18 Diet Wise
You will read later about ‘target organs’ and why there is so much
variation from one person to the next, even with the same condition, or
more baffling, until you understand the reasons for it even from day to day
in the same person.
Food toxins
It isn’t all about allergies. Intolerance of foods may be simply a reaction
to substances contained in the foods, and individual reactions depend on
genetic make up. Nature has seen fit to endow a number of plants with
the capacity to synthesize substances that are toxic to humans and other
animals. Farmers and veterinarians have known for years that animals
become sick if they graze on certain types of plant. For example, bulls
become enraged if they eat locoweed – ‘loco’ being Spanish for crazy. Many
plant substances are toxic to humans in quite small quantities, including
deadly nightshade, acorns and hemlock. Ricin, the toxic principle in castor
bean (Ricinus communis), is one of the most poisonous substances known:
a minute drop on the tip of a needle was used in an infamous political
assassination on the streets of London in 1978: the slaying of Bulgarian
dissident Georgi Markov (who coincidentally worked for the BBC World
Service at Bush House!).
The fact is that all plants, including edible ones, contain quantities
of poisons. Carrots, for example, contain a nerve toxin: caratotoxin. And
someone once pointed out that if cabbage had to undergo the tests that drugs
are now subjected to before being pronounced fit for humans, it wouldn’t
pass. Lathyrism, a kind of nerve paralysis, is a disease once widespread in
India, due to eating the lathyrus bean, a relation of garbanzo or chickpea.
Another bean, Vicia favia, causes favism or haemolytic anaemia in sensitive
individuals living around the Mediterranean Sea.
The edible nightshades (potatoes, tomatoes, capsicums, chili
peppers) are especially rich sources, but cabbage, peppercorns, pulses and
many other foodstuffs are not far behind. Outbreaks of food poisoning due
to solanine (from potatoes), tomatine (tomatoes) and dioscorine (yams) have
all been reliably observed in either humans or domestic animals. Death due
to poisoning by plants is fortunately uncommon in humans; in Socrates’ case
(hemlock) it was deliberate murder by the state. But sub-clinical poisoning
in sensitive individuals occurs all the time. This book aims to teach you facts
you didn’t dream of and your doctor does not suspect. Just because the
majority of people can eat a food without any apparent symptoms doesn’t
mean everyone is genetically programmed to do so. Toxicity is a matter of
degree but that is little comfort if you are one of the sensitive individuals.