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."

In addition to the ones you found, I can think of the following
offhand, and know there are many mo cassava, almond, acorns
(seriously) and spinach (in my lifetime!).

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.

Nature is pretty crappy in many areas. I can't remember where I saw it.
But you can look up the fact that almost all spices contain toxins very
easily.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.