An anecdote a little removed from the main topic which I still don't fully "get" (apart from already knowing about some very serious although not that common health conditions regarding actual "Acidosis" that is).

I was making a curry and I sometimes like to use potato as well as all the other vegetables. I didn't have any and was in a hurry so I raced up to the supermarket and bought a very small bag of washed baby potatoes.

When I arrived home, I was looking at the packet and it said these potatoes were not for growing purposes. I said "say what??".

I was totally perplexed by this and did some investigation and found that all the potatoes were sprayed with something to stop them sprouting. Sprout retardant.

Of course, I really shouldn't have been so shocked all things considered, but heck, this was a new one for me.

In my investigations I came across a story of olde where people who travelled long distances used to take rose cuttings stuck into a potato so that it would still be viable after their journey and they could plant it and it would grow.

One recent story was about a woman who had heard about this and when she sold her house to move a long way away she stuck all her prized rose cuttings into potatoes only to find that they were all dead when she got there and that was from the retardant that was sprayed on the potatoes.