A while back, I got a strange call from a reader who has followed my column for a while.
This person asked if I’d ever heard of Toxic Squash Syndrome. Apparently, they had food poisoning symptoms that lasted three or four days. I’ve had food poisoning myself, and for three days I felt so awful I thought I might die.
The reader even ended up in the hospital with severe dehydration. That sounds pretty rough, doesn’t it?
I used to keep a 100-by-100-foot garden, which felt huge for just one person. On weekends, I’d mow an acre and a half with a push mower. During the week, I looked after 10 long rows of strawberries.
Honestly, my real work began when I got home, so I actually looked forward to Mondays at the office. I planted all sorts of seeds — zucchini, summer squash, butternut squash, tiny melons, and pumpkins. Out of the four or five years I gardened like this, one year I decided to save seeds.
I read up on how to do it, but I started halfway through the season, so everything ripened at once. I dried the seeds and stored them for the next year.
I saved seeds from each type of squash I picked the year before. The bees had been busy cross-pollinating my summer squash and zucchini. I felt pretty proud when I saw squash that looked almost like summer squash — almost being the key word.
The bottoms of some were green, which isn’t right for summer squash. They’re supposed to have a crooked neck and be yellow. I thought it was strange at the time. My wife cut up these odd squashes and cooked them, but they tasted nothing like the squash I knew.
They were bitter, and nobody in my family ate any.
The gourd family is called Cucurbitaceae. If you like vegetables, you’ve probably eaten squash, cucumbers, melons, or pumpkins — they all belong to this family. I think they’re delicious, healthy, and a great addition to your diet.
Sometimes, squash can have a toxic compound called cucurbitacin E. This compound can create a condition called “Toxic Squash Syndrome.” Eating it can cause cucurbit poisoning.
There’s even a medical report from March 2018 in the Journal of the American Medical Association about two French women who got very sick and lost a lot of hair after eating it.
Luckily, only a few members of the gourd family ever become poisonous. So, you don’t need to worry about the zucchini or cucumbers in your fridge, especially if you didn’t grow them from seeds you saved yourself.
Cucurbit poisoning is serious, but it’s also very rare.
Gourd family plants naturally make cucurbitacin to protect themselves from insects. Wild gourds have a lot of this toxin, according to Jim Meyers, a vegetable breeder at Oregon State University.
“The cultured varieties of members of the gourd family contain small amounts that don’t affect humans,” Meyers has stated.
If domesticated gourds cross-pollinate with wild ones, or if the plants go through stress like not enough water or poor fertilization, they can end up making more cucurbitacin in squash, melons, pumpkins, or cucumbers.
An unusual member of the melon/squash family is the bitter melon. Bitter melon or Momoridica charantia is a tropical or sub-tropical melon that we can grow in our own gardens.
This vegetable should be considered by all of us for its health benefits. I have been to a number of gardens and seen them grow here in Ohio. This African and Asian native has been a dry-season staple.
The original bitterness has not been bred out of the fruit as with other members of this family. Therefore, I would consider this melon only semi-domesticated.
Most of the time, if this rare problem happens, you’ll get a zucchini, squash, cucumber, or melon that tastes so bitter you won’t want to eat it. Even a small amount can make you very sick.
If you spot any odd-looking gourds or volunteer plants in your garden, it’s best to remove them. Remember, in 2015, a man in Germany died and his wife was hospitalized after eating a lot of toxic zucchini stew.
So, if you have stomach pain, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, or dizziness after eating vegetable stew, it’s a good idea to see a doctor.
Vegetables are meant to be healthy, but gathering seeds the wrong way can cause serious stomach problems you definitely want to avoid.
Right now, my stargazer lilies, hydrangeas, and blackberry lilies are blooming. I hope you get to enjoy a nice walk through your own garden.
If you run into any problems out there, feel free to reach out. I’ll do my best to help. You can email me at ericlarson546@yahoo.com.