During the past few months I have received two separate letters regarding nightshades. My friend James comments:
I was going to send you a nice drawing I made of bittersweet nightshade from my yard (and ask if I should eat the berries (tasting one gave me a sore throat)) but I couldn’t get the scanner to work.
While Darrin asks:
Dear Mz. Scout
I’ve heard that nightshade is actually edible. Is this true? If so have you eaten it? Evidently the Hmong (south east asians from the mountains in Laos) people is this area consume it regularly. Any details are appreciated.
Thanks,
Darrin
Nightshades are a controversial topic, but I’m not ashamed to proclaim that I am pro-nightshade. I am also pro-mushroom, and many other wild things people tend to be scared of. The broad and fascinating nightshade family (Solanaceae) includes the common foods tomato, potato, green pepper, and eggplant. Also included are the less common foods ground cherry, also known as tomatillo, and goji berry, part of the recent (and stupid) exotic antioxidant superfood craze.
The next best known nightshades include tobacco, petunias and the weeds bittersweet nightshade (Solanum dulcamara) with berries that are red when ripe, and black nightshade (Solanum nigra) with black ones. The black is much less common in the US in general, but is found all over Portland. Back east I also commonly encountered horse nettle (Solanum carolinense). It is found in fields with berries that turn yellow and cling to the stalks long into the winter.
Then there are the well-known and well-mythologized psychoactive nightshades such as deadly nightshade or belladonna (Atropa belladonna), jimsonweed (Datura), mandrake (Mandragora), and henbane (Hyoscyamus). Tomatoes and many of the other edible nightshades are of the Americas in origin, whereas the poisonous ones tend to be European. This explains why for many years Europeans grew the tomato as an ornamental but were afraid to eat it as a food.
Superstition has returned. It seems a food fad these days among the nutritionally conscious to avoid the nightshades altogether. This is for two reasons. For one they contain toxins. This is true. They contain among other alkaloids a substance called solanine, which pricks tiny holes in your cells. Sounds nasty, BUT many substances contain toxins. Or to put it more accurately everything does, not just because every inch of our air soil and water is polluted, but also because many plants have defense mechanisms against being eaten by insects or other predators. Solanine protects the plants leaves from fungus and insects. “Toxins” are not some evil sin to be strictly avoided as the purists would have it, but rather something that the body is equipped to deal with, in moderation. As Urban Scout told this crazy vegan on the phone the other day who was claiming that meat is poison, “life is poison”.
I concede that in the modern day and age we are probably all overloaded with toxins, and simultaneously ill equipped to handle them due to malnourishment, stress, and lack of exercise. Yet, I do not personally feel this is enough reason for me to avoid the delicious foods of the nightshade family (or wild plants that grow in a less than pristine areas, as even the highest mountain tops are now polluted, and your average farm plant may be just as likely to have grown near a highway, or have been sprayed with chemicals and is less minerally dense and nutritious than that wild plant we’re all afraid to eat from that crack in the sidewalk. I consider it “healthier” to take a chance on that “toxic” plant than to continue to contribute to the importation of resources that is killing the planet).
Solanine is generally more present in green plant parts than ripe ones, so a red bell pepper contains less than a green bell pepper. It is also partially dispelled by cooking, hence fried green tomatoes. Have you ever been told not to eat a green potato chip? There are some cultures that eat the young shoots of nightshades or have special methods of preparing them, but in general the leaves of these plants are more toxic than the other parts. If you don’t believe me, just take the word of John Wesley Powell (famed explorer of the Grand Canyon) and his men :
July 6_.–An early start this morning. A short distance below the mouth of the Uinta we come to the head of a long island. Last winter a man named Johnson, a hunter and Indian trader, visited us at our camp in White River Valley. This man has an Indian wife, and, having no fixed home, usually travels with one of the Ute bands. He informed me that it was his intention to plant some corn, potatoes, and other vegetables on this island in the spring, and, knowing that we would pass it, invited us to stop and help ourselves, even if he should not be there; so we land and go out on the island. Looking about, we soon discover his garden, but it is in a sad condition, having received no care since it was planted. It is yet too early in the season for corn, but Hall suggests that potato tops are good greens, and, anxious for some change from our salt-meat fare, we gather a quantity and take them aboard. At noon we stop and cook our greens for dinner; but soon one after another of the party is taken sick; nausea first, and then severe vomiting, and we tumble around under the trees, groaning with pain. I feel a little alarmed, lest our poisoning be severe. Emetics are administered to those who are willing to take them, and about the middle of the afternoon we are all rid of the pain. Jack Sumner records in his diary that “potato tops are not good greens on the 6th day of July.”
(http://www.infomotions.com/etexts/gutenberg/dirs/etext05/7clcn10.htm)
I believe the same is true for the bittersweet and black nightshade plants, that the fully ripe red or black berries are edible whereas the unripe green ones are not. I heard via Susan Weed that just one unripe berry of the red variety would give you a mild psychoactive experience. I once ate one but nothing happened. I have also tried the ripe red berries raw on several occasions and found them highly unpalatable so have not eaten larger amounts, nor have I tried cooking them. The black ones however I find tasty and have eaten a dozen or two at a time with no ill effects. They actually sell something very similar, I think it is just a cultivar, under the name garden huckleberry or wonderberry (Solanum melanocerasum), as a unique food crop. These are often cooked into pies.
The second reason people avoid nightshades is food allergies. Apparently many of us are allergic to certain foods and don’t even know it as we ingest them on a daily basis, continually exacerbating the symptoms until we think that’s just the way things are. Common culprits include grains, dairy, soy, and citrus. Sally Fallon of Nourishing Traditions says that sore and painful joints eventually leading to arthritis is the most commonly reported reaction of those sensitive to nightshades.
The way I understand it, food allergies aren’t necessarily irreversible but are sometimes caused by things like eating one food or food family too often, lack of healthy gut flora and leaky gut syndrome, enzyme deficiency, adrenal exhaustion, or vitamin deficiencies that lead to incomplete digestion. A good, cheap, way to test for a food allergy is to avoid the suspected food in all forms for at least two weeks and then reintroduce it alone in the morning when your stomach is empty. Observe what happens. Do you get indigestion or start coughing? Does your heartbeat rapidly increase? Do you suddenly feel very tired? In addition to these standard tests I would recommend that you take a quiet moment to ask your body if the food is good for it, or ask the food if it is good for your body. You might be surprised at your own gut instinct, no pun intended.
Note: As far as potatoes go I tend to experience fatigue after a potato breakfast. I think this has more to do with their high placement on the glycemic index (that thing that measures how much a food makes your blood sugar spike) than any toxins.
The poisonous plants of the nightshade family have a long history of medicinal and magical use. In smaller doses they are sedative, analgesic, and antispasmodic. Belladonna was used to dilate the eyes of Italian women during the Renaissance Era. It was thought that a large pupil made one more beautiful. Weird, I know, but less fucked up than plastic surgery, and less painful than a Brazilian. The active chemical, atropine, is still used in some optometrist’s offices today to dilate the pupil.
In larger doses these plants are hallucinogenic. It is claimed that the popular image of a witch riding a broomstick comes from the fact that an ointment containing belladonna and henbane was once rubbed by wise women on the end of a broomstick and absorbed through the vaginal tissues resulting in hallucinations or ”flying”. Not something I have tried…yet!
Jimsonweed is far more common in the states than these others and has a long history of use among Native Americans. Although the name is thought to be derived from Jamestown-weed, as in Jamestown, Virginia, I never once encountered the plant until I moved to Portland. Oddly enough someone just down the street has a yard full of jimsonweed in pots. It’s hard to say why since the hallucinogenic dose and lethal dose are a little too close for comfort and the side effects too unpleasant to make it a popular recreational drug or medicinal herb.
Fans of the Clan of the Cave Bear series will remember jimsonweed referred to as thorne apple, the plant shamans of Ayla’s people used to reach the spirit world, and the plant which she uses as a sedative and painkiller to reset Roshario’s broken arm. I suspect there are ways of preparing this sort of plant that could make it safer. You can read about people’s experiences with jimsonweed at:
http://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Datura.shtml
As expected many of them have no idea what they are doing, no respect for the plant, and are ingesting it in totally inappropriate settings. However, I was impressed by the dedication shown by this young man:
It pretty much started while I was in high school. A good friend of mine and myself would spend all day dismissing our regular studies and study mostly on ancient herbs and assorted ethnobotanicals (being a native American I was raised in a world of shamanistic practice and teachings by my family). We would always Know every, if not almost every aspect of any ethnogen we concidered experimenting with beforehand. This was of great importance to me. I would rather be smart about doing anything than take a chance and be dead. Anyway, Datura was a touchy subject that I thought about doing someday but wasn’t an any kind of rush. Not to mention that my grandfather STRONGLY recommended that I never take it (mostly because I was not qualified to do so by native custom)unless her spirit wishes it in my best interests.
After I graduated from high school I was a bit reluctant to go to college right away. I spent most of my time reading about random things and meditating. This is when I started my walk in life with her majesty. I was meditating one day when I was suddenly overcome with a warm feeling all over my body and I felt a presence that I knew right away was the Datura spirit. She had come to me at last. For some reason I just knew that she was telling me that threw her I would find the answer to the questions I had been meditating on. I was living in a small town in south east Texas at the time, there were literally hundreds of Datura’s around where I lived so I quickly went to a wooded area a few blocks from my house where I had seen a beautiful Angel’s Trumpet shrub which I had kept my eye on for quite sometime. I asked her spirit to surrender an open pod of seeds so that I might sew her seeds and care for a plant or two of my own (I felt that growing my own plant was the only way I could prove my trust to her).
Months had passed and turned into a year since I had planted my seeds and I was anxious as hell to finally taste of my child and bare witness to her divine secrets. I had taken much patience and took great care of my now overly fruitful plant. Every night I would pray for it and speak with it and meditate on it. I finally decided that it was time. I took of her: 3 flowers, which were not fully blossomed, and 2 leaves. I then invited my friend (same friend from above) over to sit for me while I spend my time with the spirits. He was reluctant to do so (mostly because he still felt like it was a bad idea) but came over anyway to ensure my safety. I boiled only two flowers and one leaf (I was not sure of the exact potency and felt it would be much safer)into a teapot for about 30 minutes, all the while meditating and asking her spirit to be with me and protect me during our venture…
Read the rest here: http://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=44291
On a last note I have a beef with people who say, “you know tomato is actually fruit.” I have no stomach for this ignorant kind of political-botanical correctness. Guess what? Lots of things are actually fruits. A fruit is any fleshy material covering a seed or seeds. Lots of vegetables are like this…zucchini, cucumber, pepper, eggplant, pumpkin, squash…but we don’t call them fruits and I refuse to call a tomato a fruit either. I am however all for changing the name to reflect the meaning of it’s Latin binomial, Lycopersicon esculentum, or edible wolf peach.
Some people who disagree with me:
www.nightshadefree.com
www.tomatoesareevil.com
I love it! Good stuff.
Another useful note: at least for most Europeans (or perhaps more accurately, non-Native Americans?) nightshades tend to support the inflammation response. If one has overall muscle aches, joint aches, or swelling associated with cuts, infections, joint sprains, pulled connective tissues or muscles, etc. etc., you might want to avoid nightshades for a while, along with dairy products, spinach, and some other stuff considered ‘inflammatory’. On the other hand, taking a few teaspoons of fish oil a day (something basically ignored by most paleodietists and atkinoids along with everyone else) will help convert over to an anti-inflammatory response in the body.
I think nutrition and medicine always comes down to highly contextual and situational matters. To write anything off as innately awful just doesn’t make sense – sometimes ‘awful’ means medicinal, anyway. ha.
Another great piece, good to see your/you’re writing again
appy crimbo from old london town
SBW
Great article, but something does need clearing up about food allergies. 1) If you are truly allergic to a food, you cannot suddenly become unallergeic, through treatment, rotation or anything else. It is an immunological response to a protein the body sees as invader. That said, you can have secondary sensitivities to foods from a leaky gut that stems from a primary food allergy. Many celiacs have trouble with milk or even meat until they are diagnosed and remove gluten products. When the gut heals, they suddenly aren’t sensitive to those foods.
2) Eliminations should be much longer than two weeks to be really effective. You may certainly notice a reaction after two weeks, but for serious cases causing systemic inflammation and autoimmune problems, 4-6 weeks is how long it usually takes for the body to clear any residual immune responses. Some of which last for up to 14 days.
Nightshades are kind of touch and go, some people are ok with them, some are not. Tomato juice always makes my hands itch fiercely when I chop fresh ones. Eggplants make my tougne itch pretty awfully too. So, I dont eat eggplants, and try not to cut fresh tomatoes and get juice all over my hands. But I still eat them.
Plus a a lot of those “toxic” nightshades used topically are excellent pain relievers. You can poultice or make salve with tobacco leaves, datura leaves, and maybe even potato leaves ( which i havent tried). You still need to be careful with doses, as the skin absorbs it all, and you can start to feel effects from extended topical applications.
Thanks for a great blog post! Sweet datura flowers open in the full moonlight are so alluring! Dont you think so?
Thanks for the great additional info Willem and Darcy Blue!
I’ve used Belladonna,aconite mixed with oil and applied in small quantities to the temples during sacred pagan drumming rites.
I wouldn’t recommend them for recreational use whatsoever.
In small quantities the effect was similar but not the same as Shrooms.
Nor would I recommend smearing it on ones genitals.
Not that I’ve any experience in that regard.
The experience while drumming and chanting was mind blowing to put it mildly.
I would recommend using Caution with them always,as a little seems to go a long way. Dragon
http://www.chasclifton.com/papers/If_Witches_No_Longer_Fly.pdf
Thanks for this wonderful information.
I’ve been wondering about Datura since I noticed a field of it growing at my cousin Victor’s place on the Rogue River. I had heard our ancestors used it, but the knowledge of how to do that has been stolen from us. So, I really appreciate the relationship the young man whom you quoted developed with the spirit of the plant. I have used peyote ceremonially, but we had a falling out, I think because I never learned to sing to it.
Here is something that always makes me laugh out loud – an account of British soldiers in Jamestown in 1676 who cooked and ate jimsonweed in a salad:
As told by Robert Beverly in The History and Present State of Virginia (1705): The soldiers presented “a very pleasant comedy, for they turned natural fools upon it for several days: one would blow up a feather in the air; another would dart straws at it with much fury; and another, stark naked, was sitting up in a corner like a monkey, grinning and making mows at them; a fourth would fondly kiss and paw his companions, and sneer in their faces with a countenance more antic than any in a Dutch droll.
“In this frantic condition they were confined, lest they should, in their folly, destroy themselves – though it was observed that all their actions were full of innocence and good nature. Indeed they were not very cleanly; for they would have wallowed in their own excrements, if they had not been prevented. A thousand such simple tricks they played, and after 11 days returned themselves again, not remembering anything that had passed.”
Hi, Penny, an interesting article!
I’m from Europe, and I’m sure you know we don’t eat potatoes for breakfast!
Who would knock himself out this way, perhaps along with ham and eggs ? A light, fresh, cold breakfast gives you ~wings~!
But we like potato dishes for lunch or dinner, with a raw salad before them and some cooked veggies.
Another interesting facet of potatoes is, that they are not acid forming in the body, but alkali forming. – An overload of acid in the tissues is the cause of many diseases.
Modern psychology also tells us why we are delighted to see large (dilated) pupils of another and this is also the reason why Italian women used Belladonna:
When we see something or somebody we like, our pupils become large, and when we see something or somebody we dislike, they contract and become small. Our body can interpret those small signals, and we feel either comfortable and welcome with someone, or not.
Thanks for the great info, keep up the good work!
I totally agree that the antioxidant superfood craze is foolishness!
Great post.
I’m a biochemist and a personal trainer and encounter a lot of nutritional theories from intelligent people that make me question my own recommendations sometimes.
However, I come from a family of mountain men, scientists, and game wardens and your blend of history and ecology makes perfect sense. Thanks for the jerk back to reality.
Hey there,I’m not a shrink and I have many of my own problems. I cant remember where your from but I thought that some kind of drugs would make me feel better and You seem 2 be of a simillar mindset.(Pardon my bad grammar) At least your not an alcoholic. Ok, um It just seems like your really sad.Thats what got me into natural drugs and whatnot. We should talk, right? Join the club, Hey if you want,I can send you a nice Salvia D. cutting. I have an appreciation for botanicals just like you but I hope you feel better and I really hope you write back to me. since Its not often I come across someone with similar interests. Blah Blah but like I said I would love to exchange cuttings with you and me can also Bullshit about our common interests, since its hard 2 to find people with a triple digit Intelligence Quotient, Right. Oh yeah be careful with opiates,Being dope sick sucks.Ok,my hands R getting tired as I can only type 2 finger style (I know what your thinking) Just kidding Ok I gotta go right now,but you seem mad cool and smart.So get back 2 me when you get a chance. P.S. I gave a crackhead about a Tablespoon of fresh Datura Meteloide seeds and his eyes rolled to the back of his head.We chased him into the woods,but he asked 4 it.I can expand upon that later .
Oh well see you later.
The only time you find a high concetration of solanine is when the tubers
are exposed to sunlight and they turn green. Even then you would have to eat a bunch of pure green taters. Im too lazy,but look up the LD50 of
pure solanine and I would bet my left nut you would have to consume quite a bit to even feel yucky.I’m sure anyone that eats potato chips has seen at least once a half green one,thats where the solanine is. These potatoes were at least partially exposed to the sun. Perhaps the cooking leaches it out ? Why not try it yourself? Potaters are easy to grow. You know when you leave them in the dark the eyes start growing? You can cut it into peices with one eye each,or just bury the whole thing in your garden(if you cut it up its best 2 let each piece dry a little and/or put some sulfur or rootone on the exposed parts to inhibit fungi,but I dont often bother) Ok , so once you see some of the folliage popping up,scratch up the soil some and find a little tater.If you leave some of it uncovered,you will see it turn green from sun exposure. Then make a nice potato salad for someone you hate and see what the coroner report says poisoned them.Just kidding,like I said, I think its only mildly toxic.Like you said Penelope,many folks used to be afraid of tomatoes,eggplants and such. Ok, Peace 2 the middle east,word to the mother bird and all that stuff. P.S. I agree with that Anna chick,A recent article in American Scientific was about a direct link between acidity and cancer but enough 4 now,I cant stand typing.
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Hey, just checking in to say I used think this stuff was stupid too, prople bleating about food intolerances etc, bunch of spoiled neurotic hypochondriacs etc, but then last summer I started getting really bad joint pains literally everywhere, and finally after researching half the crud on the internet, I recently eliminated potatoes and toms for 5 days, found the pain lessened but I was craving them (which is freaky but also a noted sign of intolerance), ate a big load of tomato soup (YUM!) – result was agonising joint pains that kept me awake for hours.
This can’t have been like “anti-placebo effect” because I didn’t really believe in it, and even now I’m not 100% convinced, I’m one of life’s skeptical types, but if it turns out to be true then the very least we can do is have that information available as a possible cause of problems, and not laugh away these things just because they haven’t affected us.
The pain has eased again now and I only tried this because I was a few more sleepless nights short of going to the Doctor, and then a possible lifetime of meds & side effects.
From now onwards I’ll be keeping a more open mind, and I’d advise other people to do the same – not so open your brain falls out, but not rigidly shut to possible new ideas either.
Going to try 3 months without any toms/tatties, thrn maybe try a “challenge meal” and if I remember will post the results here.
PS Just in reference to Willem’s comment at the top, my family roots are mainly northern European, which could explain this?
I read that you are “pro” nightshade and I can appreciate where you are coming from, being that you are NOT nightshade “sensitive.” I too, used to eat EVERYTHING and never have an kind of issues. But as I’ve aged, I’m well into my fifties, I experienced worsening symptoms of severe joint conditions.
I attributed this to “getting older” and figured I would just have to deal with it. But, after a very strange experience, I took on a very different viewpoint. I had never eaten “artichoke” in my life (that I know of) until fairly recently. We went to a restaurant and discovered a very tasty artichoke dip that was so good, I ordered a second serving and consumed just about the whole thing myself.
The next day I awoke to both legs being useless! My knees and ankles were so swollen and painful that I could not stand. I investigated the situation on the internet and discovered I was not alone and thus began my quest to find out what the heck was going on.
To make a long story short, my diet had consisted of mostly nightshade vegetables and other foods that naturally contained “solanine.” I was a person that ate a great amout of potatoes, in one form or another, every single day of my life for thirty or forty years. Tomatoes and peppers of all kinds were on my menu when potatoes weren’t. I really think I over-loaded myself and now my body is saying it can’t take anymore.
I have omitted all foods containing solanine from my diet and in only a matter of weeks, my aching body has returned to the body that had treated me well for over forty years. I get out of bed and my feet hit the floor without a single twinge of pain! THAT in itself was a wonderful thing!
I still get occasional symptoms when I dine out because of failing to ask questions about exactly what is in the dish I’m ordering or if I eat at a friend’s home that is careless about the food even though I tell them about my condition. I also find that certain other foods will trigger symptons. PEANUTS got me recently. I didn’t see that coming. I don’t eat them regularly and after having a couple of handfuls of salted/roasted peanuts the evening before, I awoke to having an ankle so sore, that it gave me a limp for most of the next day!
I envy those of you that can have a pizza and then consume a bag of potato chips. But beware that you may not always be able to do so.
Take care…. Reb