Tomato plants belong to the deadly nightshade family, which include a number of (very) poisonous plants, but also a large number of edible plants such as: bell peppers (paprika) and pointed peppers (spicy and sweet paprika), eggplant and potatoes.

Most of the toxic plants in the nightshade family contain a substance called solanine. This protects the plant against harmful insects and other attackers. The tomato plant also has this substance in all of its green parts. So it is unwise to eat the leaves or any other green parts of the tomato plant. Just to be clear: although the leaves of Farmzy Little Red Tree might look like kale, you cannot eat these leaves either. Yes, we get asked this question quite often. 😊

Green, thus unripe tomatoes contain a substance called tomatine in addition to solanine. Both tomatine and solanine are toxic so it is not wise to eat green tomatoes in large quantities. Solanine poisoning can cause unpleasant symptoms like fever, abdominal pain, diarrhea, vomiting, drowsiness and lethargy. Because tomato plants in nature depend on their fruit being eaten for the distribution of their seed, the 2 toxins disappear as soon as the tomatoes ripen and the fruit turns deliciously sweet.

Never the less, unripe green tomatoes are often included in the recipes of several cultures, mostly Southern European and South American. In the past, people from the former Yugoslavia and Turkey used to call on my father, who grew vine tomatoes, to buy green (unripe red) tomatoes. They made preserves out of them to eat in the winter. Probably these people serve pickled green tomatoes as a side dish so the amount of tomatine and solanine they ingestwould be too small to affect them. Another explanation is that the toxins slowly degrade during the storage period.

Some people believe that you can eat green, unripe tomatoes if they are cooked, but that is not true. Tomatine and solanine are very resistant to heat and do not break down during preparation, whether that be boiling, baking or frying.

I am not an expert in this but advise against eating green, unripe tomatoes. If you still want to eat green, unripe tomatoes, do so in small quantities.

But there are also tomato varieties that stay green when they are ripe, just to make things a little confusing for the moment. 😉 Examples include: Green Doctors and Absinthe (both are among my favorite tomato varieties), and there are many more. With this kind of green tomato, it is quite difficult to tell when the fruit is ripe; it often changes from white-green to yellow-green. But the difference between ripeand immature is very clear to taste. Unripe is acidic(sour) and ripe is sweet.

You can eat these ripe green tomatoes. When they ripen, the solanine and tomatine disappear, just as they do in normal red tomatoes.Only the color does not change in these varieties.

While I was writing this, I came across a remarkable article about unripe tomatoes and varicose veins. I don’t know how true this is, but it seems that solanine in unripe tomatoes is supposed to reduce varicose veins.

Cut an unripe tomato into slices and apply them to the varicose veins. It’s enough to leave them on the skin for 2 to 3 minutes. After removing the slices, apply a moisturizer because solanine dries out the skin. Repeat this process for 10 days. Supposedly you will see the varicose veins fade away. If you want to test this and find out if it works – or not –I’d be glad to receive an email from you.