Nightshades (probably) aren't hurting you (tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, eggplant, etc) 

"But just because a family includes a few toxic members doesn't mean they're all bad, right?" I felt that.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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!

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.

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.

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?

Adam showing, once again, that the best way to counter misinformation is to say "source please" and read said source.

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

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.

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.

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!!!

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.

I guessed the sponsor when Adam said not all bitter foods are toxic, I'm quite proud of myself.

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.

Yeah, the "deep fried" part couldn't possible aggravate mouse internals.

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

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.

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!

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?!!

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.

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.

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

"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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 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 love that you leave sources in the description for further reading.

That study must have aggravated every fibre of your being. I'm so sorry you had to go through that! 😂

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.

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.

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.

I recommend the video “nightshade stew” by Cody’sLab. Cody makes a stew from like 10 of them!

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.

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

@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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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!)

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.

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.

i could never give up tomatoes, potatoes, and peppers...they are the only reason my diet is anywhere near being healthy

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!!

These gardening deep dives are seriously a new golden age of Adam Ragusea content.

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?

Excellent breakdown of hard science as usual. Thank you!

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.

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.

Loving the transition to Trade coffee. Watch it every time. 👍

Debunking nonsensical “science” with actual science, this is one of the reasons I love this channel! Thank you, Adam!

I really like your new plant/botany videos. I hope you keep making this type of stuff!

Thank you for this. I grew up with both my mother and her mother peddling this myth to me. When I finally realized that my chronic ankle pain was caused by inflammation - gout in my case, because I’m Dickensian like that - I didn’t eliminate nightshades from my diet, but I did cut down and, more tragically, began to feel intense guilt whenever I would eat them. I’m glad to know that I can finally welcome them back into my diet wholeheartedly, to bolster what I currently eat, which is 90% beer and cheese.

Adam, could you please do a whole video on inflammatory foods? I feel like that label gets thrown around so much, but I don't really have a great idea of what that actually means, how mechanistically certain foods might cause it, and how much the average person should care...

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

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...

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!!

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.

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.

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.

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.

Also, I got sick from eating green undercooked potatoes when it was a kid. Sickest I’ve ever been in my life. Caused permanent damage. I still can’t burp lying down without aspirating. The acid reaction it caused burned the absolute heck out of my esophagus. Had acid reflux for like 5 years after it.

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.

My oldest and I both have Ehlers Danlos along with POTS and Dysautonomia. Nightshades do cause MCAD like reactions as well as agrivate our IBS, Gastroparesis, and connective tissue issues. So we don't eat those foods. There really is a lot of research on Nightshade and how they affect those with A.I conditions.

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.

Nightshades absolutely brutalize my organs if I combine multiple types but on their own they're mostly fine. Tomatoes give me headaches, eggplants make me nauseous if I have enough, sumac makes my bowel lining hurt, peppers seem fine but if I start stacking them up in a single meal, even in small quantities I'll start to exhibit symptoms of food poisoning except it'll feel like a bad flu minus the cough/sore throat/sneezing. Potato chips are practically a staple of mine xD It took me years to realize the pattern but one day I had some east indian food and it had sumac, potatoes, peppers, tomato and eggplant in it and I thought I was toast, had to go home from work and spent 4 hours with crippling abdominal pain near a toilet. I thought it was a fluke and ordered the same thing from a different place a few months later because it popped into my head. Lo and behold I was vomiting within 30 minutes and was barely conscious for 6 hours while my whole body was on fire. Thus, ever since I try not to combine more than 2 at once.

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.

I do have issues with nightshades - over the course of 4 years, I had 4 different periods where I was eating them daily (2-7 days) and developed stiffness & pain in my knees & ankles. After stopping those foods (potatoes, tomatoes & peppers), the pain completely went away all 4 times in a little over a week. I've recently read that solanine acts as a cholinesterase inhibitor - so it can restrict the relaxation of muscles.

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

Oral Allergy syndrome or plant Allergy syndrome can trigger allergic like reactions up to anaphylaxis and death from eating plants. Grass, birth tree and a few others can cause a simple strawberry or cherry tomato to land you in the ER. It's in the "not most people " category but it is a very real problem. MCAS seems to be involved often and hormones and seasons play major roles. Thanks for speaking for the taters, they aren't aren't bad guys here!

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.

I have an inflammatory skin condition called hidradenitis suppurativa (horrific, painful long term skin disease) and tried removing all night shades from my diet as a last resort experiment after trying everything , and much to my absolute and utter shock but relief(?) - that has been the only thing that put my HS into remission. Any time I accidentally eat a nightshade, sure enough it is followed by a flare up I come from a south asian family where ALL our food is tomato and spice based curries and rice, prior to the elimination experiment I don't think I would have ever lived a day of my life not ingesting nightshades 😭 I cannot explain how difficult and time/energy consuming this process has been but also, I really value how much freedom I now enjoy knowing how to keep myself pain free However, I am very VERY wary of advocating or endorsing nightshade elimination as a cure-all. I don't talk about it or recommend it to anybody because I know nightshades are not inherently bad, there's no reason to demonise perfectly healthy delicious food. Even for myself personally, I am working on a slow reintroduction to figure out which of the nightshades specifically is causing my flare ups and reducing my eliminations to bare minimum. All this to say, in my view, for majority of the population nightshade elimination is an irrelevant issue but for very very select few of us, it could be a worthwhile tool to experiment with.

As someone who's had RA for a fair while, I tried cutting out nightshades as a result of something my wife said about 15 years ago. Needless to say, it made absolutely no difference and included all of my favourite foods. Didn't last long at all!

I am allergic to nightshades. So is one of my sons. I like nightshades but when I eat them I have numbness and then two days of itchiness. Thank you for dismissing my allergy. I have been slowly reintroducing them but I still can't do raw tomato's, eggplants and capsicums.

I kinda hoped Adam would go into using the stems of tomatoes in sauces (infusing them) like Heston Blumenthal did in one of his "perfect" recipes. Fat chance I guess considering he doesn't seem to like Heston very much. Very interesting video nevertheless.

Nightsthades are the best shades. I am beyond tired of people throwing shade at some of the best foods we can put on our plates. Thanks for the info on the cape gooseberry! I saw some of these growing out behind my workplace a few summers ago and had no idea they were edible, though I did think they looked a lot like fancy, tiny tomatillos.

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… 😅

Seems like one of them things where people focus on the details so they can be busy enough to not address the real issue. Tomatoes are causing the inflammation, not the sedentary lifestyle, chronic stress, and bad sleep. Also, taxonomy should not dictate our diet.

I knew a guy in college years ago and he was the first person who told me about this. He had some kind of congenital arthritis condition and had always been in a pretty significant amount of pain until he removed nightshades from his diet, he told me the difference was profound and he basically went from disabled to being able to live a semi-normal life. The look on his face when he was telling me this was almost religious. Anyways, I know it's just an anecdote but he seemed convinced. If I ever age into getting arthritis I'm definitely planning on trying this out.

Disconcerting agressive tone but interesting wording. As a person very inclined to inflammatory reactions (both calcifications and stiffness) I have tested my reactions to a whole range of food categories. Nightshades make me painfully stiff, make me move like an elderly person, for about a day. I've tested this repetitively - very scientific :-) - because potato chips are the one nightshade product I find very hard to resist, so I have some about once a week. The painful stiffness is there every time (and is gone the next day). So that's what it does to me and to a number of other people but, as you said, probably not to the grand majority.

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.

I'm not promoting tobacco use far from it, but I'm sure some studies have shown that quitting tobacco can lead to the onset of colitis. I suffer from ulcerative colitis and as part of a study programme (British spelling), I was asked whether I'd recently given up smoking. This runs counter to the narrative in this video. I'm perfectly happy to be contradicted if I'm mistaken, indeed I welcome any information on this subject.

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.

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.

"just because a family includes a few toxic members doesn't mean that they're all bad, right?" counterpoint: the kardashians

I have arthritis, but I am not giving up tomatoes and eggplants, or even peppers. I’ll just have to deal with it. Thanks for the interesting back story on his research.

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!

Excellent Trade plug!

Thanks for actually doing the research Adam, I appreciate knowing the facts and how the myths have evolved.

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