Subject: toxins in vegetables

From: Camilla Cracchiolo <[email-masked]>
Date: 26 Apr 1996 00:24:01 -0700

I need info on toxins in common vegetables and whether the amounts people 
eat of certain ones should be limited.  I read an interview with biologist 
Margie Profit where she discussed her theory that kids and pregnant 
women avoid certain vegetables as an evolutionary adaptation to the 
presence of toxic chemicals.  I realize her theory is quite 
controversial, but it seems like a logical corolary would be that it's 
probably not too hot to eat certain ones every day or in large amounts.

For example I know someone who consumes a large amount of broccoli every 
day.  This was one of the vegetables Profit specifically mentioned.  Is 
there any potential harm?

   "The trick is to keep an open mind, without it being so open
                      that your brain falls out."

           Camilla Cracchiolo, RN   [email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (richard)
Date: 26 Apr 1996 19:40:43 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, Camilla Cracchiolo <[email-masked]> says:
>eat of certain ones should be limited. 

There is an excellent --from the scientific standpoint-- review of the subject
in Foodborne Disease Handbook Vol.3  "Toxicology of Naturally Occurring
Chemicals in Food."

This is probably one of the best sources of real information, not propaganda
and not pipedreams.   Highly recommended.

---

From: Michael Sierchio <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 01 May 1996 21:29:13 -0700

Check out:

	http://avsunxsvr.aeiveos.com/au/ames-bn/

---

From: Michael Sierchio <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 01 May 1996 21:19:17 -0700

Camilla Cracchiolo wrote:

> presence of toxic chemicals.  

If I weren't so lazy, I'd find the links for you, but...

Bruce Ames a the Univ. of Cal. at Berkeley has done a lot of work on
the toxicology of plants.  You'd find some of his results amusing, such
as the average daily lifetime exposure relative risks of broccoli vs.
malathion.

As Joe Jackson put it so eloquently, 

	Everything gives you cancer...
	Everything gives you cancer.
	There's no cure
	There's no answer...

Margie's thesis is provocative, but it may be that sensitivity
to phytochemicals is vestigial, just like the urge to consume
large portions of potatoes fried in animal fat is a vestige of the
scarce Calories imprinted in the genome.  She has also made a 
choice for the individual embryo/fetus vs. the long-term health
of the gene pool.  Eat your damn broccoli, kids!

Eat your broccoli and enjoy!  Try it with hollandaise!

---

From: John Savage <[email-masked]>
Date: 4 May 1996 21:30:54 +1000

>there any potential harm?

[Adding rec.gardening and alt.folklore.science into this, too.]

I have heard of three foods containing toxins: cucumber, zucchini, and
parsnip.

Fresh cucumber peel is said to be a good cockroach bait, though the
cultivated edible cucumbers contain only a slight amount of the
bitter tasting toxin compared with some wild varieties. Some varieties
probably make better cocky killers than others, too.

Home gardeners of zucchinis (specifically, the dark green Blackjack
variety of this minature marrow) know which ones to not eat. A prime
quality zucchini grows rapidly, quickly assuming the shape of a minature
baseball bat - the bulbous end being where the flower was positioned.
But sometimes the growth rate of the fruit starts off normally but then
slows down. This gives rise to a shape which starts to taper off well
before the flower end instead of bulging larger and larger right to the
tip. In markets, these fruit are mixed in with the others, but they have
a bitter taste due to the presence of greater amounts of some toxin, I
believe. In normal quantities, I think it is quite harmless but it does
impart an unappealing bitter taste. (Particularly noticeable to the home
gardener, because their prime zucchinis are so lip-smacking delicious!)

A radio science program some years back reported that research into the
humble parsnip showed that it should be picked and eaten in darkness to
prevent it producing cancer-causing compounds. (Before I go further, let
me hasten to add that I'm sure the amount of toxin is small.)  Anyway,
when the parsnip is bruised and then exposed to sunlight, it produces
some type of carcinogen. You might wonder why growers don't take care to
deliver unbruised roots. Well, as a grower let me tell you ... parsnips
have well-entrenched roots, but their green tops are weak. Grapsing hold
of the stalk and pulling just succeeds in snapping the top off. To pull
up a parsnip requires that you take a firm grasp of the top of the root
itself, and being soft it will inevitably bruise. After hearing this I
stopped eating parsnips for a couple of years, but I have gradually
drifted back to them, though do discard the top cm or so of the root
where you can see it has been bruised and discoloured.

I hope this helps support other replies you receive to your enquiry.
--
John Savage               [email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked] (m.lee)
Date: Sat, 4 May 1996 17:08:15 GMT

Camilla Cracchiolo ([email-masked]) wrote:
: I need info on toxins in common vegetables and whether the amounts people 
: eat of certain ones should be limited.  I read an interview with biologist 
: Margie Profit where she discussed her theory that kids and pregnant 
: women avoid certain vegetables as an evolutionary adaptation to the 
: presence of toxic chemicals.  I realize her theory is quite 
: controversial, but it seems like a logical corolary would be that it's 
: probably not too hot to eat certain ones every day or in large amounts.

: For example I know someone who consumes a large amount of broccoli every 
: day.  This was one of the vegetables Profit specifically mentioned.  Is 
: there any potential harm?

:    "The trick is to keep an open mind, without it being so open
:                       that your brain falls out."

:            Camilla Cracchiolo, RN   [email-masked]

: -----------------------------------------------------------------------
:   Shrine of the Cybernetic Madonna BBS  213-766-1356  Los Angeles

:     CFS/Fibromyalgia/AIDS support *  General medical information *  
:     Politics  *  Church of the SubGenius  *  Skepticism & Science 
: -----------------------------------------------------------------------
:         
This first crossed my plate in The Natural Poisons in Natural Foods by 
Alfred H. Wertheim, Secaucus, NJ: Lyle Stuart, 1974.  In it is a citation 
to a government report which I know was subsequently updated, but I 
haven't the citation to hand:
	Toxicants Occurring Naturally in Foods.  Publication 1354, Food 
Protection Committee. Food and Nutrition Board, National Academy of 
Sciences-National Research Council, Washington, DC; GPO, 1966.

If you really want to know more, I can run a search through a couple of 
libraries, or you can run it yourself - see under "Search" in the URL in 
my sig.

			ml  [email-masked]  
 
	 When you really really want to know, tried the RAP FAQ?   
                http://condor.LPL.Arizona.EDU/~tim/rapfaq/

---

From: [email-masked] (Polar)
Date: Sun, 05 May 1996 00:09:43 GMT

>: there any potential harm?

Only to Republicans.  Remember George Bush said he hates broccoli
because his mother used to make him eat it, & now he's a big boy &
doesn't have to eat it if he doesn't want to.

Republican women have  the difficult choice of eating broccoli -- one
of the  cruciferous veggies so good for women -- or staying True to
Their Principles.

Polar

---

From: [email-masked] (Mark O'Leary)
Date: 9 May 1996 16:30:03 GMT

>>: there any potential harm?

1) Broccolli is about the best veg there is from an anti-carcinogen point of
   view.

2) The most dangerous 'veg' (well, stretching a point) is the peanut. A
particular mould that grows on peanuts (and peanut butter etc) secretes a
protein called 'aflatoxin'. It's good stuff - you can count the fatal dose in
individual molecules rather than nanograms. Apparently about 12 US citizens
a year keel over from this - permanently. Ironically enough, its the
health-store visitors you buy fresh-made peanut butter that tend to fall
victim: such shops buy cheap peanuts to start with and tend to leave them in
the hopper of the butter grinder for a *long* time as they dont get that
many customers....

M.
--
-=-=-=-=-=-   -.-. .- .-.. .-..  -- .  -.-. --- --- ...  .-.-.-   -=-=-=-=-
Mark O'Leary,				Voice: Extn. 6201
Network & Communications Group.		Email: [email-masked]
De Montfort University, UK.

---

From: Kavosh Soltani <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 9 May 1996 13:08:21 -0400 (EDT)

On 9 May 1996, Keith Downing Mueller wrote:

[Snip]
> assuming a 150lb individual (~70kg) and an average fruit weight of 
> 9oz (~250g), it would require the compsumption of approximately 350000 
> tomatoes.

Is that a relief!  Last night, I only had 349999 tomatoes!

Just kidding.

---

From: [email-masked] (Tim Hart)
Date: Fri, 10 May 1996 16:04:15 GMT

[email-masked] (Mark O'Leary) wrote:
>>>: eat of certain ones should be limited.  

>the hopper of the butter grinder for a *long* time as they dont get that

Question and comment:
The USDA is supposed to be inspecting peanuts for the presence of this
mold.   And that any infected samples will require destruction of
large amounts of peanuts in storage, so all mold spores are supposedly
destroyed.  Furthurmore, it was my understanding that the mold is
obvious to anyone looking at the peanuts.  Are you saying the USDA is
doing a poor job of inspecting?  It was my understanding that this
mold is idigenous to the peanut growing areas.  Are you saying the
mold occurs everywhere?

Tim

Tim Hart
[email-masked]   /   [email-masked]
"I do not speak on behalf of anyone else."

---

From: [email-masked] (Steven B. Harris)
Date: 9 May 1996 07:23:41 GMT

In <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Keith Downing 
Mueller) writes: 

>
>John Savage ([email-masked]) wrote:
>: Camilla Cracchiolo <[email-masked]> writes:
>: >I need info on toxins in common vegetables and whether the amounts 
people
>: >eat of certain ones should be limited.  I read an interview with 
biologist
>: >Margie Profit where she discussed her theory that kids and pregnant
>: >women avoid certain vegetables as an evolutionary adaptation to the
>: >presence of toxic chemicals.  I realize her theory is quite
>: >controversial, but it seems like a logical corolary would be that 
it's
>: >probably not too hot to eat certain ones every day or in large 
amounts.
>: >
>
>Tomatoes contain a steriodal glycoalkaloid, tomatine. Young developing 
>fruit contain tomatine but as the fruit ripen it beocmes degraded to 
less 
>than ).04% of the fresh weight.
>
>the lethal dose (LD50) for tomatine is said to be 0.5 grams per kg of 
>body weight.
>

Hardly surprising.  Green tomatoes don't want to be eaten.  Red ones do. 
That's WHY they turn red and sweet-- it's a sign that says "eat me" to 
us primates (no jokes, please).  Evolution would seem unlikely to let a 
fruit do all that, while keeping it full of compounds which were poisons 
for the young of the animals it's trying to lure.  

To the extent that morning sickness keeps women from eating ripe fruit, 
it's an evolutionary screw-up.  Such screw-ups do persist in animals, 
but only if they are from new mutations, or else side effects of design 
aspects which have other far more positive counterbalancing effects.  
Those effects are what to look for in morning sickness.  It's already 
known that mothers who have morning sickness have higher levels of 
hormones, and are less likely to suffer miscarriage.  Why?  The answers 
are not necessarily so indirect as some effect on diet.  The idea that 
the effect is direct is a lot simpler hypothesis, with even more 
evidence behind it (ie, we know that higher hormone levels induced 
artifically ALSO inhibits miscarriage; that was why stilbesterol shots 
were given in days of old, before THIER side effects were understood).

                                       Steve Harris, M.D.

---

From: [email-masked] (Michael Andrew Turton)
Date: 10 May 1996 21:35:37 -0400

In article <[email-masked]>,

>                                       Steve Harris, M.D.

	Hi Steve!  Many thanks for your wonderful stuff on AIDS 
posted over here last year on sci.skeptic.....

	Profit argues, as I recall, that toxin consumption in
mammals serves two related purposes.  First, a variety of toxins
signals that the body is getting a varied diet.  Second, it demonstrates
to the animal that it is not getting too much of a single toxin.  No mammal
eats only one species of anything; even koalas eat 16 different species
of eucalyptus (or so claims Profit).  Thus humans add spices, most of
which are at least mildly toxic, to replicate the toxins we evolved to prefer, 
but have bred out of our food.
	This is linked to the diet + miscarriage theory, in that toxin
sensitivity is highest during the most crucial period of fetal growth.
At that time no toxins at all is the way to go, so that's what the
pregnant woman prefers.  Frankly, since monocausation is not the norm, I
see no reason why both the diet and hormonal explanations could not
be true.

Mike Turton
[email-masked]

-- 
Michael Andrew Turton

---

From: Michael Sierchio <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 May 1996 17:07:21 -0700

Mark O'Leary wrote:

> protein called 'aflatoxin'.

Aflatoxin is the product of the aspergillus flavus.  And peanuts are not
the only source -- corn is often a major source of aflatoxin in the
diet of Africans and Americans.

Corn and groundnuts are stored in large quantities and for long
periods of time -- so, avoid cornmeal that claims to be free of
EDB (ethylene dibromide) -- it's like saying that it contains a
nice, big dose of aflatoxin.

---

From: [email-masked] (Kay Klier)
Date: 13 May 1996 05:56:17 GMT

>mold is idigenous to the peanut growing areas.  Are you saying the

Aspergillus flavus is nearly ubiquitous, and you have a hard time 
spotting grains and legumes contaminated by aflatoxin.  The usual
way of spotting it in corn (Zea mays) is to watch for a characteristic
fluorescence under UV light.

Aflatoxin is produced only under certain conditions, and it's 
hard to predict precisely when a field may be so stressed that
the toxin starts to accumulate -- it's usually after drought 
stress.

A. flavus is a commonly used industrial microorganism... it's
one of the organisms used to ferment soy sauce, for instance
(aflatoxin is not produced in high salt environments, so soy
sauce is not a likely vehicle for aflatoxin).  I believe
that "Beano" is also based on A. flavus enzymes.

BTW, you don't just "drop over" with aflatoxin... it's a carcinogen.

Kay Klier  [email-masked]

-- 
----
Kay Klier   [email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked] (tom c.)
Date: 15 May 1996 00:32:45 GMT

Now common you guys !!!!!

are you trying to start a homeopathy thread here ??????

now cut that out !!!!!

( : - )

( : - )

In message <[email-masked]> - [email-masked] (Keith Downing Mueller)9 May 1996 03:41:11 GMT writes:

John Savage ([email-masked]) wrote:
: Camilla Cracchiolo <[email-masked]> writes:
: >I need info on toxins in common vegetables and whether the amounts people
: >eat of certain ones should be limited.  I read an interview with biologist
: >Margie Profit where she discussed her theory that kids and pregnant
: >women avoid certain vegetables as an evolutionary adaptation to the
: >presence of toxic chemicals.  I realize her theory is quite
: >controversial, but it seems like a logical corolary would be that it's
: >probably not too hot to eat certain ones every day or in large amounts.
: >

Tomatoes contain a steriodal glycoalkaloid, tomatine. Young developing 
fruit contain tomatine but as the fruit ripen it beocmes degraded to less 
than ).04% of the fresh weight.

 --

Keith Mueller                                       [email-masked]
*****************************************************************
* http://www4.ncsu.edu/~kdmuelle/public/hp.html  (tomatoes)     *
* http://www4.ncsu.edu/~kdmuelle/public/ht.html  (hort-therapy) *
*****************************************************************
			Raleigh, NC, USA 
 			 35.45N  78.39W 
 			     Zone 7  
(red clay for soils, high humidities and a long season for pests)

---

From: Michael Sierchio <[email-masked]>
Date: 16 May 1996 16:40:19 GMT

>the lethal dose (LD50) for tomatine is said to be 0.5 grams per kg of 

The LD50 is not a good indicator of the TD50 in all cases.  For example,
very small lifetime daily exposure to aflatoxins will increase the risk
of certain cancers by several hundred percent.

---

From: Camilla Cracchiolo <[email-masked]>
Date: 17 May 1996 00:39:01 -0700

Does Bruce Ames have a web page?  I seem to recall someone sending it to 
me but now I can't find it.  Could someone send it to me again?

Thanks.

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---

From: Michael Sierchio <[email-masked]>
Date: 17 May 1996 18:51:51 GMT

>me but now I can't find it.  Could someone send it to me again?

Because I like the sound of your name :-)

here it is again:

http://mendel.berkeley.edu/center/ames.summary.html

it includes a link to the Environmental Health Sciences Center....

---

From: David Kendra <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 May 1996 09:13:50 -0700

> nice, big dose of aflatoxin.

Aflatoxin is a problem in corn grain that was infested with Aspergillus flavus 
(primarily) and stored before it was completely dry (less than 15% moisture).  The 
disease is favored by hot, dry conditions.  Aflatoxin is not a problem is the grain is 
dried thoroughly and stored properly.