When it comes to nutrition and eating an excessive amount of or deficient of something can have health-threatening results. Take vitamins: both a vitamin deficiency and overdose can often cause health problems. However, it’s not always the amount of a specific nutrient or food that’s in charge of its harmful effects. When it comes to some of these foods, most of which are nuts, fruit, and vegetables that are largely considered healthy, simply eating them incorrectly can influence be devastating to your health. Here are some common foods that can be toxic you should know.
Foods That Can Be Toxic
Cherry pits
The hard stone within the center of cherries is filled with acid, also called cyanide, which is poisonous. But there’s no have to freak out if you mistakenly swallow one. Intact pits just pass through your system and out the other end. Avoid crunching or crushing pits as you nosh on your cherries.
Apple seeds
Apple seeds even have cyanide, so throwing back some as a snack isn’t smart. Luckily, apple seeds have a protective coating that keeps the cyanide from entering your system if you by mistake eat them. But it’s good to use caution. Even in small doses, cyanide can cause rapid breathing, seizures, and possibly death.
Elderberries
You may take elderberry as a syrup or supplement to boost your immune system and treat cold or flu symptoms or constipation. But eating unripe berries, bark, or leaves of elderberry may leave you feeling worse rather than better. They have both lectin and cyanide, two chemicals that will cause nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.
Nutmeg
Nutmeg adds a pleasant, nutty flavor once you add it in small amounts to food. But eaten by the spoonful, it can cause big problems to your system. While little as 2 teaspoons is toxic to your body due to myristicin, an oil that may cause hallucinations, drowsiness, dizziness, confusion, and seizures.
Green potatoes
The leaves, sprouts, and stems (tubers) of potatoes contain a poison called glycoalkaloids. Glycoalkaloids make potatoes look green when exposed to light, spoil, or age. Eating potatoes high in glycoalkaloids can cause nausea, diarrhea, confusion, headache, and death.
Raw kidney beans
Of all the bean varieties, raw red kidney beans have the best concentration of lectins. Lectins are a toxin that will provide you with a nasty stomachache, cause you to vomit, or offer you diarrhea. It only takes 4-5 raw kidney beans to cause these side effects, which is why it’s best to boil your beans before eating.
Bitter almonds
Both almonds – bitter and sweet – contain amygdalin, a chemical compound that can turn cyanide, but bitter almonds have the highest concentration to date. Sweet almonds are safe to snack on, but eating untreated bitter almonds can cause cramps, nausea, and diarrhea.
Mushrooms
They may be great on pizza, but watch out for certain mushrooms within the wild. Two types are particularly harmful – the death cap (Amanita phalloides), and the destroying angel (Amanita virosa). Eating these wild mushrooms can cause abdominal pain, diarrhea and vomiting, dehydration, intense thirst, liver failure, coma, and death. This is one of the foods that can be toxic you should know.
Raw cashews
The cashews you get in stores with a raw label aren’t exactly that. Before they hit shelves, they’re steamed to get rid of a toxin called urushiol in their shells. Urushiol is that the same toxin you discover in poison ivy. Eating pre-steamed cashews can cause an allergic reaction and might be fatal if your allergies are severe.
Mango
Like raw cashew nuts, the peel, bark, and leaves of mango contain urushiol, a toxin found in poison ivy. If you are allergic to poison ivy, especially if the allergy is a bad one, biting the mango can cause a serious reaction to swelling, a rash, and even difficulty breathing.
Rhubarb leaves
It is okay to eat the stem portion but remove the leaf portion. Rhubarb leaves contain oxalic acid, which binds calcium and makes it harder for your body to absorb. Conversely, your bones can’t grow as they should and you’re at risk for kidney stones, blood clotting problems, vomiting, diarrhea, and lethargy.
Star fruit
If you have kidney disease, it is best to remove starfruit from your diet. The normal kidneys can filter out the toxin in this sweet fruit, but for a system that can’t, the toxin latches around and can cause psychosis, seizures, and death.
In conclusion, these are foods that can be toxic you should avoid.
