Tip of the Month:www.tuftshealthletter.comis the website to visit if you'd like
to sign up for free email updates on health research from the Tufts University
School of Nutrition Science and Policy.
Food Focus:the Nightshade Family -- Potatoes, Tomatoes, peppers, and Eggplants
Every
farmers' market is bursting with these summer vegetables and we are all
enjoying our potato salad, our tomato sandwiches, our baba ghanoush, our
ratatouille, etc.Or are we?For some people the vegetables in this particular
family mean pain.Osteoarthritis flares
up in many who suffer from it when they eat the nightshades.If you have any arthritic joints, it's worth
a trial to see if ratatouille makes them worse, or not.
Others in this interesting family
include the hallucinogenic jimson weed, petunia, tobacco, mandrake, and
capsicum (Think: paprika, chili peppers -- all the peppers except black pepper).
Mandrake, a poisonous mostly European plant in this family has a history of
uses in witchcraft, especially for fertility.The Genesis story of Leah and Rachel imputes successful pregnancies to
an exchange of mandrake root.
In terms of arthritis, peppers, like
the other nightshades, can be a problem.However, chili papers differ form their cousins the bell peppers, in
that they contain the anti-inflammatory chemical capsiacin, which can be
palliative.They are also pain-killers
when used topically, including for arthritis.