This seasonal vegetable can become toxic once prepared. A little-known risk that worries food safety specialists.
Food poisoning affects thousands of French people every year, most often through poorly preserved or insufficiently cooked foods. But there are more sneaky poisonings, caused by seemingly perfectly harmless foods, which are easily obtained in supermarkets. This is what happened to Bernard, the victim of severe poisoning after cooking a simple seasonal vegetable.
That evening, Bernard cooks a homemade dish with a seasonal vegetable that tastes unusually bitter, so much so that he leaves half of it. A few hours later, his condition deteriorated. “During the night, I vomited 36 times and each time it took my breath away. They were extremely violent spasms”he tells RTL. Bernard initially puts this down to simple indigestion. But in the following days, things got worse: “All the skin on my chest and back was flaking, as if I had gone out in the sun and was peeling.” The shock occurs in front of the mirror: “I ran the brush through my hair and all the hair stayed on the brush!” He consults, carries out multiple examinations, but obtains no answer about his condition.
It was a friend who ended up asking her the right question: “You wouldn’t have eaten squash?” Bernard then makes the connection with this bitterness which had challenged him at dinner: “The squash was really bitter, really not good.” He had actually eaten bitter gourd, an inedible variety. By contacting a poison control center, he discovered the extent of the danger: “I was told it’s the same effect as chemotherapy.” What if Bernard had eaten the whole squash? “It’s simple, you would be dead”his interlocutor explained to him. “Certain “squashes” are toxic and contain cucurbitacins, very irritating and bitter substances which can be responsible for digestive pain, nausea, vomiting, sometimes bloody diarrhea, or even severe dehydration requiring hospitalization”recalls Anses. These toxins, “persistent when cooked”are “naturally produced by wild squash to repel predatory insects”.
The phenomenon primarily concerns colocynths, or ornamental squash, “all considered toxic”. Sold commercially, they can be confused with edible squash. But edible squash can also become toxic through hybridization with these bitter varieties. However, there is nothing to distinguish them with the naked eye at the time of purchase: “Inedible squashes have exactly the same appearance as edible squashes”warns ANSES.
The only reliable indicator remains taste: “They have a bitter taste, unlike edible squash which have a neutral or slightly sweet taste.” The rule is therefore simple: taste a small piece raw before any preparation and throw away any bitter gourd without hesitation. If you experience symptoms, call a poison control center (01 45 42 59 59) or 15. Keep the remains of the meal for possible analysis.
