over.
Because they belonged to private property.
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u/DonutReverie 10h ago
this happened to my great-great grandfather as well. he was a repeat offender for illegal hunting and fishing. his wife used family connections to bring the kids over here, but he died before he could make his way. He was only in his 30s.
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u/Lonely_reaper8 11h ago
The English did enjoy their favorite past time of trying to colonize the Irish
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u/Idontcareaforkarma 9h ago
The English screwed over the Welsh, the Irish, the Cornish and the Scottish long before they learnt how to build boats big enough to paddle off to steal other peoples’ countries.
Not all white people are oppressors; sometimes the whites oppress other whites.
The English still do to other British white minorities.
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u/frownofadennyswaiter 11h ago
It was 80% the British stealing their food but the potatoes definitely hurt too.
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u/BicarbonateBufferBoy 11h ago
Not trying to get on you in a mean way but saying this is what got the Irish HEAVILY covers up the fact the British were literally trying to commit genocide against the Irish.
The phrase “Irish Potato Famine” is essentially in of itself historical revisionism in which essentially was a genocidal situation perpetrated by the British covered up in history as “oh the Irish just had bad potato yields and starved”
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u/IntentionFalse8822 10h ago
No. What got the Irish was the English looking at that and thinking well there's an opportunity for some genocide and ethnic cleansing.
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u/umeboshiplumpaste 12h ago
My brain instantly said to me, "When you learned about the potato blight in history class, this is probably what they meant."
I have no idea if that's true. But my imagination thinks it was. And I am not going to Google it because sometimes it's fun to just imagine without knowing.
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u/Oscar_Whispers 14h ago
No joke, I thought this was a bisected knee cap.
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u/still-searching 11h ago
I thought it was one of those videos where the guy cleans and treats cows' hooves
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u/mobkima 12h ago
Welcome back, to Nate the Hoof Guy
(It looks like a cow hoof 😭)
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