Deadly Foods or Kitchen Folklore?

Occasionally, I get an email that I find interesting.  Today this one arrived: 'Deadly Foods or Kitchen Folklore?"

https://www.allrecipes.com/article/poisonous-foods/

Being a member of permies, I know the warning about uncooked beans, green potatoes, and apple seeds.

Today I learned of a few more:


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Rhubarb Leaves

They contain a notable concentration of oxalic acid — which can not only produce very unpleasant symptoms, but it also prevents the absorption of calcium, a nutrient we all need.

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Cherry Pits

Cherry pits contain cyanide, and cyanide, my friends, is not something you want to ingest. The good news is that the pit must be cracked open to be really dangerous, so if you were to accidentally swallow a whole one...you should be fine.

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Elderberries

Don't panic: Ripe, cooked elderberries are just fine. But the unripe berries, the leaves, and the bark contain both cyanide and lectins. The consequences of consuming any of the above are not good…

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Mangoes

Don't worry, I am not going to tell you to forgo eating mangoes, one of the world's great pleasures. However, do be aware, they contain urushiol. The other common plant filled with urushiol? Poison ivy. However, eating the delicious flesh of a mango is no problem; just avoid eating the skin, bark, and leaves. And for most people, handling the unpeeled fruit is not a problem while you peel it.

What do you think?   Have you had problems with any of these?

The poison is in the dose as with most things, the stalks of rhubarb also contain acid, just slightly less. I've eaten many a raw elderberry and some mango skin neither have done me any harm, but I've not eaten an entire bucket of either.

I love mango skin.  Any mangoes that are eaten - skin goes to me, even if that's a pile of mangoes.  But I have met someone who was badly allergic to poison oak and was also badly allergic to mangoes.  And I'm not very sensitive to poison oak/ivy either.

I've also found for myself that food sensitivities can cover plants in the same family. I had a period of time where I avoided all foods in certain families (like cereal grains) before my gut healed well enough to deal with any of them.

Living in Mexico, I've had the great pleasure of eating many many mangoes. I have no problem with them, but I have met many people who do get a rash, not unlike poison ivy if they eat a mango handling the skin. Generally, people with this mango "allergy" can eat mangoes someone else has cut up for them, but they can not handle the peel.

When I was growing up in Iowa, I was warned repeatedly that the rubarb leaves were poisonous and not to go near them. The Jam, went on toast daily with no problem.

I eat mango skin.

In the past I also used to snack on elderberries, fresh from the bush.

I'm sensitive enough to mangoes that if even one drop of the juice touches my skin, I'll break out in hives. Which is a pity, because I used to love mangoes!

I have a nephew who would get this weird compulsion if he found out some wild food was edible. Even if he knew it was only edible when cooked, or was edible in certain amounts, or was only edible when fully ripe, it didn't matter. He would stuff as much of it as he could into his mouth, and you had to physically restrain him to get him to stop! And it wasn't like he was too little to understand, the last time I was with him when it happened, he was 13.

He is the only person I know who has gotten sick off of raw elderberries. Fortunately, the toxin causes vomiting, which protected him from worse results. But still, he ate at least a couple pints before I realized what he was doing, possibly more. He's also made himself sick eating half of a rosemary topiary, and nearly wiped out the purple clover on my farm by eating all the blossoms so they couldn't go to seed.

He turns 20 soon. I still refuse to take him foraging with me, because I don't know if he's outgrown it and he's too big for me to hold back.

Over 25 years ago I had a reaction to either mango or passion fruit (worked with gelato made with real fruit), that was so severe, I have avoided both ever since.

A kiss from my spouse (a couple of years ago) hours after drinking less than a 1/4 cup of mango/orange juice, and after he had eaten breakfast, caused tingling, then swelling of my tongue and mucous membranes inside my mouth occurred within minutes.  Ingestion of high dose benadryl averted a full on anaphylactic reaction, but it was a tense ten minutes.

When recently tested for mango allergy, the result was negative.  So either I have "grown out of" the allergy, or whatever they test for with mango is not what I react to.

My limited understanding of the cyanide in cherry pits is that it is the same compound found in apple seeds. I also found that the leaves and bark, and probably wood itself of most species in the rose family have the same compound. There are probably exceptions, and it doesn't look like people are testing it all that often. As Skandi says, it's not usually enough to kill you.

When I was debating whether to use or not use the peach wood spoons I had a talk with my chemist friend. The compound in the rose family plants is called amygdalin. It breaks down into cyanide in the human gut. Possibly also the canine gut... I feel like there was a discussion of pets getting sick too.

Anyway my take away from it was just eat the fruit, spit out the seed and don't make bowls or spoons out of rose family woods.

It's probably not enough to kill you, tons of people DO make spoons out of cherry, apple, or other woods in the same family, but why risk it?

Lorinne Anderson wrote:

When recently tested for mango allergy, the result was negative.  So either I have "grown out of" the allergy, or whatever they test for with mango is not what I react to.

The one time I actually saw an allergy specialist, he told me that allergy tests give both false positives and false negatives fairly often, so it was better to go by symptoms rather than the test.

In India, I know at least two people who get boils from eating too many mangoes in the hot season, and as children had been told exactly that by their mothers. I had thought maybe it was just a hot season thing because that's when mangoes are ripe in India, but now I learn it's probably not boils but an urushiol rash. ...

But one of them says he has no problem eating mangoes up in the high altitude region we live in, because it's not hot. And I am extremely reactive to poison ivy back in the US, but I can eat as many mangoes as I like in any weather. So maybe there really is something else about mangoes.

Now, about the cyanide precursor amygdalin that is found in rose-family fruit trees and seeds. You'd have to eat really quite a bit to be affected, and it's bitter, very bitter, so that's a good warning to stop eating. Where I live, two local named varieties of apricots have sweet edible seeds without the cyanide precursor, and you can eat as many of them as you like. They are a popular snack locally, and are used in the Cadbury's "Fruit and Nut" milk chocolate bars. But locally, sometimes a batch of sweet seeds has a few bitter ones mixed in (because the person who helped collect them didn't pay enough attention to which tree was which). Once they are out of the seed shells, they look identical. So I have many times eaten about 5 bitter apricot seeds, without any effect. But there are a few stories locally of someone who liked the bitterness, ate too much of them, and got severely ill. I think you'd have to eat roughly half a cup of the seeds before being affected. Also the amygdalin is water soluble and comes out in the steam, so there is a traditional dish where you grind up the bitter kernels and boil them for a while, stirring, and when the bitterness is fully gone, it makes a lovely base for a nut sauce. Gotta boil it outdoors though, as if the steam is in a closed room, it can make you feel "funny."

Basically, if you're eating something that shouldn't be bitter but is, don't eat much of it. (If you are eating something that is supposed to be bitter, like bitter gourds, then enjoy!)

Rebecca Norman wrote:
Now, about the cyanide precursor amygdalin that is found in rose-family fruit trees and seeds. You'd have to eat really quite a bit to be affected, and it's bitter, very bitter, so that's a good warning to stop eating. Where I live, two local named varieties of apricots have sweet edible seeds without the cyanide precursor, and you can eat as many of them as you like. They are a popular snack locally, and are used in the Cadbury's "Fruit and Nut" milk chocolate bars. But locally, sometimes a batch of sweet seeds has a few bitter ones mixed in (because the person who helped collect them didn't pay enough attention to which tree was which). Once they are out of the seed shells, they look identical. So I have many times eaten about 5 bitter apricot seeds, without any effect. But there are a few stories locally of someone who liked the bitterness, ate too much of them, and got severely ill. I think you'd have to eat roughly half a cup of the seeds before being affected. Also the amygdalin is water soluble and comes out in the steam, so there is a traditional dish where you grind up the bitter kernels and boil them for a while, stirring, and when the bitterness is fully gone, it makes a lovely base for a nut sauce. Gotta boil it outdoors though, as if the steam is in a closed room, it can make you feel "funny."

Basically, if you're eating something that shouldn't be bitter but is, don't eat much of it. (If you are eating something that is supposed to be bitter, like bitter gourds, then enjoy!)

Interesting. The explanation that I got was that amygdalin can be removed by boiling in high proof alcohol. But yes the vapors are... not safe.

Many old recipes for marzipan include bitter almonds if memory serves it was about 1 lb of sweet almonds and 2-3 bitter ones. And an awful lot of processed products now include apricot pits etc and not the sweet type, there's some good videos on You tube of the process they undergo to make them edible.

Whenever I eat apples, I eat the whole thing, skin, flesh, core and seeds. I have never had a bad reaction to this but I suppose it is because there are never huge amounts of seeds in an apple and who eats more than one in one go?
Until today, I didn't know that apple seeds were poisonous and I am no spring chicken.

Often times, it is the sap of the plant that is most toxic.  When mangoes are picked, small amounts of sap get on the skin of the mango and them when it comes out of the cold storage, the condensation mixes with the sap and spreads it, particularly if they are not washed before packing.  apricot kernels, peach kernels and cherry pits should not be processed with the fruit.  All contain cyanide derivatives that leach out while being preserved.  These like cyanide smell distinctly of almonds.

When we were in PNG, the locals used to eat the very young nightshade as a green with other greens and rice.  Apparently, the nightshade would give the slight tingling sensation to the lips.  Potatoes and tomatoes are also in the nightshade family. and the parts we eat and generally safe although there is some level of sensitivity to both by some people.  The black berries of the nightshade were used in earlier times by the court women to make their pupils dilate in order to seduce a suitable husband.  Nightshade jam can be made from black nightshade which to the untrained eye looks remarkably similar to deadly nightshade.....  it is not a good idea to mix them up.  Both are highly toxic to animals.,

Oxalic acid is  is found in varying quantities in lots of edible and non-edible plants.  The plant uses it as a deterrent hence the higher concentration of OA in the leaves of rhubarb.  The red stems also serve as a deterrent. Spinach is also very high in OA.  There are some dietitians who  believe that Poppy should not be a kids show because of the potential damage spinach can do to children - but that is not the question or topic for debate here.  Raspberries contain a large amount of oxalate.  Rhubarb has by far one of the highest levels with 1.5 Grams per cup.  OA while called an anti-nutrient, is not particularly harmful except for those prone to kidney stones.  Just as a side note, the body makes oxalic acid as a part of its metabolic regulation.

I recently purchased Bill Mollison's The Permaculture Book of Ferment and Human Nutrition. It was pricey, but after watching his PDC, he's become a trusted source of information for me.

Relevant to this thread is something he lists as one of the benefits of fermentation, i.e. that fermentation lowers levels of hydrocyanic acid, nitrites, nitrosamines, glucosides, prussic acid, oxalic acids, mycotoxins, and indigestible starches. That may be how some traditional peoples eat foods that are often thought of as deadly.

Seeing the pic of the rhubarb reminded me of poison hemlock. Not that the plants look much alike, but the poison hemlock does have a stalk that could look enticing to eat! Also has pretty flowers that an unaware person could be attracted to, kind of like queen anne's lace.

I never paid any attention to it until just a couple years ago, when I started using a piece of land to store some tools/trailers. There is an old pile of wood chips there that has been completely overran by the plant...Not even aware about any risks, I proceeded to whack it all out of there, then was told that inhaling the mist from doing that, and lots of skin contact is no good, but I was fine so I don't really know?

I have since changed my mind on using the pile of composted wood chips for garden planting on my land, I figure it's full of seeds.

Tomato leaves may well be a kitchen myth.

While this was not mentioned in the article, most people think that eating tomato leaves is poisonous.

Contrary to this opinion, tomato leaves can be eaten just like any other garden green. Tomato leaves are abundant and packed with nutrients.

The leaves of the tomato are tender, fragrant, and, yes they are edible.

But they are not toxic enough to poison you unless you consume them in very large quantities.

Here are a couple of threads about eating tomato leaves:

Thekla asked about culinary tomato foliage.

Greg added a link for an experiment Here