It turns out that even homemade vegetables can be seriously poisoned.
This summer many of those who did not even suspect about their craving for beds and seedlings took up gardening this summer. Just because they sat out quarantine in the country: the solution, to be sure, is excellent. And someone plants a garden every year, regardless of any pandemics – they will pass, but the harvest will remain. But it turned out that here, too, danger lies in wait. Even homemade vegetables, lovingly grown with your own hands, can give an unpleasant surprise.
In Great Britain, for example, dozens of summer residents poisoned themselves with zucchini from their own garden. Moreover, they did not fertilize them with some kind of powerful additives, they did not spray them with insecticides or herbicides – everything is strictly environmentally friendly, natural. But the symptoms were as if people were taking some kind of potent drugs: abdominal cramps, severe nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, chills, fever, even hallucinations.
People have complained on forums that they have never felt so bad in their lives as after eating a squash for dinner. Some had to call an ambulance: they fainted. There were cases that people were left without hair – after recovering from poisoning, they rapidly lost their hair. The consequences for the elderly were especially sad, they spent weeks in a hospital bed, and their condition did not improve. The saddest case was recorded in 2014: a pensioner from Germany died after poisoning himself with a vegetable marrow presented to him by a neighbor, a gardener.
And the problem is not only in zucchini: both cucumbers and pumpkins can be dangerous. Poisoning by these crops is called toxic pumpkin syndrome by doctors. It’s all about the seeds: they contain a lot of a substance called cucurbitacin. It gives cucumbers, zucchini and pumpkins a bitter taste and is needed by vegetables to repel pests and protect the plant from disease. For humans, this substance is very dangerous, and heat treatment does not reduce its amount in vegetables.
Store-bought vegetables, by the way, are not bitter – in agriculture, genetically modified seeds, devoid of cucurbitacin, are usually used.
In addition, the amount of toxin in vegetables can increase due to external conditions:
the plants lacked moisture: too hot and dry weather, little watering;
watering is sufficient, but the water is too cold;
cold summers, too low temperatures;
too much direct sun is best;
unsuitable soil: little nitrogen and potassium;
decorative pumpkins grow on the site – they contain a lot of cucurbitacin, and due to cross-pollination, the toxin is obtained in excess in the seeds of edible vegetables. In this case, the next harvest will be poisonous.
To protect yourself from adversity, experts advise trying a small piece of squash, pumpkin, or cucumber before making a salad, canning vegetables, or stewing. If you feel bitter, spit it out. And you will have to part with the harvest.
By the way
If you are lucky enough to grow an enviable crop of zucchini, you have already distributed them to all your friends, but there is still nowhere to go, we have several excellent options. Zucchini can be cooked every day, and every day this wonderful vegetable will “sound” differently. For example,
7 zucchini recipes, from fritters to rolls
Oven baked zucchini with meat
Zucchini spaghetti with tomatoes and basil
Zucchini casserole with cottage cheese, tomatoes, sour cream and herbs
Stewed zucchini stew with potatoes