Solanum Tuberosum
Potato / Aardappel / Kartoffel / Pomme de terre
When to buy // How to store // Impact // What's in it for you // Best way to prepare // Grow your own // Origin & History // Sources
When to buy
Potatoes are available year-round, but there's a real seasonal moment worth knowing about: new potatoes (nieuwe aardappelen), harvested young with thin skins and a creamy texture, hit the market from late May through summer, with the first Dutch harvest traditionally auctioned in early June on the island of Tholen in Zeeland.
They don't keep long, so eat them within a few days.
The potatoes found in stores the rest of the year are storage varieties, harvested in autumn and bred to keep well for months, which is what makes potatoes a practical year-round, low-food-miles choice in the Netherlands rather than an imported product.
The one exception is early spring, just before the new Dutch harvest comes in, when supermarkets sometimes carry imported early potatoes to bridge the gap.
They don't keep long, so eat them within a few days.
The potatoes found in stores the rest of the year are storage varieties, harvested in autumn and bred to keep well for months, which is what makes potatoes a practical year-round, low-food-miles choice in the Netherlands rather than an imported product.
The one exception is early spring, just before the new Dutch harvest comes in, when supermarkets sometimes carry imported early potatoes to bridge the gap.
How to store
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Keep potatoes dark specifically, since light exposure triggers both greening and the buildup of solanine, a natural toxin, in the outer layers.
And keep them ventilated: avoid sealed plastic bags or airtight containers, which trap moisture and speed up rot; a paper or jute bag, or a bowl or drawer with a loose cloth over it, works far better. Bought in normal supermarket quantities and used within a couple of weeks, a cool cupboard or pantry is genuinely enough: potatoes don't need cellar-level cold to get through a typical stretch of everyday cooking, they just need to be out of direct light and away from heat sources like the stove or oven. Skip the fridge for potatoes entirely, even short-term. Refrigeration is cold enough to trigger cold-induced sweetening, where starches convert to sugars, which affects both taste and how the potato browns when cooked. A cool, dry spot outside the fridge holds up better and keeps that conversion from happening in the first place. Keep potatoes away from other produce, potatoes are notably sensitive to ethylene gas, even a few days of exposure can push a potato out of dormancy and into early sprouting. (so no: don't add an apple....) |
Stockpiling a larger quantity
If you're storing a whole harvest, a bulk buy, or want potatoes to last through winter rather than a couple of weeks, the calculus changes and genuinely cold, humid storage starts to matter. Potatoes kept around 4-8°C with high humidity, 90-95%, can last 6-8 months, compared to just a week or two at room temperature. This range matters in both directions: too cold and you get the sweetening problem mentioned above, too warm (above roughly 10°C) and sprouting takes hold within a couple of months. Humidity matters just as much, without it potatoes dry out and shrivel. At home, an unheated garage, shed, or cellar gets closest to these conditions; a heated house rarely does. |
Historical storage
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Before mechanical refrigeration, potatoes were stored in root cellars, but also, especially for larger farm harvests, in what's known as a "clamp" (or "potato pye").
This was a mound of potatoes stacked directly in the field, layered with straw and capped with a thick layer of earth, letting the ground's natural insulation keep the pile just above freezing even through winter frost. Storage clamps date back to Britain's Agricultural Revolution in the 18th-19th centuries and became widespread again during WWII, when rationing made every scrap of storage space valuable and fridges were still rare in most households. The construction mattered: straw between layers absorbed moisture and let the potatoes "sweat" without rotting, while the earth cap kept out light and rain. A well-built clamp could hold a family's supply through an entire winter, opened section by section as needed, with only the outermost layer typically showing sprouting by spring. In the Andes, where the potato originates, an entirely different method developed: chuño, made by exploiting the region's freeze-thaw cycles at high altitude, alternately freezing potatoes overnight and drying them in the sun by day. This could preserve them for years rather than months, and is still used today. |
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Impact at a glance
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Potatoes are one of the gentlest crops around when it comes to environmental cost. Growing 100 grams emits only about 0.05kg CO2e (Poore & Nemecek, Science), putting them among the lowest-footprint vegetables you can buy.
Water use is low to moderate, roughly 200 litres per kilo, far less than thirsty grains like rice or wheat, based on a water footprint study of potato cultivation published in Tecnología y Ciencias del Agua. |
Pesticide load in the EU it sits low to medium: chlorpropham, the sprout-suppressing chemical that drives up scores elsewhere in the world (in the US), has been banned since 2019/2020, as detailed in EFSA's reasoned opinion on the substance.
Some approved fungicides are still used, and EFSA's own 2020 EU-wide pesticide residue report shows around 99% compliance with legal limits. Transport is the easy win. The Netherlands grows about four times what it eats, so a locally sold potato usually hasn't traveled far at all. Bring in an imported one instead, and the emissions roughly triple. (WUR) |
What's in it for you
Nutrients
Potato's nutrient density is best described as moderate. Common "nutrients-per-calorie" scoring systems rank potatoes low, since they penalize any calorie-dense food regardless of actual nutrient content. But that undersells them: potatoes deliver a solid spread of vitamin C, B6, potassium, manganese and magnesium, they're just not calorically sparse the way a leafy green is. They are also remarkably filling. In the original Satiety Index study by Holt and colleagues, boiled potatoes scored higher than almost any other food tested, including eggs, oats, and whole grain bread. Fiber isn't a strong point, but it's not negligible either, around 2.2 grams per 100 grams according to USDA data, most of it insoluble and concentrated in the skin. Peel the potato, and you lose a meaningful share of it. Protein content is modest, but unusually high quality, with a biological value comparable to eggs, according to nutrition research reviewed in the APRE's potato nutrition white paper. |
BenefitsPotassium is where potatoes quietly excel, and it does real work: the WHO links higher potassium intake to lower blood pressure and reduced stroke risk, and potatoes are one of the richest everyday sources of it. Potatoes may also support gut health, though with a catch: cooking a potato and then letting it cool converts some of its starch into resistant starch, which resists digestion in the small intestine and feeds beneficial gut bacteria instead. Eaten warm right after cooking, potatoes don't offer this same effect. Potatoes also contain antioxidant compounds (chlorogenic acid, carotenoids, and, in purple varieties, anthocyanins) that are being studied for cardiovascular and metabolic benefits, though most human evidence comes from concentrated extracts rather than the amounts found in a typical serving. |
Best way to prepareBoiling loses a lot of vitamin C, since some of it leaches straight into the cooking water on top of normal heat loss. Microwaving retains the most, with some studies showing up to 96% retention thanks to the shorter cooking time. Best way to prepare is to steam or microwave, and keep the skin on. Cooking with the skin on helps too, since it acts as a barrier that limits leaching either way. If you do boil, use as little water as possible and consider keeping it for soups or sauces, since some of the lost vitamin C ends up there instead of down the drain. From healthiest to least healthy options 1.Steamed or microwaved, skin on — the least heat exposure and no water for vitamin C to leach into, so nutrients stay largely intact. 2.Boiled, skin on, minimal water — still solid, though some vitamin C is lost to the cooking water; keeping the skin on and using less water limits the damage. 3.Baked or roasted — higher, drier heat means more vitamin C loss than steaming, but no added oil, so it stays a reasonably light option. 4.Pan-fried or sautéed — introduces added fat and higher cooking temperatures, which starts pushing acrylamide formation up alongside further vitamin loss. 5.Deep-fried (fries, chips) — the least healthy by a clear margin: the most vitamin C loss, the most added oil and calories, and the highest acrylamide levels of any preparation method. |
A note on fries and chipsFrying introduces two problems at once: vitamin C losses climb sharply compared to boiling or steaming, and high heat combined with the potato's natural sugars produces acrylamide, a compound formed through the same browning reaction that gives fries their colour. Potato chips and fries are consistently the largest dietary sources of acrylamide, and the EU has set legal limits on how much is allowed in these products specifically. The risk from occasional fries is low, current evidence in humans hasn't shown a consistent cancer link, but as a regular habit, the added oil, salt, and acrylamide load make fries and chips a different food, nutritionally, than a baked or boiled potato.
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Grow your own
Planting & harvestingStart with certified seed potatoes rather than ones from the supermarket, extension services consistently warn that store-bought potatoes can carry hidden diseases.
Let them chit first (sprout in a cool, bright spot) before planting, once soil has warmed to at least 7-10°C in spring and roughly 2-4 weeks before your last expected frost. Potatoes tolerate a light frost but not a hard freeze, so timing depends on your local climate. New potatoes can be harvested young, about 7-8 weeks after planting, right around when the plant starts flowering. For potatoes meant for storage, wait until the foliage has died back completely, usually 15-20 weeks after planting, then let them cure in a cool, ventilated spot for a week or two before moving them into long-term storage. |
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Space needed
For a small home patch, plant roughly one plant per 30cm x 75cm of ground, so a modest 2m x 2m bed could realistically hold 8-10 plants. Potatoes also grow well in large containers or grow bags if space is tight, as long as there's enough depth for hilling. Difficulty: low to moderate This is a genuinely beginner-friendly crop.The main effort is hilling, mounding soil around the stems a few times over the season, and staying consistent with watering once tubers start forming. The most common mistakes are simple ones: not hilling enough (leading to green, inedible tubers), overwatering in heavy soil, or planting too early in cold, wet ground. For a first-time grower, it's one of the more forgiving vegetables to start with. |
Origin & Botanical background
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The potato is Solanum tuberosum, a member of the nightshade family (Solanaceae), the same family as tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant.
Genetic studies trace all modern cultivated potatoes back to a single domestication event in the Andes of southern Peru, from a wild ancestor in the Solanum brevicaule species complex, roughly 8,000-10,000 years ago. The earliest varieties were bred by highland farmers near Lake Titicaca and were notably bitter and higher in glycoalkaloids than modern potatoes, since domestication gradually selected for larger tubers and a milder taste. The word "potato" itself traces back to the Quechua papa, filtered through Spanish patata after conquistadors introduced the crop to Europe in the second half of the 16th century, eventually becoming a global staple. |
Variations and sub-species
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Potatoes are grouped by texture more than by looks: waxy, floury, and all-purpose.
Waxy potatoes, like Charlotte or new potatoes, are low in starch and high in moisture, so they hold their shape after cooking, which makes them the right choice for salads, soups, and roasting. Floury potatoes, like Bintje, Maris Piper, King Edward, or the classic Russet, are dense with starch and low in moisture, so they fall apart into a light, fluffy texture, ideal for mashing, baking, and frying. All-purpose varieties, like Yukon Gold or Agria, sit in between and handle most cooking methods reasonably well. |
Colour tells its own story too. Purple and blue-fleshed varieties, like Vitelotte, owe their colour to anthocyanins, the same antioxidant compounds found in blueberries, while yellow-fleshed types carry more carotenoids.
Out of roughly 4,000 varieties grown worldwide, only a few dozen dominate most kitchens, but the diversity is a direct legacy of the Andes, where the potato originated: Peru's international gene bank alone preserves more than 3,000 native varieties. A simple test if you're unsure what you've got: drop the potato in salted water. If it sinks, it's starchy (floury); if it floats, it's waxy. |
