For such a simple vegetable, potatoes have a lot of mystery surrounding them. This staple ingredient has been a backbone of many cuisines around the world for thousands of years. In that time, many different potato varieties (and even more potato recipes) have sprung up.
There are now many myths surrounding potatoes, especially regarding their nutrition. Over the years, potatoes have developed an astonishingly bad reputation, with people assuming that they're unhealthy, lacking in nutrients, or that eating them could cause some health conditions to worsen . Other persistent potato myths involve the safety of different preparation methods.
However, not all myths surrounding the humble potato are bad. Others are more innocuous, with folks out there often mistaking certain types of potatoes for others, or else assuming that different types of potatoes come from the same family (spoiler alert: They don't). There are even some wild and wacky mistruths out there about the potato's ability to cure certain ailments, which are — if you'll excuse the pun — rooted in folklore.
We dug up our favorite myths about potatoes to put an end to all the gossip, so you can eat your fries in peace. 1. Myth: If you peel a potato, you'll remove all its nutrients One part of the potato is seriously misunderstood — and it's not the part you might expect.
Potato flesh is widely considered to be somehow lacking in nutrition, and there's a pervasive myth that if you get rid of the rough, chewy skin.