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Date: | Mon, 5 Mar 2007 21:15:15 +0000 |
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Thanks Mark/Todd, never realised they were as suspect as they are
On Mar 05, 2007, at 6:39 pm, Todd Moody wrote:
> http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=george&dbid=62
> As Mark pointed out, the nightshades have been selectively bred for
> low solanin content. But they still contain this toxin. I was
> surprised to learn that peppers have as much of it as they do.
After reading that I'm also surprised- I assumed that if anything
potatoes would be 10x higher in solanine! I don't eat peppers often
though so I'm not too bothered. A bit like tomatoes, I can take them
or leave them.
I did some searching on my own and found this: http://
www.rawfoodsbible.com/index.php?page=ch6/oxalic
What caught my eye was: "The solanine levels are highest in unripe
vegetables and the solanine levels drop when the vegetable ripens. A
vine ripened tomato will not cause problems while a tomato picked
green and ripened off the vine will (most supermarket tomatoes)."
What a surprise - supermarkets sell us the poisonous ones because
they're cheaper. Well would you believe...
Also on a different vegetable, I found this searching for nightshades
but what was interesting was the bit about parsnips: http://
www.beyondveg.com/tu-j-l/raw-cooked/raw-cooked-1g.shtml (apparently
they "contain toxic psoralens, which are potent light-activated
carcinogens and mutagens not destroyed by cooking" - turns out this
was copied from the wikipedia page). On a more positive note,
according to http://www.mc.uky.edu/Biochemistry/dept_personnel/
faculty/Spielmann/psoralen.html , "psoralen damaged DNA is recognized
by both the human repair system and the prokaryotic (A)BC
excinuclease and serves as an excellent model to study the structural
and dynamic motifs that cellular repair enzyme systems may recognize".
Over winter, when British parsnips are available in the shops, I eat
them regularly. They are *easily* my favourite vegetable, and I like
them at least twice as much as swede, broccoli or cauliflower. This
year I've had them probably one day in two. I suspect if they
actually were dangerous, I'd be dead by now.
I just find it strange to think I've been giving myself cancer on a
daily basis and having my body clean up after me. Makes me almost
want to go carnivorous! Still I'd rather take my chances with
parsnips than aspartame or corn. It made me think though - if so
many plants contain potentially dangerous toxins, which we've
presumably lived with for millions of years, we must be doing
something SERIOUSLY wrong to get the level of disease we've got
today. I doubt supermarket tomatoes explain everything.
Ashley
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