Nightshades are not as good as Night Moves

Night Moves is a song that was pretty popular in 1976. In fact, it was just about as popular as potatoes. I know I love a potato and I am assuming most of you do, too. Mashed, fried, scalloped, baked – there are not quite enough good ways for me to consume a potato.

But, there is a chance that those potatoes are doing more harm to your body than some people realize. No, this is not a carbo-phobic thing. This is about Nightshades. Nightshades are a type of food, specifically potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers. The reason you should be aware of this is that all nightshades contain alkaloids that have been found to compromise joint function and/or disrupt muscle function in some people. The alkaloid content does decrease when those items are cooked, but the content only decreases by about half. Some people have reported that they had an improvement in joint discomfort after eliminating nightshades from their diet. Other folks reported improvement just by removing one of the little devils. Still others have found that just cooking them, i.e. not eating fresh raw tomatoes, seemed to provide the relief they were looking for.

I am constantly amazed at how our bodies handle food and how little I had understood this before. Who knew that a staple of the Midwestern diet might actually be a problem for some people? We ask our bodies to do so much for us, but we do not always help them out. I have pretty much removed white potatoes from my Food Plan and I have had a significant improvement in my level joint discomfort. I have not played around with tomatoes enough to find out if they cause any joint discomfort or muscle control issues. I do not eat a lot of eggplant so I did not expect to see any improvements by eliminating that. I have continued to eat cooked peppers and still see the improvement when simply removing most white potatoes from my routine Food Plan. Real mashed potatoes with butter are a Treat for me now.

But that meant I had to find a way to satisfy my potato cravings. Tell me what you think of these options:

Fried Sweet Potatoes are a nice replacement for French Fries.
Scalloped Sweet Potatoes would go great with a serving of pork.
Mashed Cauliflower does a nice job mimicking mashed potatoes. If you are eating dairy, try adding in different cheeses. Parmesan works well, I have heard Laughing Cow Light Swiss is really good, and I bet Manchego would be awesome too. Throw in some chopped chives and or garlic.

Sweet potatoes are pretty versatile! Give one a try, even though it is not Thanksgiving and you probably won’t see any marshmallows in the recipes.

This link and that link will tell you the whole story about Nightshades. Next time I will tell you about why I feel no joy for soy. Other blogs coming up include some information about the Glycemic Index, Food Labels, importance of rest and sleep, and Peanuts. What else would you like to see?