On 08/09/2020 17:02, Nick Maclaren wrote:
In article ,
Jeff Layman wrote:

It's always worth being a little cautious, because wild forms of most
food plants have rather higher toxin levels than cultivated forms.

What evidence do you have that wild forms have higher levels of toxins
than cultivated forms? Does wild rhubarb have more oxalic acid than
cultivated forms? How are you defining "toxins"?

Er, do you REALLY not know how many cultivated plants have been bred to
have low levels of plant toxins? Yes, that includes rhubarb. And I
am using toxin in its normal sense.

No. It's not something I ever came across. I had a look at available
sources and must say the Wikipedia article on "Plant Breeding" is
particularly unhelpful. The only comment it makes wasn't particularly
inspiring: "for example the poison solanine was unintentionally
increased to unacceptable levels in certain varieties of potato through
plant breeding. New potato varieties are often screened for solanine
levels before reaching the marketplace."

There was one interesting paper at
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924224419310817
which definitely supported your comment. However, it seems that most
research has been done on things like grass pea and lupins for use as
crops in tropical climates, although rape oil has benefited from removal
of erucic acid.

However, we need some toxins in our diet, which is why we use spices
in our food!

Now I really don't understand that. What "toxins" do we /need/ in our
diet?

No, nor do I, and I believe nor does anyone else. But research has
found that low levels of toxins, as found in spices, are necessary
for our digestive systems to work properly.

I couldn't find any good papers to support that. Lots of
"parascientific" reports, and quite a bit of Ayurvedic medicine, but
nothing which would grace "Nature". Maybe I wasn't looking in the right
place.

No, using poisons instead of toxins is not an improvement.

Something like vitamin A, perhaps, which becomes poisonous in large
quantities? Any what has that do do with spices?

No, I am referring to things with no known metabolic function, and which
are not nutritious. Spices 'work' by containing small amounts of various
toxins - look it up.

See above.

--

Jeff