Taro is a starchy, edible root vegetable that has been cultivated in Southeast Asia for several thousand years. It belongs to the arum family and grows as a tropical herb, producing a thick underground stem called a corm, which is the part most people eat. With its slightly sweet, nutty flavor and creamy texture when cooked, taro is a staple food across the Pacific Islands, Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean.
How Taro Grows
The taro plant produces large, heart-shaped leaves (sometimes compared to elephant ears) that grow on long stems from the underground corm. The corm itself is roughly cylindrical or rounded, covered in a brown, fibrous skin with white or purple-flecked flesh inside. The plant thrives in warm, wet conditions and is often grown in flooded paddies similar to rice, though it can also be cultivated in drier soil.
Taro cultivation spread beyond Southeast Asia over 2,500 years ago, reaching Japan and eventually the Pacific Islands, the Caribbean, Africa, and the Philippines. In Hawaiian culture, taro (called kalo) holds deep spiritual and cultural significance, considered the ancestor of the Hawaiian people.
Dasheen vs. Eddoe: Two Main Types
Taro comes in two primary varieties. The dasheen type has a large, cylindrical central corm and produces only a few small side growths called cormels. This is the variety you’re most likely to see at the grocery store, and it’s what most recipes call for. The eddoe type is built differently: a smaller, rounder central corm surrounded by several relatively large cormels. Eddoe tends to be more cold-tolerant, making it more common in subtropical regions. Both types are prepared similarly, though dasheen’s larger corm makes it more practical for dishes that call for big pieces of taro.
Why You Should Never Eat Taro Raw
Raw taro contains needle-shaped calcium oxalate crystals, each roughly 50 micrometers long with sharp tips. These microscopic needles are a natural defense mechanism against animals, and they work just as effectively on human tissue. Eating raw or undercooked taro causes intense burning, numbness, and damage to the mouth and throat lining.
Cooking breaks down these crystals. When taro is boiled or steamed at 100°C (212°F), heat dissolves the needle-like structures. After 120 minutes of steaming, the crystals shrink by about 80% in length and drop by roughly 70% in number. The remaining crystals lose their sharp tips, making them far less irritating. The interesting part is that the total calcium oxalate content doesn’t actually change during cooking. Instead, the heat dissolves the crystals into solution, and when the food cools, the calcium oxalate re-forms as tiny, harmless particles rather than sharp needles.
For everyday cooking, thorough boiling, steaming, or baking until the flesh is completely soft and tender is enough to eliminate the irritation. If you notice any tingling or numbness while eating taro, it hasn’t been cooked long enough.
How Taro Is Eaten Around the World
Taro’s versatility shows up in dozens of cuisines. In Hawaii, cooked taro is pounded into poi, a smooth, sticky paste that ranges from thick to thin depending on how much water is added. It’s one of the oldest prepared foods in Polynesian culture and remains a dietary staple. In Taiwan, mashed taro is shaped into taro balls, a chewy dessert served in sweet soups or shaved ice. Taro also appears as the distinctive purple flavor in bubble tea, ice cream, and pastries across East and Southeast Asia.
In Chinese cooking, taro shows up in savory dishes like taro cake (a pan-fried dim sum staple) and braised pork with taro. Across West Africa and the Caribbean, taro is boiled, fried, or mashed much like potatoes. In the Philippines, it goes into soups and stews. The leaves are also edible when thoroughly cooked, commonly prepared in coconut milk in Pacific Island and Southeast Asian cuisines.
Nutritional Profile and Blood Sugar
Taro is a good source of fiber and complex carbohydrates, with a notable advantage over many other starchy foods: its starch digests slowly. In lab models simulating human digestion, native taro starch showed about 1.5 times lower digestibility compared to pure glucose and about 1.35 times lower than wheat starch. Only 59% of the glucose from taro starch was absorbed during digestion, compared to 86% for corn starch and 74% for cassava starch.
This slower digestion means taro produces a lower glycemic load, causing a more gradual rise in blood sugar rather than a sharp spike. The digestion of taro starch also shifted further along the small intestine and took longer to complete, which can help with satiety. These properties make taro a practical alternative to refined grains or higher-glycemic starches for people managing blood sugar levels.
Beyond its starch profile, taro provides potassium, magnesium, vitamin C, and vitamin E. Its fiber content supports digestive health, and the purple-tinged varieties contain anthocyanins, the same antioxidant pigments found in blueberries and purple sweet potatoes.
How to Pick and Store Taro
A good taro root feels dense and heavy for its size. The skin should look even and relatively uniform in color, without soft or mushy spots. One reliable test: flick the taro with your finger a few times. A fresh one sounds full and solid, not hollow. Check the stem end (the part where it was once attached to the plant) and make sure it looks freshly cut and healthy rather than dried out or moldy. With practice, you’ll learn to distinguish normal color patterns on the skin from the discoloration that signals age.
Store uncut taro in a cool, dry, well-ventilated spot, similar to how you’d store potatoes. It keeps for about a week at room temperature. Once cut, wrap the exposed flesh tightly and refrigerate it, using it within a few days. Cooked taro freezes well, making it easy to prepare in bulk for later use.
Cooking Tips
Taro’s skin contains higher concentrations of calcium oxalate, so many people wear gloves while peeling to avoid irritation. Peel it under running water or after a brief boil to make handling easier. Once peeled, the flesh oxidizes quickly, so drop cut pieces into water if you’re not cooking them right away.
Boiling is the simplest preparation: cut taro into chunks and boil for 15 to 25 minutes until fork-tender. From there, you can mash it, fry it, or add it to soups and curries. Taro absorbs flavors beautifully and develops a creamy, slightly sticky texture when cooked, making it work well in both sweet and savory dishes. Roasting at high heat gives it crispy edges with a fluffy interior, similar to roasted potatoes but with a subtly sweeter, nuttier flavor.