According to a report by China National Radio's "News Center," recently, some people have said that tomatoes cannot be eaten casually. There is also a circulating claim online that tomatoes contain nicotine. Is this really the case?
After checking materials, a reporter learned that tomatoes do contain a component called tomatine. The reporter interviewed Director Li from the Tomato Research Institute at Northeast Agricultural University, who stated that this tomatine is indeed nicotine; the two components are one and the same.
It is said that the purified nicotine from one cigarette can be lethal to a small white mouse, the nicotine from 20 cigarettes can kill a cow, and the nicotine from 25 cigarettes can be fatal to a person. This sounds a bit frightening. Does liking tomatoes mean you are addicted to nicotine, and will eating them frequently lead to poisoning?
People who often eat tomatoes are quite concerned about this issue. Director Li from the Tomato Research Institute at Northeast Agricultural University also provided an answer. He said that unripe tomatoes contain tomatine and are not suitable for consumption. Once tomatoes are ripe, there are no adverse effects to eating them. Moreover, ripe tomatoes do not contain tomatine, so everyone can eat them with confidence. On the contrary, tomatoes are a vegetable with relatively high levels of carotene and lycopene among all vegetables. Lycopene has antioxidant properties for the human body and is therapeutic for various types of cancer.