Can you help me debunk my Mom's food superstitions?

May 16, 2008 4:30 PM

Mom's visiting. Along with her decade's old prohibition against eating tomatoes, eggplant, bell peppers, potatoes, etc. I'm kind of sick of this. Any clinical proof that solanine causes osteoarthritis? Even better, any proof that it does not? I am forbidden to even re-use cooking utensils between pots that have touched the forbidden foods.
posted by moof to food & drink (15 comments total)

If I had something like that, and you showed it to her, would that really solve the underlying problem?
posted by TheNewWazoo at 4:36 PM on May 16, 2008

No, it wouldn't. But it would give me a smug sense of satisfaction. Which has its own value.
posted by moof at 4:39 PM on May 16, 2008 [6 favorites has favorites]

Great! Mom's coming to cook for you!
posted by amtho at 4:39 PM on May 16, 2008 [9 favorites has favorites]

You can't really prove a negative, but I hear little alarm bells when searching online about this (I hadn't heard about a link between solanine and arthritis), because a number of sites are trying to recommend copper bracelets and chelation therapy (unnecesary and dangerous unless you've had some sort of accident with heavy metals).

The best connection I could dig up seemed to be `removing solanine from the diet seemed to give some people relief from arthritis symptoms', which isn't really much proof of anything.
posted by tomble at 4:47 PM on May 16, 2008

Honestly, I would set some limits. Make it be known that she is welcome to bring her own utensils and pans.

her decade's old prohibition against eating tomatoes, eggplant, bell peppers, potatoes, etc.

I wonder why those Cretans and Greeks are so healthy. How do they do it?
posted by LoriFLA at 4:50 PM on May 16, 2008

I've been hunting around pubmed, but can't really find anything of substance about solanine per se. I did find this interesting article (using 7th day adventists as a study group) showing that the vegetarian 7DAs (who ate more tomatoes, legumes etc.) actually had a lower rate of arthritis...
posted by gaspode at 4:55 PM on May 16, 2008

Like most food-related superstitions, your mom's is rooted (no pun intended) in a little bit of truth - solanine is a poison and it's found in all members of the nightshade family, which includes the foods you've listed. But her fears are irrational in that she surely must realize that millions of people eat those foods every day without any adverse effects. I don't think you're going to have any luck convincing her that she's irrational, though, if she's been like this for decades.

You might have better luck just assertively telling her: "Mom, you are free to believe what you want to believe, and you're free to restrict your own diet in whatever way you choose. BUT, when you are a guest in MY home, you don't get to tell me how to cook."
posted by amyms at 5:05 PM on May 16, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

No. And I don't think you should bother.
If your mom has had a notion, no matter how crazy it seems to you, for decades now, then I wouldn't plan on it changing any time soon. Best get over it and learn to love cleaning three or four more wooden spoons and cutting knives.
If you had in-laws that ate a certain way due to religious convictions I'm guessing that there wouldn't be a problem; you'd cook something that they'd enjoy.
posted by asparagus_berlin at 5:07 PM on May 16, 2008

There's no reason one can't have an allergy or food sensitivity to the solanaceae. My SO appears to, in fact: her joints hurt if she eats tomatoes etc. Osteoarthritis? Dunno. Aches and pains? Yes. This is a bummer since she really likes tomatoes, but she's cut them out of her diet except when she's willing to put up with the achiness. She hasn't done a double-blind test but I doubt it's all in her head. On the other hand, she doesn't go anywhere near as far as moof's mom in requiring a tomato-kosher kitchen.

amyms: Sure, and millions of people eat milk all day with no ill effects either. But the fact is that most people on the planet are lactose intolerant; Europeans are unusual. Millions of people eat shrimp but they will kill some people. And so on. Idiosyncratic reactions to food are very common.

It's possible that moof's mom is completely on crack, but does it matter? If she simply said, "They don't harm me, but I hate tomatoes (etc).", or if it were a religious taboo, would you still try to talk her out of it? Part of being a good host is trying to accomodate your guests' quirks; at the same time, part of being a guest is trying not to be an inconvenience to your hosts.
posted by hattifattener at 5:26 PM on May 16, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

Just tell her that you're happy to agree to her rules, but SHE'S doing all the extra dishes.

Or just suck it up and think to yourself about all the grief you caused her throughout your life.
posted by KirTakat at 5:41 PM on May 16, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

hattifattener: I wasn't talking about genuine concerns like lactose intolerance or food allergies (I am acutely aware of food allergy situations, and you can check my posting history for the ways in which my son's life has been affected by his life-threatening allergies). I was, however, addressing the OP's question, which was about a superstition (e.g. NOT a food sensitivity or an allergy).
posted by amyms at 7:49 PM on May 16, 2008

You've received some sound advice, respect mom for what she's done for you in the past, but assert your independence, kindly. She is wrong and probably 99% of earth's inhabitants would agree with you. I'd be inclined tp point out that if she were hungry she eat live rats, but that's not positive. So try to enjoy the visit, knowing she'll be gone before you know it, and you are the bigger person for working around her narrow, foolish, stupid attitudes. (Not my parents, at all, but I've had racist family members of an earlier generation in the deep South that I had to deal with).
Also, you may want to sing her this song, or just play it. Over and over again, while eating raw tomatoes with a bit of sea salt and basil.
posted by dawson at 9:16 PM on May 16, 2008

This is your mother, and not some random stranger or guest!

Tell her you're not really sure about the medical facts behind her ban (if there are any). If she persists, let her know that it's a lot of work and you'd appreciate some help with cooking and cleaning. You may have to accommodate your mother's quirks, but your mother probably wouldn't want you to have all this stress and fuss over her visits, right?
posted by theiconoclast31 at 10:54 PM on May 16, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Your mum might be nuts but really, how hard is it to find something to cook that doesn't involve tomatoes, potatoes, peppers and eggplant?
posted by missmagenta at 1:52 AM on May 17, 2008

Lucky I'm here, huh?

Okay we have good old Wikipedia. Solanine and Osteoarthritis neither so much as mention the other.

Except that Capsaicin (from Capsicum/peppers member of Solanaceae) is applied externally in the TREATMENT of Osteoarthritis.

-Personally, I found it interesting that "Researchers are also investigating the possibility of allergies, infections, or fungi as a cause" of Osteoarthritis. If this is the case then as "Solanine has both fungicidal and pesticidal properties," then it's certainly reasonable to think if anything Solanine might lower the risk of Osteoarthritis.
And that "Up to 60% of OA cases are thought to result from genetic factors."

"Tissues which accumulated a-chaconine and a-solanine included abdominal fat, adrenals, blood, brain, heart, kidney, liver, lungs, muscle, pancreas, spleen, testis, thymus, and thyroid." - NTP - Dept. of Health & Human Services.
...Cartilage, Synovial fluid, bones and joints are all conspicuously absent from this list.

I googled *solanine osteoarthritis* every site on the first page had this exact passage (so now! it's every site).
Italics mine.

"Dietary changes that may be helpful
In the 1950s through the 1970s, Dr. Max Warmbrand used a diet free of meat, poultry, dairy, chemicals, sugar, eggs, and processed foods for people with rheumatoid arthritis and OA, anecdotally claiming significant success.1 He reported that clinical results took at least six months to develop. The Warmbrand diet has never been properly tested in clinical research. Moreover, although the diet is healthful and might reduce the risk of being diagnosed with many other diseases, it is difficult for most people to follow. This difficulty, plus the lack of published research, leads many doctors who are aware of the Warmbrand diet to use it only if other approaches have failed.

Solanine is a substance found in nightshade plants, including tomatoes, white potatoes, all peppers (except black pepper), and eggplant. In theory, if not destroyed in the intestine, solanine may be toxic. One horticulturist hypothesized that some people might not be able to destroy solanine in the gut, (I was skimming but as I understood it... most people Don't! INAHorticulturalist though.) leading to solanine absorption (That for some reason doesn't kill you/fuck up your day) and resulting in OA. This theory has not been proven.

However, eliminating solanine from the diet has been reported to bring relief to some arthritis sufferers in preliminary research.2, 3 In a survey of people avoiding nightshade plants, 28% claimed to have a "marked positive response" and another 44% a "positive response." Researchers have never put this diet to a strict clinical test; however, the treatment continues to be used by some doctors with patients who have OA. As with the Warmbrand diet, proponents claim exclusion of solanine requires up to six months before potential effects may be seen.

Totally eliminating tomatoes and peppers requires complex dietary changes for most people. In addition, even proponents of the diet acknowledge that many arthritis sufferers are not helped by using this approach. Therefore, long-term trial avoidance of solanine-containing foods may be appropriate only for people with OA who have not responded to other natural treatments.

Most of the studies linking allergies to joint disease have focused on rheumatoid arthritis, although mention of what was called "rheumatism" in older reports (some of which may have been OA) suggests a possible link between food reactions and aggravations of OA symptoms.4 If other therapies are unsuccessful in relieving symptoms, people with OA might choose to discuss food allergy identification and elimination with a physician."

I could poke holes in that all day!! (Please note that the Warmbrand Diet is not the same as the 'Don't eat any Solanaceae.. diet') I itallic-ed some holes, there are more. I had a quick crack at it but I'll leave it up to you to poke 'em.

So how do you like them apples? ...oh wait they contain solanine too :)
Dude, your Mom is a quack :)
posted by mu~ha~ha~ha~har at 9:39 AM on May 18, 2008