Nightshades (probably) aren't hurting you (tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, eggplant, etc)
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- Опубліковано 4 вер 2022
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2022 Arthritis Foundation overview of the nightshades controversy: blog.arthritis.org/living-with...
2019 Cleveland Clinic overview of the nightshades controversy: health.clevelandclinic.org/wh...
2017 experiment showing that an Autoimmune Protocol Diet can help with Inflammatory Bowel Disease: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
2010 mouse study showing that solanine from potatoes can aggravate Inflammatory Bowel Disease: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20198...
1983 toxicology of solanine that mentions mammals don't absorb it very well when ingested: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6338654/
2016 Boston Globe interview where Tom Brady's then chef claims that nightshades cause inflammation: www.boston.com/sports/new-eng...
2003 Swedish study showing that a Mediterranean Diet helped with rheumatoid arthritis symptoms: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
Dr. Norman Childers' old website with his various nightshade-related content: noarthritis.com/ - Навчання та стиль
"But just because a family includes a few toxic members doesn't mean they're all bad, right?"
I felt that.
Very relatable
@@davidvarna indeed.
_looks at Kardashians_ There are exceptions.
Doesn't everyone have a slightly "slow" cousin from Nebraska who wears a MAGA hat without irony?
@@jujuUK68 no
There is a Chinese dish called"地三鲜“, which is stir-fired potato, eggplant & bell pepper. It is delicious. The name directly translates to "3 umami food from the ground", but I always joke with my friends and call it Nightshades' meeting room.
That sounds really ''shady'' like some sort back room thing.
''I am looking for the Boss''
''He is in the Nightshades' meeting room''
But the dish sounds good.
When I cook, my rice dishes tend to have three ingredients, eggplant, bell peppers and zucchini.
Plus what ever I want, mushrooms, some leafy greens like chinese cabbage and carrots
I love this and am going to have to try it. Thanks for sharing!
That's a good one!
oh damn that sounds good. do you know any good recipes or is it just those three ingredients seasoned to taste? i wanna try it
I was in a tabletop campaign where the GM leveraged the early cultural attitudes around nightshades against us for a really funny punchine. Characters were invited to a fancy dinner to get in touch with the employer for their big job, the GM detailed a wonderful dish. Nobody knew what it was and players started rolling checks to identify it. The healer/doctor of the group identified the presence of a sauce made from nightshades and went into a panic fervor trying to stop everyone from ingesting the poison. Made a total ass of himself and everyone went conspiracy mode to try and figure out who bribed the kitchen staff to try and kill us.
Turns out that we were being served a basic new york style pizza, and the GM was just very clever in deliberately not connecting the dots.
@@earthmurmurs8659 it wasnt D&D and the system wasnt pertinant to the story
@@earthmurmurs8659 im sorry, the hell does that have to do with anything?
@@earthmurmurs8659 I completely agree with you. Let's ban tabletop campaigns in the name of productivity. While we are at it, let's also ban this useless thing called UA-cam. What is it that we are doing here instead of being productive?
@@earthmurmurs8659 Now, let's do something productive with our lives. I hope you do so too, and that you stop wasting your time commenting here in this useless website. Bye, I hope I don't see you here ever again.
That sounds hilarious! bet the people who made the pizza were VERY confused by these accusations.
It's important to note that one of the reasons tomatoes and other nightshades were considered "dangerous" in the, like, 17th-18th centuries is because *tomatoes can leach off materials*. If you eat a tomato on, say, a tin plate (as people did), you would not feel great after because *the tomato had picked up some of the metallic elements from the tin plate*, and generally speaking your body doesn't like consuming metals!
Yeah, this is why pewter has fallen out of favor as a material for flatware.
Also people back then WERE STUPID 😂😂😂. How are you gonna use a group who didn't understand basic food safety to choose your diet?!
But that's the acid in tomatoes, not 'nightshade'.
Restaurants had huge aluminum soup pots and simmered pasta sauce in them. I remember seeing large pit marks inside bottom of pot.
@@mindstalk Yeah, you'd see the same results from any acidic dish, but there probably weren't many such dishes back then. The most obviously acidic foods that come to mind are other fruits (citrus, grapes, etc), and those would be used more either in solid form (not leaking liquids much) or in drinks, not plated.
People will say Brady is right about everything because he can still play football at 45. No, he gets enough sleep, stays hydrated, spends outlandish money on different types of physical therapy, and his diet is still incredibly healthy focusing on lean meats and lots of fruit and veggies. And he is very good at avoiding major hits. A lot of the other stuff really doesn't apply to normal people. Follow his diet if you want to, you'll definitely be healthier. But you don't have to follow it to a T.
he has mast cell activation syndrome. that’s why he avoids things like tomatoes, alcohol, shellfish, etc.
@@demdaddy he can't eat shellfish? Well I would definitely not trade places with that guy.
@@nsaad3048 😂😂
Fatty meats are better
If TB says nightshades are poison (I've never heard such a thing), then the U of Michigan did him a disservice by not requiring him to take (and pass) a few science courses. Bet he majored in PE w/ no science requirement, (except jock courses, of course).
It's getting harder and harder to respect friends and family that come at me with their version of "science", which ends up just being their efforts to cherry-pick the studies that give them the results they want to believe, often really bad unscientific sources. It's refreshing to see a video that does better, examining the studies in greater detail and pulling back from the extremist view.
How do you know that this video also doesn't cherry pick data? I'm neutral on the night shade, but I find it glaring that he didn't mention Dr. Grundy and his research into lectin. This video looks to have very very incomplete research.
My experience is the same as Daniel's. I have to listen to bunk science from women relatives, who claim to be "allergic" to all nightshades, allergic to gluten, etc. I have stopped having these relatives over for any occasions that include lots of food.
If it's bad nightshade science they're coming at you with, does that mean they have cherry-tomato-picked the studies?
@@lthoang101 There's nothing to cherry pick, there's too little data on the "Nightshades are bad" category, while many nightshades are in some way a STAPLE crop in many countries on Earth.
This is CNN levels of disgusting false equivalence from you.
Gundry is a quack.
I have lupus (an autoimmune disease) which means I have high inflammation. In order to try and lessen that (and the pain, brain fog, fatigue, etc.) I've been working on adding and subtracting food from my diet to see if it helps. I did one food at a time so I know for sure exactly what each one did. Nightshades are one I've had to cut completely (heartbreaking because they are my favorites). All of them make me experience much worse pain, etc. when I consume them. One of the interesting things I noticed though is that potatoes were the worst for causing pain and stiffness. Tomatoes made stomach issues worse and although pain increased, it wasn't as bad as the potatoes. Every body will experience things differently and I've realized food sensitivities are hard to identify, so it is important for everyone who is having health issues to check for food sensitivities. Start first with foods that have a higher risk of causing inflammation (nightshades, dairy, red meat, eggs, gluten, sugar, alcohol, for example are common problems for people in the autoimmune community) and try taking each one out of your diet for at least a month. Then add that food back in and see if there seems to be a change. No one who is healthy should worry about any of these foods. If you keep a balanced diet and don't consume huge amounts of these potentially inflammatory foods, you should be perfectly fine.
Yeah, I think it is important for the individual to listen to their own body. While I greatly respect science and the scientific process, there is a lot that science doesn't yet know or understand, or have completely correct views on. If I have repeat experiences over the years and there are clear patterns and trends to be seen, then I will listen to that over science--especially medical science which is one of the most complex and influenced.
Certain experiences with vaunted "experts" like MD's, have directly taught me how wrong these can be and how important it is to listen to and pay attention to one's body. Because of some weird symptoms, I was told by an allergy specialist MD from a prestigious organization, that I was essentially allergic to heat and that it was genetic, incurable, blah blah. Turns out, he was completely and utterly wrong, and I healed myself of these symptoms by radically changing my diet and health lifestyle. But it took time and I had to learn to actually listen to my body and the feedback it was trying to give me.
Have look at Dr Brooke Goldner and her UA-cam channel. She helps people with auto immune disease. I am doing much better after starting her protocol 3 months ago.
Get on carnivore diet and you’ll be healed
Did anyone else notice that in the article Adam showed in the beginning, mushrooms were listed among nightshades? As in a fungus listed between plants?
Did you notice that in the article Adam showed at 8:00, Solanaceae is said to “contain _naturally_ the active metabolite, vitamin D3”?
@ we are just apes , hairless apes with tools. leave it at that hahaha
Just a nitpicky correction, you're right that Europeans and Africans only had contact with poisonous nightshade prior to the Columbian exchange, however in Asia there is a native nightshade that's delicious: Goji berries. Also a much more obvious exception is Eggplant, native to India.
yeah, we have Iberian documents mentioning eggplants from the 12th and 13th century. They were probably introduced by the arabs as soon as the 8th century.
And, okra which either evolved in India or Aftrica, or someplace in between.
Europeans and africans ate solanum nigrum since the Paleolithic era and it looks very much like deadly nigh
Good point
I would also add black night shade (solanum nigrum complex) to the list. Its ripe berries & (cooked) leaves are edible, but often confused for deadly nightshade (atropa belladonna) in Europe due to some similarities in appearance (though I find them easily distinguishable). As such, a lot of cultures in Asia & Africa used solanum nigrum as a food source; whereas, Europeans generally lumped it in with the deadly plant & avoided it all together.
As someone with pain issues I've tried cutting these things out of my diet before to see if it would help. It didn't. Now I'm planning on having some stuffed peppers for supper later. Eat what ya like in moderation and you'll be far happier than you will avoiding things.
Yeah there's a reason you don't see lactose intolerant people cut out dairies entirely. It isn't really worth losing dairy and cheese over some pills or a bad diarrhea
Begin fasting and see if that helps. It's the only thing that works on all humans the same. Well that and sleep.
@@darkness74185 uh... Bad diarrhea is the perfect reason to cut out diary lol. What the hell.
Some people are so domesticated lol
@@greuju it’s honestly not that bad
@@darkness74185 I mean, there are a lot of dairy that is lactose free these days, both naturally and artificially. Cheese that has been cured for longer than a few months for example is extremely close to lactose free.
Fun fact: there are even some perfectly edible species of nightshade that botanists and health professionals from English-speaking countries have all labelled entirely inedible and poisonous, purely because they got them mixed up with Atropa belladonna. They're various species that all share the "black nightshade" label. Solanum nigrum, Solanum americanum, Solanum retroflexum, Solanum douglasii, ... The list goes on. Foragers tend to use them as field snacks they find along trails, or in jams and pies, and in some countries they even eat the leaves after boiling very well multiple times to remove the solanine. I've got some that started growing in the yard as volunteer plants, I keyed it out as Solanum douglasii, and its really good! Like sweet tomatillo, or those Cape gooseberries you mentioned.
I grow both solanum burbankii and solanum americanum in my garden. They taste great as long as you eat them fully ripe.
Are you telling me the little black berries I was always told was deadly nightshade was actually perfectly edible?
@@Clown_the_Clown well it depends, you'd have to look at the plant and go through the plant identification checklist to be absolutely sure you've got the right one, then you'd have to make sure to harvest the fruit at the right time and only try a bit at a time until you're sure it's safe in larger quantities. But potentially, if it's one of the edible black nightshade species, and you're careful about when you harvest and eat it, yeah
@@Clown_the_Clown worth mentioning that Atropa belladonna, the *actual* deadly nightshade, has also been introduced to different places as an ornamental (it's purple bell-shaped flowers *do* look very pretty), so there's a non-zero chance that you are actually looking at deadly nightshade. You'd really have to run through the plant ID checklist to be sure
does American guns too belong to nightshades?
Yeah, the "deep fried" part couldn't possible aggravate mouse internals.
LOL even fruit aggravates mouse internals... They get diarrhea if you give them anything other than their natural diet (mostly seeds and other dry nutrient dense things you could find in a field)
Especially if fried in industrial seed oils AKA "vegetable oil".
I guessed the sponsor when Adam said not all bitter foods are toxic, I'm quite proud of myself.
Same! I feel like I’m learning his patterns lol
I was for some reason expecting tea, though I don't think he's ever done a tea sponsorship.
sources of bitterness can be several; alkaloids are bitter but they are usually glycosylated that kills their bitterness. Most terpenes are bitter too as are the amino acids (save glycine)
@@Corrodias teas sold in real chinese tea shops are only brewed for like half-one and a half minute so they arent as bitter
@@notez420_ I'm not sure why you're telling me that. When you're brewing tea at home, it's not in a Chinese shop, and if Adam were to advertise a sponsorship to a tea vendor, it would be for ordering raw tea for use at home, like he does for every other product. Of course, not doing it for an excessive amount of time will prevent significant bitterness from any tea.
Adam showing, once again, that the best way to counter misinformation is to say "source please" and read said source.
If only it was always easy to get to the actual sources. So much is behind a very expensive pay wall.
@@rosalie.e.morgan sci-hub
The reading of the source and understanding it in context of other sources is the important (and difficult) part. These days you can find at least one source for pretty much anything, no matter how fringe. But understanding that it directly contradicts a mountain of evidence pointing in the other direction is the key.
@@Cris00900340 Too bad the united states and many other countries keep trying to get it nuked, hopefully it doesn't go the way of Megaupload or Piratebay since they seem to view it as basically that but for science.
Brandolini's law
I have a general response to all diets: If a food works for you, good! If it doesn't, avoid it! For example, I avoid gluten, lactose, onions, and potato skins (among other things) as they upset my stomach (gluten something fierce) but I wouldn't say that anyone else should avoid them just because
I don't understand why more people can't accept this. But I have come to the conclusion that a lot of people become sensitive to very common foods as they grow older and would benefit by a temporary elimination diet. My mother complained of arthritis late in life. Her diet was mostly wheat. She definitely had symptoms of gluten intolerance.
I have given up a number of common foods to live pain-free, but it's fine with me if other people choose to eat whatever they want, which is their right. But in a society where we are surrounded by cheap factory processed foods, the standard American diet for a lot of people is mostly wheat, corn, soybeans, and reprocessed vegetable oil. This is anything but a healthy, natural diet.
Fun Fact: I used to be allergic to Tomatoes as a kid. i loved them so much that i kept on eating them to the point where i just wasnt allergic anymore. according to my parents i would break out with Hives but now i can down a whole thing of cherry Tomatoes and not have any symptoms.
Same with me and ragweed. From childhood through college I'd get pretty intense sneezing fits all through the fall. Now as an adult I've grown out of it completely.
Very cool!
I've heard of this before, you can desensitize yourself to any allergic reaction pretty much (assuming the reaction isn't fatal or extreme or something that would prevent consistent exposures). The most interesting example I've come across is that the red, itchy bumps from mosquito bites are actually an allergic reaction, and mosquito researchers usually feed their subjects from their own arms. After a couple months of hundreds of bites a day, they no longer get those itchy, red bumps.
You must have eaten a LOT of tomatoes!
Well, I hate to tell you... I too broke out in heat spots (hives) with tomatoes when I was a kid. I didn't eat them. As an adult, I was fine. I don't think it was the eating them, I think it's just that as we develop, we get better at tolerating things!
your immune system changes quite a lot throughout your life, especially during puberty, so it may not have been the fact you ate toms anyway that did it. That's just how some immune systems develop. A lot of kids are allergic to stuff and grow out of it. The opposite also happens, where after puberty people will develop allergies. It's really common to develop allergies to things we are frequently exposed to. Dish soap is a great example.
Im impressed with your determination
My son recently developed a strong allergy to peppers while doing food prep in his creative cooking class for cheddar jalapeno biscuits. He got hives all over his hands and repeated outbreaks for the next 2 days, turns out even the little bit of oil that transferred to his phone was enough to cause contact dermatitis. Now any dish with above about 2% peppers causes him to go into anaphylaxis which is super serious.
I've had to completely change the way I cook, no more paprika which I love. I had to formulate a BBQ rub without any peppers in it (cinnamon, clove, mace, and a mix of peppercorns can evoke the same heat sensation that capsicum provides).
Luckily he hasn't shown any problems with the other nightshades as I'm not sure I could handle losing potatoes and tomatoes too.
An allergy is quite different from what Adam is talking about.
@@useyournoodle100 actually they're interrelated. Inflammatory response comes from your immune system identifying a potentially harmful foreign substance and setting off a complex set of chemical reactions in a whole bunch of body systems. When that reaction goes from moderate to severe we call it an allergy.
Maybe you need to find recipes from before the columbian exchange. I hear the Medieval middle east had some interesting food going on.
@@useyournoodle100 finish watching the video, he mentions allergy
If you haven't already, a great way of getting a bunch of flavors while not causing possible reactions is through food additives. In the last couple years I've developed a few food intolerances due to a relapse I had of a condition I had as a kid. Finding out that people online sell food additives like sodium citrate and lactic acid have been monumental in recreating the flavors I used to eat while not risking eating those same foods that used to cause me bad reactions. Adam's even done a couple videos on them. NOT AN AD but the place I usually order from is called modernist pantry so it might be worth checking out.
Idk if it’s just me, but watching the podcast on the weekend is really fun because it sort of acts like a teaser for the Monday vids, very nice!
same, comrade.
That is a very nice thing he does
I like when references future Monday videos too
Same lol
Very excited for the video on lactic acid producing bacteria!
My sister and dad have arthritis and they've found that when they completely cut nightshades out of their diets that their pain became much more bearable. They did the experiment by going out to the extended family cabin by themselves for two weeks to be able to isolate variables more easily.
It's been hard cooking for them since then, and I'm a little worried with my 25th birthday coming up since that's when the early onset arthritis in our family starts to appear. I already can't drink alcohol without my back getting super inflamed.
It's possible they're allergic to them and it's not to do with toxicity
My Mother had to do the same thing or else she was crippled from arthritis. Now that I am in my 50s, I finds that I am cursed with the arthritis gene as well. I can no longer eat bell pepper, tomatoes or baked potatoes anymore. My hands or hip joints burn for several days and it can be excruciating.
I had same issue. Healthy and active guy, started developing pain in my shoulders, wrists, and knees at 25. I had started eating jalapenos a few years prior after moving to Houston. The brain fog was terrible. I found out through elimination diet that it was the peppers primarily and coffee secondly. I also gave myself sleep apnea, would stop breathing at night! After quitting the peppers, it all proceeded to slowly abate over the next few years! Totally healthy now, and I avoid peppers and coffee. Now that I am recovered, I can consume a pepper or coffee here and there, but they have to be spaced out.
I went to a blood doctor. He wanted me to get the plant paradox and start that diet. I did some research and found the guy that created it has a ton of conflicting “science.” For example he has one recipe that you can’t use soy sauce because of the lectins but then uses Tabasco. His excuse for Tabasco was that because it’s fermented all the lectins are gone. Sorry but soy sauce is fermented as well.
But soy sauce usually has gluten right? Gluten cannot be destroyed.
@@lilkira5579 what if you nuke it
@@mmhmm9271 checkmate atheists
@@mmhmm9271 Nope, not even if you nuke it, this is why tank armor is made out of gluten!
@@lilkira5579 Fermentation will break down complex proteins like gluten into amino acids and polypeptides. So gluten can technically be "destroyed" but not completely ridding the allergen, therefore it's still present and can affect people with serious intolerances and celiac disease. Soy sauce, Kikoman and Lima brands specifically, has less than 5ppm of gluten.
Tom Brady is obviously doing something right. But he's also had access to world-class doctors, nutritionists and trainers for 20 years. He's literally paid to exercise and stay in shape, too. He's not exactly a great test case.
And he probably has all kinds of genetic quirks that mean exercise and diet have a specific impact on him.
@@stephenpalmer9375 what the hell is this supposed to mean
@@nile7999 it means he’s a very specific physical specimen. Even with all the same diet and exercise regimens, 99.99% of people wouldn’t have his athletic skills or body
I once heard this crazy radio show that claimed that nightshade vegetables contain nicotine, because tobacco is also a nightshade plant, and are just as addictive as tobacco 🙄 How stupid is that?!!
Not only that, but they're probably much harder to light up outside a pub. And no one ever asks if you have a spare aubergine.
@@jujuUK68 well, some people may ask if you could give them your 'Aubergine'.
@@cookiecraze1310 lol!
They do contain trace amounts, but not enough to matter.
By that same logic, since humans and chimpanzees belong to the same family, the hosts of that show have the tendency to fling their feces at random people.
I hear claims about nearly every food group and why they shouldn't be eaten. People say nuts and beans shouldn't be eaten because of phytic acid, people say dairy shouldn't be eaten because of gastrointestinal issues, and people say green cruciferous vegetables shouldn't be eaten because of antinutrients
Yep, meat shouldn't be eaten as it's "rotting in your intestines" - yes, a genuine claim I've seen made on a Facebook group. Grains, flours and all kinds of bread shouldn't be eaten because of gluten. Friuts shouldn't be eaten as they're too high in sugars.
I guess we should stick to root vegetables and hope for the best 😂
@@AnnaEmilka root vegetables have too much starch, cant eat those either /s
yep
just drink some water, spread your arms under the sun an photosynthesize your own sugar! stop trying to get a free ride from dem plants!
what do you mean we can't make photosynthesis? you just didn't try hard enough
Better to be safe and not eat anything lol
@@AnnaEmilka The idea that the foods that kept humans alive for millennia could possibly be poisonous to everyone is a disturbingly ridiculous claim. We are truly entering an age of anti-intellectualism
Being from the southern U.S., I've always enjoyed a southern favorite: fried green tomatoes. I was told when young that, while green tomatoes really were toxic, frying them converted the toxins to a non-toxic form, just as ripening did. Ditto for "sun-burned" potatoes. Don't eat them. Green chilis, on the other hand, yumm... Aubergines, too.
I think the people who are worried about an American diet too rich in nightshades need to wise up and get concerned about an American diet too full of processed sugars and processed carbohydrates, which, as the population ages, really are major contributors to the epidemic of Type II Diabetes.
richard
--
It is difficult to convince someone that something isn't true when their prejudgements tell them it is.
- variation on Upton Sinclair
Fun fact, adam actually has a video on fried green tomatoes if you're interested
Yeah let's knock out the fried pork chops , bud lite, and peach cobbler (or at least eat in moderation..). After that we can talk about which vegetables have "toxic compounds"
You can eat raw green tomato. They're just very sour and a bit bitter (which made people think that it's poisonous, but it's not). Here we have some dips/topping made of diced green tomato, green chili, and shallot. Literally called green dip, and basically dice those then you squeeze as much lime juice as you want (they should be swimming in lime juice), or add some vinegar you like. Best used with say grilled fish or other food where you squeeze some lime juice on top, just replace with these topping.
Eggplant and mushrooms sauteed in a good olive oil -- one of my favorite side dishes. Hard to overcook and always delicious. Tomatoes with slices of fresh mozzarella, basil, and olive oil -- a great start to a meal or a meal in itself. Nicotine lozenges -- the perfect after dinner mint! I love nightshades, the good, the bad, and the evil!!!
In my family, my mother, my sister and I are sensitive to nightshades. When I slip and accidentally eat something with eggplant or green pepper, my knees ache painfully 30 minutes later, with out fail. This happened to me as I got older. Some of us do have a sensitivity to nightshades. But it's usually from under ripe or green fruits (most of fresh tomatoes in the markets are picked green in the field or under-ripe), since solanine levels drop as the fruit matures. This is why I don't have an issue if I have ketchup, since they process tomatoes that are fully ripened in the field, and red chili peppers - FULLY ripened fruit have low solanine levels. Once or twice a year I will let myself have french fries, but only if there are no skin and they potatoes are peeled. Then that night my knees may feel a bit stiff. But I cut them out for most of my diet to avoid accumulation and diminished knee mobility. French fries aren't good for my waistline anyway. My mom, in her 50's, was hobbling badly and taking 36 aspirin a day until she came across a book that explained how some medical conditions are food allergies. After a two day water fast she started incorporating one food back into her diet per mealtime. When she had potatoes, 30 minutes later, she couldn't walk. After she cut out nightshades, my mother's ankles, where it affected her most, reduced in swelling, went from purple to a healthier color (she still had arthritis in her ankles, left one especially since she broke that when she was 30 and had 2 steel screws in it), and no longer needed a cane to walk, nor needed to take aspirin daily. After cutting out nightshades, she walked better in her 50's than when she was in her 40's. So for some people, it is a serious food allergy.
This reminds me of Dr. Gundry and his book called “The Plant Paradox” where he demonizes different types of vegetables, including nightshades. Very glad you made a thorough and well-researched video addressing all of this.
This dude demonized legumes like it is meth 😅
That dr is a lunatic
"The common food nightshades are all indigenous to the Americas..."
Actually, eggplants originated in Asia. Their names in many languages, even the English "aubergine", can be etymologically traced back to Sanskrit.
Which itself also ultimately means 'eggplant'
_Solanum nigrum_ (the European black nightshade) has also been traditionally consumed and even grown in the Old World since some of their strains aren’t particularly toxic what makes them edible.
Eggplant "has been cultivated in southern and eastern Asia since prehistory."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggplant#History
He made a video about eggplants before, and he talks about them being nightshades and the etymologies of various words for it. He does also make a repetitive point of it coming all the way from India.
Here's the link tho the video: ua-cam.com/video/mQoNAR1um_c/v-deo.html&ab_channel=AdamRagusea
Can we genetically modify eggplants to have *some* semblance of nutritional value?
Love me some eggplant parmigiana, but it’s comparatively a lot of work for virtually no nutrition. But damn it tastes good.
Night shades tend to have their fair share of lectins, and those can potentially cause inflammation, but it's very much a case of "figure out for yourself just how much they affect you". In general, they should be fine to eat if you enjoy them, but do keep in mind that everyone is different. I myself rarely eat night shades, but that's only because I don't like most of them. XD
i love adams thoroughness so much! i have worked with bumblebees before (which are integral to a lot of nightshade reproduction (buzz pollination)) but the diligence in not taking every headline as truth is so heartwarming to someone like me. reading science papers is tough but even then some of them are quite dodgy and unsubstantiated.
thank you adam!
Me and my mom get horrible skin conditions from eating night shades. I didn’t think it was a thing until I cut most night shades out of my diet. I do think it’s interesting that so many people don’t take food sensitivities serious. Also I think it’s very interesting that there are so many people on immunosuppressive drugs for the same conditions I’ve had. I wonder if more people are really sensitive to many different foods but they are not willing to try because so many people put out videos and social media posts like this one.
There are plenty of plant families with both edible members and lethal ones. Fabaceae with many edible and toxic members are a case in point, and the Apiaceae which includes carrots and parsnips but also hemlock.
ye
I have a latex allergy so fruits and veggies with natural latex, or latex like compounds in them are no-no's for me and that included most nightshades. I can get away with sweet peppers in moderation, potatoes if they've had the shirt cooked out of them, and sometimes I will risks a spoonful of tomato paste in my meat sauce but that's it. Which sucks. I love a caprese salad..... I do not however love my mouth and throat swelling and breaking out in hives and the 3-5 days of GI hell that would follow the yummy. That means no baba ganoush, no Pico de gallo, no tomato toasties this time of year. ☹️ But that, like you said Adam, is an allergy. And one I really wish I didn't have because nightshades are delicious. Painful, but delicious.
I’m allergic to latex too but I didn’t know they were bad for me, although you might be more allergic than I am.
o7
It is possible to make a nomato sauce based on pureed cooked carrots, with a little beet liquid to darken and redden the color, and salt, citric acid for tanginess, and a bit of sugar for sweetness. It actually looks and tastes like tomato sauce. I freeze this in silicone baking molds to pop out of the freezer and use in everything.
@@kaakrepwhatever roasted red bell peppers work well too.
@@kaakrepwhatever Since I loathe carrots, I am pretty sure I would be able to tell the difference.
Seems like putting a group of test subjects on _any_ kind of special diet as part of a study may have all sorts of effects on their health. The test subjects may have any number of different histories of introspective consideration of their diets, from none at all to, well, anything imaginable.
That's why you use control groups, if there's no control group in you study, it's probably a bad study XD
Also something to consider, how perfectly did anyone actually follow the diet. It's one thing to say you took a pill everyday, it's another to spend several months being careful of every single thing you eat.
Michael McNally: 99% of all studies are intrinsically biased. Only *one* percent of all scientists are truly independent. You can manipulate the interpretation of any study to your intent. Read "How to Lie with Statistics:" by Huff, Darrell, Geis, Irving
In one vitamin study I read about, the test food was so bland that it pretty much invalidated the study: Participants felt bad whether it contained the vitamin which was researched or not.
First, thank you for your content.
Over the last few years I've transitioned to a perspective that plants are food and food is medicine. The importance of food aka that which is produced in/by nature and is minimally processed/prepared, took on new significance after I began to practice intermittent fasting. I've reduced my sugar intake to raw honey and a couple pieces of fruit daily - no sodas, candy, or highly processed foods as all are chocked full of sugar. Commercially produced juices are out too. Weight-loss, improved sleep, balanced mood followed my lifestyle change.
Then, in July of 2022, I began to encounter a deluge of symptoms I'd had before, but not in consistency or concentration: fatigue, severe pain and extreme stiffness (limited range-of-motion) in my shoulders and hips. Now in February 2023 I've a diagnosis of Rheumatoid Arthritis and have plunged deep into the ethersphere for answers and WOW there's a lot of misinformation floating about.
So, like all the diets that exist touting their trademark benefits, which sometimes are loosely based on scientific findings, I've decided to conduct my own experiments by me, on me and for me. The hope is to isolate foods that supposedly worsen my RA symptoms or cause other negative effects like the gastrointestinal issues oft attributed to lectins/glycoalkaloids. I will water-only fast 24 hours, then introduce a serving of a single nightshade foods, as well as other foods reported to be inflammatory and wait 24 hours, noting symptoms, if any. Tomatoes, eggplant, potatoes, legumes, etc, etc. I'll know soon enough which foods' cons outweigh the pros and remove them from my diet. Of course, the results I experience may be limited to only a small sample of the population of 55 yo, European decended, males out there. Pharmacology, a natural diet and low-impact exercise regimen are my plan to live as high quality a physical/mental/emotional life as possible.
Update on the experiment's results? I am interested!
I was stoked to see you growing ground cherries! I had one sprout on it's own in my pepper patch and it quickly became a favorite plant for me. You should really wait until they fall off the plant and save them until the interior fruit turns bright yellow or even pink. The sweetness goes way up this way and I think tastes a bit like cotton candy.
Hey Adam, I’m a cook at a restaurant and I hear all types of “allergies” every day. From nightshade allergies to a new one that came through the other day was “allergic to foods that oxidize”… after all the line cooks stopped laughing we tried to come up with something and realized everything oxidizes… was someone just messing with us or is this a real thing? We ended finding out that they just couldn’t have potatoes, avocados or bananas. Things that oxidize very quickly. I tried to research this but couldn’t. It would be awesome to see a video showing people the difference between intolerance and allergy. Also would love to hear about any science that backs up these “interesting” intolerances
Nightshade allergies are very real. As far as things that oxidize... I have no clue
Can't speak to the other factors of that anecdote, but...
A lot of people describe whatever variety and severity of food sensitivity or intolerance they might have as an "allergy", not because _they_ don't know the difference (although certainly _some_ of them probably don't) but because they have been trained by long experience that describing their particular issue with nuance will either be misinterpreted, argued with, or outright ignored by others.
So they just call it an 'allergy'.
Because 'allergy' is
A) close enough, most of the time, to convey the general concept of 'really should not consume or otherwise be exposed to [X]'
B) usually won't get an under-response (ie. the kind of response that puts the recipient at risk),
C) will very rarely get argued with by random strangers,
and D) will very rarely get outright ignored by people who are even minimally aware of liability issues.
potatoes, avocados, and bananas can all be tied to latex allergies, so it sounds like maybe they just have a latex allergy/intolerance and haven't quite figured it out yet.
as far as intolerance vs allergy, someone with an intolerance can eat foods they are intolerant to without the risk of random death by anaphylaxis. they can be in the same room as it with no issues. for the most part, they actually can just pick an offending food off and eat the rest of the dish, unlike an allergy (this depends heavily on the type of intolerance and type of dish).
as far as researching more intolerances, maybe you might be interested in learning about FODMAPs? Monash University has a ton of ever-evolving research on them and the knowledge may be helpful to you as a cook, since the people who primarily avoid FODMAPs have digestive issues like IBS and are usually fine going out to eat as long as they are careful to avoid their personal trigger foods. that way, if someone tells you they want a no garlic/onion dish and you know that the dish uses a lot of dates & pistachios, you can ask the server to check and make sure they know it's high fructan and see if they'd like to stick with it or order something else that's more compliant with their needs.
@@BardedWyrm Totally understand people not wanting an under-response. At the end of the day they very well could have a condition and I obviously don’t want to aggravate it or cause any pain. I’m just curious why these intolerances and allergies are becoming more popular. I know there’s a lot of answers to this. (modern medicine, crazy internet blogs and just the western diet in general just to name a few). There is definitely a sense in the food industry that some of these allergies and intolerances feel made up.
@@josiahcherniss1485 the overall presence of allergies/intolerances definitely goes up compared to a century or two ago, some think it's because we live too sterile lives, especially as kids and our immune system gets startked at every little shit that comes its way
Will note that folks on dialysis can't have (most) nightshades, but it isn't because they are nightshades, it's to do with what the body can and can't filter OUT when the kidneys don't work... tomatoes are a big Nope for my husband, because they are also high in Potassium! In fact there are a ton of foods he just can't eat - or can have maybe once in a month - because of their potassium content. Legumes are "banned" twice for him: they contain potassium AND a good deal of phosphate compounds. It's been quite an adjustment going from being on a diabetic diet for decades, to the MUCH more restricted dialysis diet.
Fortunately he can still have things like chicken and rice, and your casserole recipes are VERY popular with him, so thank you!!
I love that you leave sources in the description for further reading.
@1:35 there is a mistake. Eggplants are one example of nightshades that the "old world" knew before the columbian exchange, goji berries are another example. There also some types of Physalis that are indigenous to the old world, but they are usually not eaten and only cultivated for medicine.
I had come to say exactly the same thing. Plus he was holding an eggplant, making it all the more ironic.
Physalis alkenkengi was sold in vegetable market areas in Northeast China when I was there. I think it makes a better "cut flower" (the bladder protecting the berry is red-orange) than a vegetable (it tastes a bit like bell pepper) but is edible.
i could never give up tomatoes, potatoes, and peppers...they are the only reason my diet is anywhere near being healthy
I might have said this at some point.. I started having issues when eating peppers around 6 years ago. I had to cut out all nightshades eventually, along with gluten. I really liked tomatoes potatoes and peppers, as well as tomatillos, ground cherries, etc. I was a salsa fiend. However, getting sick repeatedly is very effective motivation for dietary changes. Now, I'm actually eating healthier than ever, largely because processed food and restaurants are so problematic for me, so I eat 95% home cooked food. I would not recommend it because of the social implications, and the only way I was able to follow the diet was because I got sick otherwise, but it did end up being healthier for me.
I have an inflammatory condition and it felt much worse after I had a burger with a side of cheese fries. The tomato on top of the burger must have been what caused the flare up
Absolutely. All that fat from the burger, fries and cheese has nothing to do with it. 😃
You should eat another burger and cheesy fries but without the tomato.
In fact, you should eat burgers and cheesy fries every day! Just never put another goshdarn tomato in your mouth!
Possible pain points: A wheat bun contains gluten. Fries are potatoes, which contain nightshade, as does that slice of fresh tomato. Try the burger without the bun and yuca or sweet potato fries as a test after your flare up goes away.
Or it's the bread and fries and tomato
@Barrett405 massive calories? Bread has more calories than meat. Have you never bought food?
I was reading about this just the other day, wanting to learn more about the nightshade family, 'cause I pretty much eat them everyday. However, what I read was called why vegetables, especially nightshades, are "bad for you", and it was written by someone called "Carnivore Aurelius, sun of Marcus Aurelius" and it was "Medically reviewed & fact checked by a board-certified doctor". Because of my suspicion that it was biased writing, I was a bit put off and stopped reading.
I love that you're tackling this topic, providing people with objective scientific research about the food we eat.
O WOW, that article sounds amazeballs!
Every time I’ve gone to an allergist (move around doing the military wife thing) I test mildly allergic to a few things in the nightshade family. My allergist advised that sensitivities can behave in this way.
After strictly avoiding nightshades for months my crazy migraines went away 100%. Trying a bell pepper for the first time again gave me the second most severe migraine. The most severe one sent me to the ER with stroke-like symptoms, then some vomit…. until my head finally hurt, then an MRI I don’t remember due to blinding pain. The bell pepper headache spared me the stroke like symptoms, thank goodness.
10:41
actually, recent studies indicate that resting a bodypart too much after an injury often impedes healing, and instead you should put weight on it, as much as you can safely do without risking aggrivating the damage
Just as my doctor once said, had a shoulder injury.
He said, if it is tolerable I should move the arm first clockwise then counter clockwise, rotating it at the joint with the arm outstreched.
His explaination was that not moving the arm, or moving it wrong (in a way that did not hurt) would lead to the joints not connecting right and the body getting used to this new pose, which in the long term would have led to me being unable to move like I used to do.
Is that the reason why when you hit your head or something you feel the need to put your hand over it and apply a bit of pressure to ease the pain?
That would agree, then, with physical therapists trying to get you back on your feet and lightly exercising an injured body part as soon as it has healed enough to do so safely.
Anecdote incoming: I badly sprained a toe, and many weeks later it was still sore and not improving despite me babying it. Then I remembered that thing about physical therapy, so I did some mild exercise with the toe, tolerating the pain but never pushing it too hard, and after a couple of days, it stopped hurting entirely. Could just be a coincidence, but it does correlate with that wisdom.
Yeah, that's the reeducation you do after healing. But you're not supposed to do it, during the healing process ^^'
@@joaorichter9970 as you probably know one of the basic tenets of first aid is to apply pressure to stop bleeding and also to minimize movement at first. This probably got ingrained in us by evolution so that when injured we instinctively hold and apply mild pressure to a wound. (Also to lick or suck on it as saliva is mildly antimicrobial in a better than nothing sorta way)
I figure its similar to how we evolved disgust to avoid diseases, poop is generally filled with microbes that make us sick, so poop is disgusting to make us avoid it (and therefore the microbes it contains). So why wouldn't we have a basic first aid sense to hold the site of an injury when say you wack your elbow off a door frame. (An event that could theoretically have lead to more serious injury than a mild pain and tingling)
I recommend the video “nightshade stew” by Cody’sLab. Cody makes a stew from like 10 of them!
I'm still curious why Kenyon vetoed adding tobacco to the stew. Is tobacco uniquely bitter or expensive or otherwise bad for the stew?
@@General12th a lot of people dont react well to nicotine. it causes my BP to go through the roof and I get nausea with even small amounts. Even being around cig smoke will send my BP up, usually with a headache. It wouldn't surprise me if Kenyon just wanted to avoid that.
@@CRneu Thank you for the answer! :)
Thank you so much for this video!!!! I have a lot of friends that are on or talk about the AIP diet and it is concerning how they view so many foods, lile the beloved tomato or top tier peppers as bad. Thank you for looking into these papers and showing the issues in the studies
Wow, that was incredibly helpful! I heard someone make an offhanded comment about nightshades being bad the other day and it made no sense to me. Thank you for explaining how that nonsense came up and how to shut it down based on the research that has and has not been done!
I'm curious how much of the beneficial effects to inflammatory disease from not eating nightshades that some people report just come down to the placebo effect, and if that's been studied. Which isn't a bad thing if it helps them! Just a bad thing if they convince someone who *isn't* experiencing beneficial effects not to seek more effective treatment.
Hard to say. Setting up a long term large scale double blind nutritional study is really difficult. It's hard enough to do when you can use sugar pills as a placebo as a control, but for food you'd have to give some people fake nightshades and tell them they're real, and some people actual nightshades and tell them they're not eating any, and the researches wouldn't be able to know what group is which until after the study concluded, so you'd need good fake nightshades, good ways to hide nightshades, and a good way to disguise the difference between the two, then keep the study going long enough to get valid data while keeping the mix secret.
Long story short, actual science is hard to do when it comes to nutrition, which is why there are so many conflicting studies.
@@benjaminsmith3843 I suppose a possible workaround would be to have both groups cut nightshades out of the diet but then give one group a supplement of solanine & various other things they might get from nightshades and the other group a sugar pill, but then are you sure that has the same effects in the body and isn't too far removed from real-world applications.
Limiting the variety of fruits and vegetable in a diet can also cause harm, especially when it starts getting taken to extremes.
@@rosalie.e.morgan There is no harm in replacing nightshade vegetables with other vegetables that cause no symptoms. There are plenty of other vegetables out there in the produce section of every supermarket.
@@kaakrepwhatever It's one thing to replace a vegetable that is doing harm, it is another to try to avoid every vegetable with a dangerous relative because each one was vilified by a different self help book with no research to back it up, and no effort to verify that it is the source of an individuals symptoms.
That study must have aggravated every fibre of your being. I'm so sorry you had to go through that! 😂
Excellent Trade plug!
I really like your new plant/botany videos. I hope you keep making this type of stuff!
These gardening deep dives are seriously a new golden age of Adam Ragusea content.
Unfortunately for me I've discovered that I have some kind of a inflammatory response to Night shades. When I eat paprika or tomatoes, even a small amount, I get this runny stool couple of times in quick succession.
I've tried ashwaganda as well and it triggered the same response. However I get this response from zucchini which is not in the same family.
So from my experience, and this has been true at least for the past 3 years (probably much longer), there are some people that do get uncomfortable side effects from eating Night shades.
Don't let others tell you what is and what isn't good for your body.
Loving the transition to Trade coffee. Watch it every time. 👍
A very good balanced discussion Adam. Nicely done.
"So where did you get that dataset?" "Oh you know, the people who bought my book self reported it to me"
Excellent breakdown of hard science as usual. Thank you!
More of these videos. So educational! And enlightening.
Great review of the subject. My experience with the Nightshade shuffle was as follows: By age 35 I had developed terrible arthritis and was willing to do anything to fix the problem short of the pain killers my doc wanted to prescribe. All the books said to cut back on red meat and all nightshades and to supplement with Omega3 oils. So I did it all at once and within a year my arthritis was mostly a memory. Since I love all nightshades I started to add them back in gradually with no bad effects, ditto moderate amounts of red meat. Turns out the problem was solved by the Omega 3s, e.g., cod liver oil. And my theory was inadvertently tested on a six week trip to Italy where I (surprise surprise) did not pack cod liver oil. By the end of the trip I had a minor flare up but that was resolved once the cod liver caps resumed upon return. Fast forward 30 years, still no arthritis.
The "inflammation" might just be allergies. Seem to remember a lot of members of nightshade family being on a list my mom got from the allergy specialist she visited.
In my experience peppers and tomatoes are generally anti-inflammatory though. Weird.
@GirlWithNoPersonality this happens to me as well. I found this out after working in kitchens for so long and prepping massive amounts of fruits and veggies.
But I also realized the same reaction happens when I handle citrus fruits and I question if it's an allergic reaction or a natural reaction from a high acidity content of the fruits.
I can eat all these things just fine. Fine enough for me anyways, cause I've had IBS my whole life, but these foods haven't made anything worse for me. So I really think it's sensitive skin reacting to citrus acid in this situation.
@@-_-j AIUI, one is not allergic to "pollen" as in any random pollen one might encounter, one is allergic to the pollen of certain species of flowering plants, e.g. my father was allergic to ragweed pollen and would religiously check the ragweed pollen counts during the weather reports in late summer/early fall when the ragweed was blooming. Other plants, he couldn't care less about.
-_- Yes! That’s almost exactly me,too! Though,potatoes don’t seem to trigger the migraines. I never thought of my potato eating being related to my supposed thyroid issue. Thank you.
Not even really "Allergies", but just genetical preferences. If you have native american genetics, you're genetically wired to be able to digest certain food better, while if you're asian that food will be different. That's why saying "X is healthy for you" to a general public is one of the most irresponsible things ever. Probably the only thing all cultures have in common is the consumption of meat, and even then some consumed it in such low amounts that it barely counts.
I love tomatoes so much, I literally would eat them every day if I could. Raw, crushed, peeled, pulverized, I don't care! I WANT TO EAT THEM MORE!!
you know they are all still raw after those methods of preparing right?
Gross.
@@barryschalkwijk9388 I forgot to mention any cooked variations, but when I said raw, I meant just whole, unprepared tomatoes.
@@espalier let them eat their tomatoes lol
@@chewnip86 it’s a double entendré, see, the person who I’m responding to @Groß, that is spelled “gross” in English. Also, yeah, I don’t really dig raw tomatoes.
i love how diverse the solanaceae family is with all of its food and uses, and that’s why it’s my favorite plant family! (second is anacardiaceae, which includes mangos, cashews, and poison ivy!)
Keep making us better consumers of research. Nice work!
Debunking nonsensical “science” with actual science, this is one of the reasons I love this channel! Thank you, Adam!
He is wrong
he didn't debunk anything at all.
he just told you what you wanted to hear.
I have a decent food sensitivity to peppers. Only peppers. Tomatoes are fine, egg plants, garlic, so its not a nightshade issue. But I get bloated quickly, then later gassy and after that constipated and have bowel incontinence from eating bell peppers, chili peppers, cayenne, etc. And I love spicy food, so I wouldn't avoid them if I didn't find a measurable quality of life improvement.
Wow Adam, that was an excellent video. I've never had any nightshade/lectin induced problems that I know of but I have cut down on tomatoes and peppers. I don't feel any different other than two years older. When I was younger I had a "salsa" garden and my friends bought me a mounted pepper poster with all the different peppers on my birthday. I made some salsa a couple days ago and have been nibbling. Nice garden.
What an interesting video. Really appreciate you doing the research behind things and approaching things scientifically.
I am having allergic reactions to tomatoes and cannot metabolise potatoes very well. Luckily there are so many other tasty plants out there! Adam, you may want to check tomato allergies in Italy?
I've heard that psoriasis is pretty high in Italy, and some people think that their consumption of copious amounts of nightshades and gluten contribute to it. I have psoriasis and I have noticed that if I eat a lot of tomato sauce, it does tend to flare up symptoms. But if I keep it to small, occasional amounts, doesn't seem to bother it.
I can't speak to the inflammation angle, but I have diabetic neuropathy. The nightshade foods very definitely trigger severe neuropathy pain in me. When I stopped eating nightshade foods my neuropathy pain vanished. I realized this worked, because occasionally I just want to eat a baked potato, or eggplant parmesan. I definitely have a strong reaction whenever I reintroduce nightshade foods.
Again, anotherwell done informational. Thank you.
Your delivery resonates with me.
Literally was just preparing a tomato salad. Nice eating while whatching this
You dive right in 🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅
Thank you so much for doing this video. I've got some people in my life that have been wondering if all the crazy warnings about nightshades are true and i have been trying to tell them they are not. But I was having trouble finding the time to do the research. Now I can show them this video.
On another note, I have seen another person that claimed nightshades were bad also claiming melons are from the Americas and that they are dangerous to humans. While they do contain a lot of natural sugar, this is ludicrous. They are still more water than sugar. Plus, melons actually originated in Africa and even the ancient Egyptians grew them.
Once again, I am delighted to see a well balanced take on this. I have arthritis. I did a nightshade elimination diet and then slowly reintroduced the nightshades that I like (haven't bothered with eggplant yet). I went from needing a cane to walk to walking without a cane and no pain from the arthritis. But, I know it doesn't work for everyone. I seem to have no problem with hot peppers, the one I was missing the most, so I reintroduced it first. I can eat moderate amounts of total nightshades, as long as I peel the potatoes (for some reason the skins on new potatoes don't seem to matter), and remove the seeds from tomatoes. I still can't eat large amounts of nightshades without a reaction in my hip. And, of course, some of this could easily be variations in the inflammation level of my arthritic hip that are just natural variation that has nothing to do with nightshades.
Thank you so much Adam for doing these kinds of videos! 🎯 😊
I can't be the only person that's noticed for a long time now that tbere are only 2 kinds of foods anymore: A) Foods that are terrible that will ruin your health, make you sick, and even kill you, or, B) Foods that are "superfoods" and will cure cancer, raise your IQ by 20 points, end male pattern baldness, cure acne, make you able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, etc, etc, etc.
It's ridiculous! Nutritional studies are some of the most difficult to get right and to PROVE that eating A causes B. I learned long ago to be very wary of them.
Hi Adam. Sorry for my first comment. I actually got triggered a bit because I’d love to eat tomatoes and eggplant but unfortunately I do have a condition or sensitivity that doesn’t allow me to do so. You "research" and conclusion is overall well communicated. I do agree that the "plant paradox books" and "do avoid night shades" general recommendation to to far. You as normal health people can eat as much as you like and can digest. But yes there are people that should know that leaving out nightshades could improve their health conditions if they do suffer from certain conditions. Thanks for your fight pro tomatoes and nightshades. I’d love to be able eat them too… 😅
Speaking of the widespread use of nightshades in the Americas: I find that you tend to avoid going on the historical tangents you do elsewhere when it comes to precolumbian history and archeology: Even here, for example, right after mentioning their key use by Precolumbian societies, you go on to give historical examples of nightshades being used for poisoning in Rome, or them being bad in traditional Indian medicine; as opposed to say, Potatoes being revered in the famous ceramics produced by the Moche civilization in Peru, or how to the Aztec (who had a very robust system for studying botany and medical herbs, taxonomy and botanical gardens as sites of study), many plants in the nightshade family were used for medicine, like Solanum sp. which was used to clear out the intestines or dysuria or how even J. procumbens's roots were eaten raw (per the Badianus and Florentine Codex), as just two examples (obviously a huge variety of Tomatoes and Chillis and other Nightshades played a key role in Mesoamerican cuisines and medicine and still do today in Mexico)
I get that the reason for this is almost certainly just that there's less references to Mesoamerican and Andean history, or other parts of the Precolumbian Americas, in most mainstream historical sources and in the literature of culinary science and history: A lot of this stuff isn't even viewed or taught as "history" in academia, it's relegated to archeology or anthropology (even though with Mesoamerica especially there are written records stuff comes from). But I still think it'd be warranted to try to seek out those tangents and that historical context when the topic warrants it like here or when you covered Maize and nixtmaltization etc.
I do consulting with history and archeology channels on Mesoamerica, so maybe one day when I have my schedule clearted out i'll shoot you an email.
well, he was commenting on how other societies received those new vegetables from the new world
thank you Adam, clear and fun
Never knew about all of this, I love bell peppers, potatoes, tomato, aubergine etc and I never knew about their "toxic" properties. You learn something new every day...
As someone who has colitis ulscerosa, I WISH getting better was as easy as cutting out a group of vegetables. Fact is though that we don't even know what causes these diseases, even though there's lots of studies into dietary habits.
Also fun fact: smoking actually supresses colitis ulscerosa, but not other bowel auto-immune diseases (like Crohn) we also don't know why that is of course... Doesn't mean I'm gonna pick that nasty habit back up though, I'd rather have IBD than cancer! But it is an intriguing counterfactual to nightshades causing it.
Reminds me of a House episode where he actually writes a prescription for two cigarettes a day to a mall Santa. Are they dangerous and addictive? Absolutely. But then so are most other medications, LOL
Hey Adam, there probably is some kernel of truth in this. Plants in the Nightshade family contain large quantities of histamine, which promotes inflammation. Usually it is broken down during digestion by an enzyme called DAO. However people which have a DAO deficiency will get inflammatory symptoms if they consume even small quantities of histamine containing foods. This is not limited to tomatoes though - you can google about histamine intolerance to get a full list.
Giving some references to back up your comment would help to give credence. As Adam proved, a lot of this "science" isn't good science.
right but histamines are distinct from alkaloids.
Thanks for asking for a reference! One that I could find quickly: S. Sanchez et. al. - "Biogenic Amines in Plant-Origin Foods: Are they
Frequently Underestimated in Low-Histamine Diets?". You can find tables with the amine content of various foods there.
Histamine is literally the molecule that mediates allergic reactions tho. Had to cut down on tomatoes as a child due to them making my allergies worse, but nowadays they're fine.
@@dawnchesbro4189 You can't post links on youtube comments anymore. What do you expect as a "reference?"
Happy 2 million adam
Ahh waited for this video for so long! i knew you were gonna make one about nightshades eventually :) i really enjoy your podcasts too, if I may recommend a new topic, the advantages of good gut health. You mention it a lot and experts like dr. Karan Raj is one of my faves.
Cheers
I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis at 24, cut out dairy, and I saw a humongous reduction in symptoms. If i have dairy, i can feel the swelling in my elbows within a few hours. I agree that correlations beyond anecdotes are iffy, but thats because this kind of work with humans is realllllly freaking hard to pull off. It requires humans to comply with the study for months, which is just not too common. I don't find any issues with nightshades though
You often hear dairy mentioned because of supposibly inflammation from growth factors, the protein and so on. But never mentioned specifically because of it being high in calcium. Calcium is a cellular toxic and consuming excess calcium on top of almost everyone already having low intake of magnesium just makes things worse. Consider keeping an eye out on the calcium content of the nutrition facts of the food you buy. It's shocking how high some foods are because they are fortified with calcium. Also a magnesium supplement as basic as it sounds is something to consider.
I am occasionally sensitive to dairy but only when something else is aggravating my system, two weeks off dairy is usually enough to reset the balance. Human immune systems are frigging WEIRD.
All I know is that I avoided all manner of peppers because they tore my stomach up. I discovered by accident that if I roasted and peeled them, even the hottest ones, I could eat them with impunity. Make of that what you will.
probably you could say the same about potatoes right? Raw bad.. cooked any way.. good :)
Love these videos
I, unfortunately, have an inflammatory condition (HS) and did what was recommended to me by multiple doctors and cut things out of my diet one at a time before reintroducing them to see what I reacted to.
Doubly unfortunately, it was tomatoes. I can no longer eat them without getting nauseous. Triply unfortunately, I know it's not a placebo, because the first time I reintroduced it to my diet was on accident, and I didn't realize why I was sick until like a day later.
But I probably just have a tomato intolerance, and most people won't react to them.
This isn't a video about nightshades at all, it's a video about the ongoing abuse of scientific statistics, and it had me yelling by the end.
Adam, you did a great job relating the science and the issues with some of these trash quality studies implicating nightshades. Keep up the great work!
I have HS. Love nightshade but stopped because it really does hurt me. I miss hot peppers but I love not being in pain more.
HS?
It's late summer. I love the background cicada noise.
1:29 Eggplant is native to (probably) Asia and has been under cultivation forever.
A very large part of my life I've been eating nightshades, especially eggplants every few days a week. I've also been plague with eczema (which i don't know either) and my arms and legs has always been itchy and inflammed easily. I didn't put 2 and 2 together as I've always blamed it on bug bites until I've moved out into a bug-free environment.
Only recently had I known nightshades would cause eczema inflammation, and I just tried to cut out all nightshades from my diet, and it does work. My arms has not been itchy at all for months.
i did try adding in some nightshades just to test out how severe each nightshade infects me, so far eggplant is the worst, whole tomatoes cause some form of itchiness, tomato purees seems ok, while potatoes are fine as well.
While I couldn't have another eggplant anymore, but it beats the itchiness.
My Dad's eczema was made 1,000x worse by stress. A couple of years before he retired his face was all red and itchy all the time right up until about 2 weeks after her retired - and it was gone. I'm sure he still has some, but stress was a very big factor in his case.
Interestingly, poppy seeds aren't just from the same family as opium poppy; they're from the same exact species (at least blue and black poppy seeds are, not sure about white poppy seeds). It's just that the opium is contained in the flesh of the seed pod, and not in the seeds themselves. However, when processed, some of that latex gets onto the seeds, and the more roughly they're handled the more opium latex ends up on them. If you're worried about it, a quick wash in water or bake at 400F will do the trick, but basically, if you buy your poppy seeds at a grocery store, you'll be fine.
Edit: also I'll add, most opiate products these days aren't made purely from opium latex, but from the whole seed pod and stalk, dried and pulverized. And finally, all of the world's production of opiates, including for illicit use, isn't even 1/3 of what's needed for medicinal purposes worldwide. So if we in the US have an opioid crisis, then the rest of the world has a pain crisis. You can decide for yourself which is worse.
Yeah, they are. I was a little surprised he didn't know this.
Opioids covers a class of drugs, such as heroin, synthetic opioids (fentanyl), oxycodone, hydrocodone , etc. Much of the Opioid crisis, at least in the U.S., involves the synthetic variant that are whipped up in illicit labs because they are cheaper, easier and quicker to make than harvesting and processing real Opiates.
Thanks for this.
Well argued, Adam!
Subscribed 6 months ago, but I'm now tapping the bell
There is an argument for eating small amounts of them anyway even if they are mildly poisonous to invoke hormesis which is useful to the body to force it to kill off damaged cells.
Just like occasional stress like cold shock, heat shock, etc are good for you. It's not a good idea to lay out on the desert for hours or in the artic for hours, but the occasional sauna or ice bath is good for causing the body to create heat and cold shock proteins to do cleanup and damage control.
I suspect it is the same with foods like this people think are problematic.
Like with most things, the dose makes the poison.
"just because a family includes a few toxic members doesn't mean that they're all bad, right?"
counterpoint: the kardashians
Holy crap. Congrats on 2 mill 🙊
Really appreciate the deep dives into the nitty gritty of food studies. In case you haven't heard about them yet, I'd like to recommend the INCREDIBLE podcast "Maintenance Phase" to you. They're methodology queens, too!