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| Edible Nightshade Foods |
Let's talk about Nightshade vegetables and fruits.
The Nightshade vegetables/fruits include:
Alkaloids (ie: tobacco)
Sweet and Hot Peppers
Eggplant
Okra
Okra
Potatoes
Tomatoes
Many people grow other Nightshade vines and plants for their beautiful flowers and decorative berries, which are highly toxic.
To see a more comprehensive listing of these vegetables-fruits-flowers-berries, and how they are used in our daily lives, please click here.
True or False: Raw or Undercooked Eggplant is poisonous and unhealthy to consume. At one time my husband and I adhered to that school of thought, until we did further research. It appears that age, preparation, and frequency of consumption all play a part in when and how much Eggplant, or any Nightshade produce, to eat.
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| Woody Nightshade-Flower |
According to the Huffington Post, the answer is FALSE.
False, raw eggplants are not poisonous. However, the leaves and flowers of the plant can be toxic. Plants in the nightshade family -- which includes eggplants, potatoes, peppers, tomatoes and tomatillos -- contain an alkaloid called solanine, which in very large doses can be poisonous. For the average adult, 400 mg of solanine would be life-threatening. Vegetables in the nightshade family contain anywhere from 2 to 13mg of solanine and eggplants contain 11mg at the most. So you would have to eat 36 raw eggplants to cause any harm.
Therefore, there's no need to be concerned about eating reasonable amounts of raw eggplant. You should, however, be wary of green potatoes. They turn green when they're exposed to the light, skyrocketing their solanine levels -- so eating green potatoes is not recommended. Neither is eating the leaves of any nightshade plant.
There are some people -- a very small percentage of the population -- who are allergic to nightshade vegetables and cannot eat them. Other people might find that brushing up against the plants causes skin irritation, but it's no more than itching. As we know, these vegetables are not poisonous, otherwise we wouldn't be eating potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants, etc.
We of course do enjoy fresh tomatoes raw, but potatoes and eggplants? They're not so tasty raw, but that doesn't mean they can't be eaten raw. So the moral of the story is ... keep eating eggplant! It's delicious in many forms.
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| Woody Nightshade Berries |
According to Answers.com, Eggplant and all Nightshade plants should be used with caution:
Eggplants, like tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes are members of the nightshade family.
All eggplants contain certain amounts of the toxin Solanine but younger fruit has higher concentrations. Reactions to this poison are usually gastrointestinal and range from mild nausea to severe and convulsive vomiting and diarrhea. Other symptoms have been reported such as burning of the throat, cardiac dysrhythmia, headache and dizziness.
Hallucinations, loss of sensation, paralysis, fever, jaundice, dilated pupils and hypothermia have been reported in more severe cases. In large quantities, solanine poisoning can cause death. One study suggests that doses of 2 to 5 mg per kilogram of body weight can cause toxic symptoms, and doses of 3 to 6 mg per kilogram of body weight can be fatal. Symptoms usually occur 8 to 12 hours after ingestion, but may occur as rapidly as 30 minutes after eating high-solanine foods.
The lowest dose to cause symptoms of nausea is about 25 mg solanine for adults, a life-threatening dose for a regular-weight adult ranges about 400 mg solanine.
The first post to this answer was completely erroneous as it stated that heat neutralises Solanine. This was dangerously misleading and I have deleted it. Heat has absolutely no effect on solanine.
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| Nightshade Berries |
1)choose only very ripe eggplants/aubergines,
2)soak for a couple of hours in very salty warm water, rinse and soak again in tap water,
3)cook until the eggplant is very well-done (this has nothing to do with exposure to heat but rather to the breakdown in fibers and leeching out of poison this causes). Another precaution is to peel the skin.
Solanine is also present in large quantities in potatoes which appear green below the skin. Some people are fine with peeling away this green bit but the safest thing is to not use them at all. It has been reported that deep frying causes solanine to leech out of the food and into the oil. So if you insist on eating green potatoes, frying is perhaps the best option. Solanine is also present in tomatoes but recordings of reactions are very limited.
Some interesting Solanine trivia...
Sir Walter Raleigh brought potatoes to Ireland and gave a potato plant to Queen Elizabeth I as a present. However the cooks at the royal banquet, unfamiliar with the plant, threw out the edible tubers and cooked the stems and leaves which contain high volumes of Solanine. Everyone fell deathly ill, prompting potatoes to be banned from the court. It would be two centuries before Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, gave potatoes to the poor who (with the help of Prussian soldiers) agreed to eat them.
According to Wikipedia, "Eggplant was once thought to be extremely poisonous".
