When I was growing up my Uncle (3rd largest potato producer in the province) would hire my family to come help with the yearly potato harvest. He always told us to throw away any potatoes we saw that had green skin on them, but never told us the reason behind this beyond "It will give you a nasty stomach ache"... Which in hindsight may not have been him being malicious or anything but rather may have been a lack of understanding WHY green potatoes caused stomach aches..
Now it turns out (and unknown to me till a few hours ago) that potatoes come from the same family of plants the "deadly nightshade" does, which has a nasty fucking alkaloid stack of toxins and neuro-toxins naturally occuring. Now while these alkaloids ARE present in the potato plant, it generally is seen in highest concentrations in growth tips and in sun exposed tubers (the potato part of the potato).
Mmmm, Delicious Green Potato Chips
Early saturday morning I had opened a bag of Nosh & Co. All Dressed chips and it happened to contain a number chips with some green hue to them.. having prior eaten the odd chip with green bits on them and having no negative effects I went "Fuck it, what could a half dozen greenish chips do?" and ate them.
Cue that night and I'm full on Junkie sweating... I feel like I'm freezing but I'm sweating PROFUSELY.. Feels like an opiate withdrawal so I shrug it off, thinking maybe I forgot to eat my T3's at the optimal time and was going through withdrawal.. So I eat another T3 and wait for it to take away this horrible withdrawal symptom.. This didn't help..
So then I think.. Hey, maybe this is a withdrawal from my ADHD medication, as I'd not taken it over the weekend to give myself a break, as I wasn't feeling to hot.. Sure as shit that doesn't help either.
Fast forward to monday night supper (tonight) and I'm still having hot flashes and junkie sweats.. I'd taken my meds that I was supposed to, but was still having horrible withdrawals, or so I thought. As dad if he's had any gut illness or anything, he says no.. I think ok.. What have I eaten he hasn't lately? Then I remember eating the bag of chips with the green ones in it.. So I go look up what poisons are in that shit and what the symptoms are.. Ah fuck.
TIL: Potatoes Can Kill You
Turns out that I'd eaten enough green'd potato chips to give myself a pretty decent dose of a neurotoxin found in green potatoes (and nightshade plants) called Solanine.. Which happens to act on the same brain chemical Acetylcholine, which is the same chemical chemical weapons like nerve gas agents act on. Fuck me, my dumb ass via eating chips I knew I shouldn't inadvertently gave myself a minor form of nerve agent / neuro-toxin poisoning.
Needless to say after reading up on this shit.. the fact it has the potential to cause massive brain damage from hyperthermia, breathing depression, seizures and a bunch of other horrible side effects. Quite luckily the stack I'm on for anxiety and nerve pain are the exact same things they'd give you to stop the tremors and seizures.. so that is a plus side. As of a few hours ago I drank some super saturated activated charcoal to try and minimize any further intestine poisoning and will see how I feel tomorrow..
But by the fucking GODS this Solanine / Nightshade neuro-toxin poisoning is no god damn fun. The most disturbing part of it to me though was the almost identical symptoms of an opiate withdrawal when it was neuro-toxin side effects.. The fact I was unable to distinguish between them other than when I smoked a cigarette freaks me out.. Generally in an opiate withdrawal I can smoke a cigarette with only slight increase in nausea.. But today when I tried to smoke and got about 3 or 4 puffs in I found myself thinking "fuck, I feel poisoned" which turned out to be entirely accurate.
Maybe someone reads this and doesn't make the same mistake I did.. Because I'll tell you right now this gut rot, fever and other symptoms were entirely not worth the half dozen crunchy chips taste that caused it.
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