I couldn't decide where to park this so please move if appropriate :) Food as Medicine, Kitchen, Market Gardening, Plants
I planted a couple goji berry bushes last year after experiencing them for the first time in a store bought trail mix. They're the latest thing in anti-oxidant foods in America, but long used in Chinese medicine. Then I learned they are nightshades so I explored Lectins, the anti-nutrient in all nightshades. There are no scientific health studies on the fruit that I could find but lots of anecdotal arguments on both sides of whether to eat or avoid. The conclusion I've come to is that eating large quantities of them raw could create inflammation and gut problems for sensitive people. Cooking seems to eliminate most of the problem
Sarah Pope, The Healthy Home Economist talks about this for all nightshades like potatoes and eggplant and tomatoes - I've started parboiling all my potatoes before final preparation, and de-seeding tomatoes before eating fresh or drying. Apparently the seeds and skin are highest in lectins, and someone said that's why Italians prefer the meaty Roma tomatoes for their sauces. Kind of hard to de-seed an eggplant though!
Luckily I don't have any gut or arthritis problems but I'd feel guilty if I don't caution buyers. I'm going to proceed to propagate more bushes (very easy) and offer them for sale locally as the only source I can find for dried berries is online at $16 a pound! And no local source for fresh at all. They're virtually no maintenance, easy to harvest, and actually spread pretty rapidly through roots (like all asian bamboo type plants). I'll plant a long double row to form a tunnel for my chickens to enjoy. It's really all about the happy chickens here :)
I'm wondering what other people here know about this fruit before I start consuming and selling mass quantities of them. This is one article I found by my fave Dr. John Bergman
https://www.drjohnbergman.com/lectins-in-goji-berries-good-or-bad/ and a permaculture gardening Youtuber I follow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6A2mA6Bp2Q