Are nightshade berries poisonous?

Factual Questions
1

Since I was a kid, I’ve known that nightshade (bittersweet nightshade, solanum dulcamara, is what I’m referring to) is poisonous. However, I have a book at home that claims that the “recent consensus” is that ripe nightshade berries are probably OK to eat. This particular book was pretty cautious in it’s claims, however, so I cross-checked in two other books. A second book claims the berries are highly poisonous; a third claims that the berries are poisonous only in a large quantity.

So I cross-checked web pages this morning. Some of 'em say the berries are OK (here), some say they’re poisonous (here). Does anyone know with more certainty just how safe nightshade berries are?

2

The title of this thread should be, of course, “Are nightshade berries poisonous,” rather than the nonsensical “Are deadly berries poisonous?” Manhattan, can you help me out?

3

I wondered about that.

4

Yeah; my original title was gonna be “Are deadly nightshade berries poisonous?” Then I remembered that “deadly nightshade” is a common name for both bittersweet nightshade and belladonna, so I opted for the less confusing “Are nightshade berries poisonous?” Except I deleted the wrong word. Thanks, manhattan for helping me look a little less stupid.

5

I think the source of the confusion might be that different authorities mean different things when they say “nightshade”. I’ve got a weed that grows in my backyard that various weed and wildflower books have told me is some kind of “nightshade”, but since the books also tell me that there may be hundreds of nightshade species out there, both North American natives and alien European weeds, there’s really no telling what precisely it might be, short a botanical textbook of some kind.

You will get much the same information concerning pokeweed. No two books can agree on whether it’s toxic. They do agree that birds will eat the berries and act drunk, but as to whether people can eat them, it’s a coin toss every time.

I don’t feel like doing a Web search, and it looks like you already did, anyway.

Bear in mind that the whole solanum family, which IIRC includes potatoes and tomatoes, have poisonous plant parts, as well as tasty edible parts. I would say that if no authority comes right out and says, “Yes, this is tasty, nutritious, and yummy!” I would leave it alone. And there is probably a good reason why one variety is known as “deadly nightshade”.

Another thing that I have noticed in the past, when looking up herbal remedies on non-herbal websites (like the FDA and the weed control people) is that many of today’s “herbal” remedies are considered, if not actually poisonous, at least mildly toxic, by the “authorities”.

What I teach my kids is, “unless you know for certain that it’s safe to eat, don’t eat it.”

Why do you want to know? Just curious? It may not be possible to get a “yes” or “no” answer on this. Have you got a ton of it growing along your back fence and you were wondering about making jam?

6

In fact, isn’t the tomato plant from the nightshade family? Seems I remember reading somewhere that tomatoes were once feared to be poisonous (maybe it was even one of Cecil’s columns).

So the tomato would be an example of a non-poisonous nightshade “berry” I reckon…

7

Eggplant, also of the nightshade family, were also thought poisonous.

For tomatoes, the vines and suckers are poisonous, affecting the gastrointestinal tract with solanine glycoalkaloids.

8

Every place I’ve looked has agreed (if it is mentioned at all) that the foliage and green berries of the bittersweet nightshade plant are poisonous, so the “deadly nightshade” could easiy refer to just the foliage. What the references I’ve seen don’t agree on are the edibility of the ripe berries.

I’m mostly curious about this, yes, since there seems to be disagreement on what ought to be a pretty straightforward question. I’m not particularly interested in eating the darn things (I’m too cautious), even though we do have a bunch along the back fence.

The main reason I ask, and what really got me wondering about the subject, was the parallel between tomatoes and nightshade, as spoke- points out:

Like spoke-, I’ve also heard that tomatoes were once considered poisonous, but now are not (a subject I also tangentially ask about here). Could the same be true of nightshade? Are we missing out of a yummy BLN sandwich due to our ignorance?

By the way, tomatoes are in the nightshade family, and potatoes are actually in the same genus as nightshade!

9

The macrobiotic crowd refuses to eat tomatoes, potatoes, bell peppers, and eggplant, calling them “nightshades.”

I eat a lot of all of the above, and sometimes I notice that eggplant is slightly irritating to the inside of my mouth. Harmless, no doubt, but enough to set off food paranoia if you think of all species of Solanum as “deadly nightshades.”

10

OK, so here’s what you do. You get a basketful of ripe nightshade berries, see, and you go down to the courthouse square, and…

11

My brother ate deadly nightshade berries when he was little. He got his stomach pumped, otherwise I’d be able to tell you whether they kill you or not. :wink: But at the time the doctor apparently thought it was worthwhile to get the berries out of his gut, although it may have been a case of “better safe than sorry”.

12

According to The Herbalist by joseph R Meyer, page 48, the berries are poisonous. "The leaves yield their virtues to water or alcohol."Solanum Nigrum.AKA Garden Nightshade AKA Deadly Nightshade
Nightshade however Datura StramoniumAKA Thorn-apple,Stinkweed,Apple-peru,Jimson weed is related to the potato family.It does not have berries.Page 88

13

Yes, Tomatoes and potatoes are in the Nightshade family (Solanaceae). The sprouts of potatoes contain solanine, so dont eat potato sprouts ;).

Here’s what Sunset says about the family:

“Solanaceae. Members of the Potato family bear flowers that are nearly star or saucer shaped and five petaled; fruits are beries (as in tomato), or capsules. Plants are frequently rank smelling or even poisonous, but many are important food crops --eggplant, pepper, potato, tomato. Others are garden annuals, perrenials, shrubs, or vines – Browallia, Cestrum, Nicotiana and Petunia, to name a few.”

Tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum)is also in this family, as well as the beautiful shrubs in the genus Brugmansia (Datura, which are very poisonous). In the Solanum genus itself, there is a member that has an edible fruit called a “pepino” (Solanum muricatum).

14

Hrm… I ought to know this one. So far as I’ve been told, ripe berries of Atropa belladona, as well as those of Solanum spp. are edible. However, the unripe berries are extremely poisonous, as are the leaves, stems, roots, etc.–similar to the leaves, etc. of tomato plants.

As far as eating something like this, though… well, for an example, let’s take Queen Anne’s Lace, and Wild Hemlock. The first is also known as a wild carrot, and in fact the root looks very much like a tiny carrot. The latter was part of the concotion Socrates drank when he was forced to commit suicide.

The two plants to the untrained eye look identical, except for a red or black dot in the middle of the flower of one of them. I can never remember which one. Needless to say, if I’m ever trapped in the wilderness, I’ll be staying away from the carrots. :smiley:

LL

15

Here’s a thought:

From an evolutionary perspective, what is the point of a plant producing a berry? Isn’t the whole point of producing a berry to have that berry eaten, with the seeds of the plant thus being dispersed in excrement (read: fertilizer)? If the berries were just supposed to fall to the ground uneaten, why wouldn’t the plant expend less energy and just produce a seed case or something? An uneaten berry doesn’t seem like a very good method for scattering seeds. How do these plants ever get spread around, if their berries were not being consumed by some passing bird or animal?

So should we not be able to assume that if a plant produces a berry, that the berry (when ripe) should be edible?

16

From what i’ve read about many of the members of the Solanaceae, birds are the animals that dipserse the seeds.Think about it, many of them have bright red fruits, which show up well against green foliage. For instance, peppers from what i’ve read, arent spicy to birds. In fact, i hear they arent even affected by the capsaicin. Same with the nightshades, birds spread the seeds. For instance, with Solanum seaforthianum (Brazilian Nightshade), the bright red berries are edible to birds.

17

…and to finish the thought, birds have a different metabolism from mammals. The fumes from an overheated Teflon pan are toxic to birds but not to mammals.

So birds can safely eat berries that are poisonous to mammals.

I can think of other berries that you’re not supposed to eat, poison ivy for one, also holly berries, honeysuckle, pyracantha, bayberry, any number of other ornamentals that have berries that aren’t considered edible, while not being necessarily “toxic”.

Lily-of-the-valley berries are EXTREMELY poisonous; children have died from eating a single berry.

So, no, you can’t “assume that if a plant produces a berry, that the berry (when ripe) should be edible?” As for a “huccome?”, you’ll have to go over to GD and ask the Special Creationists. God must have had some reason for it.

18

The main difference between poison Hemlock and Queen Anne’s lace is:
“Unlike wild carrot (Daucus carota, parsnip family), there are no hairs on the stems or leaves of poison-hemlock and no branching, feathery bracts beneath the flower clusters.”

Poison Hemlock: http://www.vet.purdue.edu/depts/addl/toxic/plant28.htm

Wild Carrot (Queen Anne’s Lace): http://ext.agn.uiuc.edu/wssa/subpages/weed/10-2.htm

19

According to some North American Herbology book I have at home the Silverleaf Nightshade which is endemic to south Texas has berries that are narcotic. Also, the book tells of how many different solanum familied plants berries were used to for either a hypnotic effect or as a pain reliever for toothaches and other topical pains.

I am not sure if they are poisonous enough to kill but from crossreferencing other psychotropic drugs in the past I discovered if it said it was poisonous it was not necessarily going to kill you. Literature from a non-drug cultured (aka mainstream source) listed these as poisonous but underground publishers always said that they were narcotic, hallucinogenic, etc and sometimes gave preparations on how to obtain those effects.

HUGS!
Sqrl

20

It’s worth keeping in mind that the class of drugs found in
the plants of the nightshade family are therapeutically valuable when used under medical direction, or in very mild
preparations. But they can definitely be dangerous if you
use them for kicks. The threshold LD is not much more than
it takes to get some people high. AFAIK a few people over the years have experimented with these drugs recreationally,
but they have never entered the recreational-drug mainstream, and with good reason.