This is a public-interest archive. Personal data is pseudonymized and retained under GDPR Article 89.

Deadlyish nightshades (was Re: A Potato Question)

Joshua Ben David wrote:
> NO! THEY ARE NOT EDIBLE! Potatoes are members of the highly poisonous nightshade
> family and anything but the tubers should NOT be eaten.

I did hear about someone who had died from eating the berries off a
close relative of the potato, so i would stay far away from those potato
berries.

On the other hand, i think we have to be careful about how we generalize
about the nightshade family.  Each member seems to have a different
method of poisoning people.  After all, the berries of tomatoes,
peppers, and eggplants are quite edible.  In fact, eggplants are in the
same genus as potatoes.  Tomatoes were once thought to be poisonous,
probably based on their family relationship.  Their leaves *are*
poisonous.  And potato tubers *can* be poisonous if you're careless
about how you grow them.

What this all seems to say is that if you can't find a certain body part
of a given nightshade plant in the produce section, then DON'T EAT IT. 
You may wish to avoid those tomato-like cardboard objects too! ;-)  I'll
leave it up to you whether or not to inhale the smoke from burning
tobacco leaves (also in the nightshade family).

One nightshade flower that looks pretty in the square foot garden is the
petunia.  Since i haven't seen any petunias in the produce section, i
wouldn't eat them.
-- 
@->-`-,----------------------------------------------+
|  Cousin Ricky      USDA zone 11, Virgin Islands    |
|  rcallwo@uvi.edu   formerly zone 6, Massachusetts  |
+----------------------------------------------------+
--
To unsubscribe, send a message to: majordomo@lists.umsl.edu
with the single body line: unsubscribe sqft
Contact owner-sqft@lists.umsl.edu with any admin questions.
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index