Poisonous Food Plants

Are there poisonous plants lurking in the kitchen? Plants produce toxins to deter herbivores from eating them. And that could include a not-so-well-informed Homo sapiens. And their pet pooches and #.

Usually, the commonly consumed parts of well-known vegetables and fruits are safe. Other parts may be toxic if not outright lethal. It is well-known that all of rhubarb plants are poisonous with the exception of the leaf stems (petioles). Much has been made about the poisonous properties of the green portions of tomato plants and potatoes. In fact, the water in which the former’s foliage is boiled and then allowed to cool makes a useful pesticide. But the saucepan it is done in remains permanently contaminated.,

Apple seeds – or pits – are on rare occasions reported to be used in suicide attempts. Since it takes at last a roasted cupful such is rarely successful. But the seeds inside the stones of such common fruit as plums, apricots and peaches contain the precursors of cyanide. One is unlikely to kill but in quantity . . . “One man’s peach is another man’s poison,” as P. G. Wodehouse knowingly suggested.

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