Toxic Food combinations?

[John Cuthber]

 

 

Do humans have any instinctive aversion to a thing which looks edible, but may be toxic?

Yes.

Quite a lot of things that are bitter are toxic, which is why we tend not to eat them.

Sadly, people sometimes get stuck with eating things that are slightly toxic (especially if not properly prepared) because they don't have any alternative.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycad#Uses

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassava#Food_use_processing_and_toxicity

http://www.eattheweeds.com/tulips-famine-food-appetizer-assistant-2/

[Jens]

Back to the original question (even if the thread is very old):

 

The usual substances you have in food do not have any pharmacological effect they are just the very same basic molecules all living beeings are made up and are not dangerous no matter in which combinations you take them. They do not act by regulating or blocking some activity in the body and therefore do not have any side effects. Since in addition at ususal temperature they do not undergo any chemical reactions, no toxic effects can happen.

 

However, the thing is different, if you eat something which has a pharmacological effect. As already mentioned in this thread plants produce a lot of substances to kill animals (especially insects or snails). Sometimes (actually not too rare) those substances do not kill humans but have a special effect (e.g. coffeine, nicotine). So if you drink coffee or tea you are actually drinking a natural insecticide. Very rarely it might happen that combining two of those substances is making the effect of one stronger or more dangerous. This is like incompatible drugs. But even with real strong drugs this happens only very rarely. So that there are two plants which have no effect alone but are toxic when eaten together, is more a theoretical case.

 

You can be sure that you could read it in all the biochemistry books, if there had been a scientific documented case.

 

P.S.: some of the insecticids produced by plants are toxic proteins which "are designed" to survive the acidic stomach and very resistant to digestion (proteases) by the stomach in order to kill the insect. However, if you cook them, those toxic proteins get unfolded (denatured) and loose there toxicitiy completely and the same time are now easy to digest.

[robbob]

I know this is an old post but I wanted to add to this discussion. Although not common to many as food, certain edible fungus does not play well with alcohol.... Ink caps (very tasty btw) for example.