Tomatoes and nicotine
The following question was asked of me on my old AskJoel website:
Sent: Saturday, September 16, 2006 12:28 PM
To: AskJoel
Subject: Nicotine Question
I was hoping you can answer this question. My friend is a smoker and I have not had a single puff in 9 days. She said to me that we are all born with nicotine in our system and so we never rid our selves of it. I told her I was nicotine-free and she said no you are not because we all have nicotine in our system. I told her I didn't think it was true. So I was hoping you knew and was wondering if there was a study or something on this. She said she read it in a medical paper or something. She is a no it all anyway. I would love to prove her wrong and in the process educate myself even more.
Thank you for you time
Danielle
I have been quit for 1 Week, 2 Days, 12 hours, 13 minutes and 18 seconds (9 days). I have saved $34.23 by not smoking 142 cigarettes. I have saved 11 hours and 50 minutes of my life. My Quit Date: 9/6/2006 10:15 PM
My reply:
Hello Danielle:
No human being or animals produce nicotine. Nicotine comes from plants in the nightshade family.
There may be trace amounts in people from second hand smoke, and even some from certain foods. There is a whole lot of difference between trace amounts of nicotine and the kind of dosages found in smokers.
The question once came up at our Freedom group, where a person was worried that they could relapse from eating tomatoes or potatoes. Here was some information from that string, some of which goes into discussing trace amount issues:
From: Joel Sent: 11/12/2003 2:19 PM
Yes there is nicotine in tomatoes but it is truly trace amounts. It is like fruits and vegetables that contain natural occurring amounts of cyanide and arsenic, powerful poisons yet in the quantities in these foods basically harmless.
You may note that whenever I write avoiding consumption of nicotine I write something to the effect that to avoid relapsing avoid administration of nicotine from tobacco products or any nicotine replacement products, and as far as cigarettes go always know to never take another puff.
Tobacco and nicotine replacement therapy products are the only products that can deliver nicotine in sufficient quantities to effect a relapse. The trace amounts that you can get in tomatoes is likely less than the quantities you can get from secondhand smoke.
From: John (Gold) Sent: 11/13/2003 6:22 AM
Daily Food Intake of Nicotine One Hundred Times Lower than Secondhand Smoke?
Interesting topic and the full text of the below report summary is very interesting as well. If the below report produced by Sweden and Denmark researchers is accurate then the potato appears to contain even higher natural levels of nicotine than the tomato.
But not to worry, if I’m reading the below report correctly (and please correct me if I’m not) the total amount of nicotine consumed daily is roughly 100 times less than the average non-smoker (or ex-smoker) receives who is daily exposed to secondhand smoke.
To put that into perspective, as you may recall from earlier ETS discussions, the blood serum nicotine levels of those exposed to secondhand smoke is less than 1/100th of that of a smoker and an amount far too low to cause either relapse or initiate dependency.
This is part of the conclusion from the full-text of the below report ….
“The average dietary exposure to nicotine from the food plants mentioned above was calculated to be 1.1 µg/day (88% from potatoes) in Sweden and 1.3 µg/day (70% from potatoes) in Denmark. This is about two orders of magnitude lower than the exposure from passive smoking and around three orders of magnitude lower than the direct exposure during cigarette smoking (around 900 – 1,700 µg nicotine is assumed to be absorbed from a single cigarette). In addition to the difference in exposure level, absorption is much lower when exposure occurs in the diet than when by the inhalation route. Furthermore, more nicotine is metabolised before systemic distribution when absorbed from the stomach.”
Nicotine alkaloids in Solanaceous food plants
(TemaNord 2003:531)
The nightshade family (Solanaceae) unites 75 genera and over 2000 species, most having their natural habitat in warmer countries. The largest genus in the family is Solanum. Some of the nightshade plants are important nutritious plants, like for example the potato, the tomato and the eggplant. Others, like the tobacco plant, is used by man for the production of many tobacco products used as stimulants.
Since Solanaceous plants are particularly rich in alkaloids they have been studied for their content of alkaloids for a long time. The most studied alkaloid is nicotine in the tobacco plant. Because of the close genetic relationship between Solanaceous food plants and the tobacco plant, it seems natural to investigate whether also potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants and sweet peppers have the ability to produce nicotine.
These studies have revealed the occurrence of low levels of nicotine in these food plants. The levels detected were so low that it has been questioned whether the occurrence of nicotine in the mentioned food plants might be the result of environmental pollution, or use of nicotine as a pesticide.
The present report aims to summarize the data on occurrence of nicotine in Solanaceous food plants, discuss whether the demonstrated occurrence of nicotine is inherent in the food plants, and estimate the potential risk from the dietary exposure to nicotine from these foods. The report also summarize background information required as a part of the safety assessment required of genetically modified potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants, and sweet peppers.
From: Joel Sent: 11/13/2003 6:45 AM
Thanks for finding the numbers John. You can tell that the author of the study recommending that you stop eating tomatoes for eight days does not really grasp the concept of drug addiction. He thinks that if you just eliminate tomatoes for eight days then you can safely reintroduce them again. If the amount of nicotine delivered in tomatoes were enough to interfere with the detox process you could very well bet that it would also likely be enough to keep a person in withdrawal if it were ever consumed again. Go read our Tell a newbie how many seconds a day you still want a cigarette. See how many of the people who are off months or years sound like they are still in constant withdrawal now. Ask yourself how many of these people may have had at least one tomato product in the past few months or years. Or as John notes, maybe they ate a potato somewhere along the way.
Getting nicotine out does not make it safe to administer nicotine comfortably or safely again. The trick in quitting smoking and breaking the physiological grip nicotine once exerted on you is to stop delivering nicotine from products that deliver more than trace amounts of nicotine and then to never use one of those products again. Those products are one specifically designed to get nicotine to your brain at significantly high levels. Those products are either clearly labeled as being designed to treat nicotine addiction or are made from tobacco products. As long as you never introduce one of these products again by chewing, inhaling, sticking it on your skin, dissolving it in your mouth or lighting it up and inhaling you will stay free from withdrawals. To stay in control is still as simple as remembering to avoid all NRT products and remembering to never take another puff!
Joel
From: Joel Sent: 11/13/2003 7:20 AM
Back in 1999, the cartoon series The Simpson’s actually did a spoof on the tomato, tobacco connection. Here is the summary I lifted from the Simpson’s site about that episode:
Original Airdate: 11/07/99
Homer begins challenging everyone around him to duels after he sees a Zorro film at the Googoplex. Most people back down, until Homer meets an old-fashioned Colonel who takes him up on his dare. Unable to get out of the contest with the Colonel, Homer and his family flee to the country, where they become farmers. Farm life is difficult until Homer creates a new crop called tomacco–tomatoes crossed with tobacco. The new fruit is disgusting to eat, but incredibly addictive. Selling barrel upon barrel of tomacco, Homer attracts the attention of some tobacco industry executives who want to capitalize on his new crop. Will Homer sell his cash crop for a pile of cash? Why are all the animals who ate tomacco suddenly going berserk? Would it really have been so bad to duel that Colonel after all?
This would have just been a humorous side note of no real relevance except for the fact that just this month a Simpson’ fan actually produced a Tomacco.
Simpsons Plant Seeds of Invention
By Kristen Philipkosk
WiredNews
02:00 AM Nov. 07, 2003 PT
Homer Simpson is not a guy people want to emulate. “D’oh!” is his most-used expression, and with good reason. His endeavors tend to go horribly, horribly wrong.
Nevertheless, Rob Baur of Lake Oswego, Oregon, dreamed of bringing to life his favorite The Simpsons episode, one from 1999 in which Homer grows “tomacco,” a combination tomato-tobacco plant. Even though it tastes foul and has a brown, gooey center, the entire town becomes addicted to the fruit after one bite, and Homer gets rich.
Baur grafted a tomato plant onto tobacco roots, and voilà, he had a real, live tomacco plant. The two plants can successfully become one because they come from the same plant family, which also includes eggplant and the deadly nightshade. The tomacco even bore fruit, although Baur said he believes it’s poisonous because it likely contains a lethal amount of nicotine.
“I’ve got this one plant growing, and it’s blooming again,” Baur said. “I accidentally left the tomacco on the kitchen table, and my wife yelled at me, ‘Get that thing out of the kitchen, you knucklehead!’ Because it looks like a regular tomato.”
Earlier in the summer, Baur tried grafting a tobacco plant onto a tomato root and got a “tobato,” but when he removed the bandage from the graft it fell apart and later died.
But the tomacco grafted together well. Baur wanted to know if it was a true hybrid, so he asked a forensic researcher to test the plant’s constitution. The results showed the leaves did indeed contain nicotine. The local Fox News station, KPTV, did a segment on Baur’s accomplishment.
“He only had the one fruit, and we didn’t get a chance to test that,” said Roy Grimsbo, the forensic scientist who performed the test and director of #8220;Intermountain Forensic Laboratories in Portland. “We just tested the leaves. It had regular green fresh leaves.”
Grimsbo did the work for free and said he hopes Baur will bring back an actual tomacco fruit for testing.
The Simpsons tomacco episode struck a chord with Baur, who is an operations analyst for a municipal waste water-treatment plant. He remembered a 1959 study he had read for a graduate chemistry class at Western Washington University in Bellingham, in which researchers crossed a tomato plant with tobacco. Since his work involves chemistry, he had saved his textbooks and was able to find the 1959 study.
“I thought, ‘Aha! I bet the writer of this Simpsons show had to have seen this too,'” Baur said. “I felt a bond with that Simpsons writer.”
It turns out that George Meyers, a writer for The Simpsons at the time, got a degree in biochemistry from Harvard. However, he didn’t write the tomacco episode. It was written by Ian Maxtone-Graham, who majored in English at Brown University and has said in interviews that he’s a huge fan of Meyers. Neither could be reached for comment.
The tomacco episode also resonated with Baur because he’s not a big fan of the tobacco industry. His mother, a lifetime smoker, died of lung cancer. His father, who also smoked all his life, had one lung removed and later died of colon cancer. Baur also lost an uncle to lung cancer.
“It really showed big tobacco for what it is, and the ridiculousness of this stuff that tastes bad, but then you’re addicted to it, and the lengths people will go to get it,” he said.
In the episode, Bart Simpson says, “It’s smooth and mild — and refreshingly addictive,” when he eats tomacco. Another scene shows Ralph taking a bite of a tomacco. “Oh, daddy, this tastes like grandma!” he says.
Baur said his kids think he’s nuts, but he said he’ll have the last laugh.
“We’ll see who’s saying ‘D’oh’ when I’m on the cover of TV Guide and Scientific American the same week,” he said.
In summary, tomatoes are safe but be careful of tomaccos.
Joel
From: Joel Sent: 11/13/2003 7:27 AM
I suspect a few people may start to read the article above and think its too ridiculous to read though in its entirety. But I want to make sure you see the following paragraphs. They really hit home on the concept of what smokers are doing with cigarettes.
“The tomacco episode also resonated with Baur because he’s not a big fan of the tobacco industry. His mother, a lifetime smoker, died of lung cancer. His father, who also smoked all his life, had one lung removed and later died of colon cancer. Baur also lost an uncle to lung cancer.
“It really showed big tobacco for what it is, and the ridiculousness of this stuff that tastes bad, but then you’re addicted to it, and the lengths people will go to get it,” he said.
In the episode, Bart Simpson says, “It’s smooth and mild — and refreshingly addictive,” when he eats tomacco. Another scene shows Ralph taking a bite of a tomacco. “Oh, daddy, this tastes like grandma!” he says.
