Can you juice tomato vines?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Asafoetida on October 7, 2008 at 7:26pm

I don't think it will kill you, but nightshade leaves are not generally edible. Potato leaves, for one, are quite toxic. I haven't heard the same for tomatoes, but I would suspect they make better compost than juice :)

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Asafoetida on October 7, 2008 at 7:28pm

This is a really cool article on edible leaves--and at the end, it says tomato leaves are toxic. http://weblogs.newsday.com/features/home/gardendetective_blog/2007/...

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by David Hestrin on October 7, 2008 at 7:32pm

i'm pretty sure it's toxic

if you want to find out, have a cleansed system and eat as first thing in morning. touch your neck and tilt your head forward and touch your neck

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Bri on October 7, 2008 at 8:42pm

is mango skin poisonous? my mom always told me it was, but i've never checked that out...

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Bri on October 8, 2008 at 1:19pm

Thanks...I'll try a little bit of the organic mangoes I bought today!

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Jef on October 8, 2008 at 3:31pm

Good try though. It'd be a great money saving technique! Grow and eat your veggies, then juice the plants when you're done. The ultimate recycling of resources. YOu can always give the pulp to the worms then, or make bagels out of it> :)

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by yoda on December 2, 2008 at 8:32pm

Having said all of that don't eat the leaves, they add the aroma of tomatoes, British chef Heston Blumenthal uses them to make pretty well any tomato dish these days. I've dehydrated tomatoes with the vine and they've been amazing, though it could be because they were amazing tomatoes to start off with.
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/consumer/poison/Lycopes.htm says poisonous in large quantity (OK that is a canine list and spinach is considered in the same category). Juicing is often large quantity, I don't think one or two leaves would be a problem unless you are very sensitive to them. A lot of the tomato aroma is in the vine/leaves, so adding one leaf to a tomato juice might make it more tomatoey.

There are also rumours that organically grown plants put out more chemicals into their leaves to make them less attractive to leaf eaters, not sure if that is on a plant by plant basis or if it is heirloom plants vs newer varieties that don't bother to produce their own pesticides.

▶ Reply to This