• @PugJesusOPM
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    643 days ago

    Explanation: For almost 200 years, it was commonly believed that the tomato (a plant from the Americas) was poisonous, because it is a member of the Nightshade family. For that reason, it was grown in Italy primarily as an ornamental plant until the late 17th century.

    • @Shapillon
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      3 days ago

      Well, tomato leaves (and iirc flowers) are indeed poisonous.

      Tomoato leaves don’t contain enough solanin to be toxic. I was fake news.

      • @mrsemi
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        83 days ago

        Search around and you’ll find that this is mostly just people repeating anecdotal evidence.

      • Beacon
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        73 days ago

        A quick search says that that’s at best a totally unsubstantiated rumor with little to no evidence supporting it

    • @kerrigan778
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      163 days ago

      Also, every part of the tomato plant other than the ripe fruit is at least slightly poisonous.

    • @xploit
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      123 days ago

      So there’s a chance some starving Italians, who had nothing left to eat, decided to go for their sun dried ornamental tomatoes, putting olive oil and some herbs on them to try and save themselves from horrible flavour and…well it all makes sense now.

      • @PugJesusOPM
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        193 days ago

        I always imagined it was more like “My dog got into the garden and ate like twenty of them and he survived, they can’t be THAT deadly”