Food poisoning generally refers to the consumption of food containing chemicals or harmful substances. In general, mild cases can cause dizziness, vomiting, and weakness in the limbs, while severe cases can lead to fainting and even gastric bleeding. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to which foods can cause poisoning.
1: Sprouted Potatoes
Potatoes, also known as "ma ling shu", "yang yu", and "shan yao dan", are a common staple food in Chinese cuisine. However, if potatoes sprout and turn green over time, you need to be careful!
Sprouted potatoes contain a toxin called solanine, also known as potato toxin. This toxin has strong corrosive and hemolytic properties, causing itching, burning sensation, nausea, and vomiting.
Although it is unlikely to get poisoned by eating a small amount, there is no need to torture yourself. Why eat sprouted potatoes in the first place?
[Prevention Method]
1. To prevent potatoes from sprouting and turning green, store them in a cool and dark place.
2. You can also store potatoes with apples to prevent them from sprouting.
3. However, be careful not to store potatoes together with sweet potatoes, as they are more likely to sprout.
2: Bitter Almonds
In the drama "Empresses in the Palace", An Lingrong died from eating bitter almonds, which is still fresh in everyone's memory. Bitter almonds do have some toxicity. The toxic component that causes poisoning is called amygdalin, which produces hydrocyanic acid in the intestines. Mild poisoning symptoms include headache, nausea, and vomiting, while severe cases can cause respiratory depression, coma, and even death.
However, bitter almonds are also a type of traditional Chinese medicine and require a large amount to cause poisoning. So, it is exaggerated in the drama that An Lingrong dies after eating a few. In addition, the "bitter almonds" used in Chinese medicine and the "sweet almonds" consumed as snacks are not the same. Bitter almonds are from apricot trees, while sweet almonds are from almond trees.
[Prevention Method]
Be cautious when eating "all-natural" fruit kernels. In addition, amygdalin is the source of bitterness and toxicity. If the taste in your mouth doesn't feel right, don't eat it.
3: Fresh Ginkgo Nuts
Most people believe that fresh ingredients are the best, but this is not the case with ginkgo nuts. Fresh ginkgo nuts contain a component called ginkgolic acid, which is harmless itself. However, it can turn into a highly toxic compound called ginkgolide in the human body.
How toxic is ginkgolide? It can strongly stimulate the digestive tract. Ingesting 0.1-0.2 milligrams of ginkgolide (equivalent to the amount in 50-100 grams of fresh ginkgo nuts) can cause acute poisoning. Ingesting 20 milligrams at once can even be fatal!
[Prevention Method]
If you don't like the dried ginkgo nuts and prefer fresh ones, you can blanch the fresh ginkgo nuts in boiling water for a short time and then soak them in clean water. This can remove most of the ginkgolic acid. Otherwise, you can simply cook the fresh ginkgo nuts until they are fully cooked.
4: Green Tomatoes
Green tomatoes are unripe tomatoes and taste bitter. This bitterness is caused by solanine in green tomatoes. We mentioned solanine in sprouted potatoes earlier. Freezing, drying, microwaving, and steaming have limited effects on solanine, or even no effect at all. It requires deep frying at a temperature of 170°C or above to significantly reduce its content.
[Prevention Method]
Although the amount of solanine in a green tomato is low, it is still better not to eat it. After all, it is easy to recognize at a glance, and the taste is not great either. Why bother eating it?
5: Undercooked Green Beans
Undercooked green beans (also known as kidney beans or French beans) contain not only one but several toxic substances, including saponin, nitrite, and trypsin. They can all irritate the gastrointestinal tract and cause food poisoning, resulting in gastroenteritis symptoms.
Broad beans contain vicine, which can cause acute hemolytic anemia (also known as favism) after consumption. Symptoms usually appear 4 to 24 hours after eating raw broad beans.
[Prevention Method]
To avoid bean poisoning, no matter if you cook, stir-fry, fry, boil, stew, or simmer, make sure they are fully cooked! Fully cooked! Fully cooked!
6: Raw Soy Milk
Soy milk is usually made from ground soybeans, and raw soybeans contain saponins, which have a strong irritating effect on mucous membranes. Saponins also contain hemolysins that can destroy red blood cells. In addition, raw soybeans also contain trypsin inhibitors, leukoagglutinins, and urease, among other toxic substances. These substances are relatively heat-resistant and need to be heated to over 100°C to be destroyed.
[Prevention Method]
When raw soy milk is heated to 80°C-90°C, a large amount of white foam will appear. This is a phenomenon called "false boiling". At this temperature, the toxic substances in soy milk have not been destroyed yet. The correct way to make soy milk is to continue heating for 3 to 5 minutes after the "false boiling" phenomenon disappears, until all the foam disappears.
