nightshade vegetables and acne

[kaleidoscope]

hey shelley,

i've read in a few places that people with acne should avoid the nightshades -- potatoes, tomatoes, bell peppers, etc. i think that's according to ayurvedic medicine? what do you think about that? it seems crazy to me that bell peppers can do any harm! i thought they were so healthy.

just thought i'd get your opinion.

[shelley]

There's a small percentage of people who react badly to nightshade veggies, yes indeed, because nightshade veggies are very powerful medicine. Cayenne pepper is part of the nightshade family, and it can cure or kill depending on the dose. To know if you're sensitive, try the two person "arm method" of kinesiology while holding a potato etc., or eat some Marinara sauce on a day you otherwise fast and see how you feel.

It IS hard to imagine anyone getting into trouble with bell peppers! I rely on bell peppers all the time. I do tend to get into trouble wtih tomatoes, however, in fact, I've been experimenting lately with using jars of roasted bell peppers to make a non-tomato tomato type sauce. So far I've done really well with my bell pepper sauce, which is sooo nice. Tomato sauces make me sooo sick it's not even funny. Macrobiotic diets say to not even eat raw tomatoes, which don't bother me.

So when it comes to nightshade veggies, it's usually when they are very very concentrated as in tomato sauces, sun-dried tomatoes, that they are bad for people. And even then it's usually just tomatoes and eggplant that really bother people. Potatoes don't tend to bother people unless they try to live on them all the time, or if they mistakenly eat potatoes with a green skin, which means they've been exposed to the sun and are now somewhat toxic. Grocery stores are not supposed to sell potatoes with green skins, you can take them back if you accidentally find some in a bag.

Tomatoes have a long history of being suspect. There was even a trial during the early Pilgrim days when half the colony wanted to stop growing them. One man ate an entire bushel right there in court to prove they aren't poisonous! And when the Aztecs were conquered they fed their Spanish conquerors nothing but tomato-based dishes in the hopes that they'd die and leave them alone.