Links to all references can be found at the end of the lesson
Table of Contents
In the 18th Century, Europeans called tomatoes “poison apples”, because the few people who got to eat them got sick (or even died) not long after.
Now, nothing was different about tomatoes back then. They were as delicious as they are today.
So, why were some unlucky bourgeois dropping dead after eating them?
Interestingly, the answer lies not hidden inside the tomatoes themselves… but right underneath them. The problem was not their food: it was their plates.
Late Victorian people did not know any better, so the plates and cookware they used on a daily basis were often full of toxic heavy metals—especially lead. This did not cause immediate problems most of the time... until they started eating corrosive foods on top of them.
That's right: the acidity of tomatoes reacted with their pans, pots, plates and cutlery, and cascaded a stream of heavy metals into their ignorant bodies. What the bourgeois thought was a delicious (albeit slightly metallic) dish was, in reality, their last meal on nature's secret death row.
Now, I’m well aware that most of us today don't have to worry about a sudden early trip to the grave just for eating tomatoes.
But given that most of our relationship with food unfolds in or around kitchens, we should be conscious of the unnecessary toxins and life-inhibitors that even seemingly “safe” and “modern” equipment hide.
Non-stick pans are as convenient as they are harmful.
Much to the chagrin of companies like DuPont which, for decades, tried to suppress evidence of the harmful effects of their cookware, it is now clear as day that non-stick pans and pots are wreaking havoc in your system.