FoodtopsyFrançais
Menu

Glycoalkaloids (nightshades)

In the body: At high doses, potato glycoalkaloids bring nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea. For aubergine’s, EFSA could not characterise the risk for lack of data.

Not rated by dose: a flag on one reviewed food, Eggplant, cooked.

Background. Shown, not scored: no dose basis at normal intake, a classification rather than a risk, or legal limits only.

All hazards

The reference value and where it comes from

  • The agency’s figureno agency dose value
  • BasisEFSA 2020: risk from aubergine (and tomato) glycoalkaloids could not be characterised; no reference value
  • Average adult intake Aubergine fruit carries mainly alpha-solamargine and alpha-solasonine (solasodine aglycone), not the potato alpha-solanine and alpha-chaconine; the potato lowest-observed-adverse-effect level (LOAEL) (1 mg/kg body weight) is not transferred.
  • Source EFSA 2020

Reviewed foods that carry it

1 reviewed food carries it; none is rated by dose.

How often you can eat it

No food here is rated by dose. Each line says why it’s listed: a flag for the people the source names, advice on handling it, or context.

Among our foods but not yet measured for it, so no line below: potatoes.

Flags and context, not rated by dose

  • Eggplant, cooked

    Not rated yet

    EFSA 2020 · grade A

    How it’s rated

    Not rated: EFSA's 2020 opinion could not characterise the risk from aubergine glycoalkaloids, for lack of occurrence and toxicity data, so there is no reference value and no grams figure. Measured levels vary about 20-fold across studies (14–435 mg/kg fresh weight) and the method changed the answer (colorimetric 79 against LC-MS/MS 14); the effect of boiling is unknown.

    Intake: one 85 g serving a day · Level in the food: 20.6 mg/kg (mean (n 10 lines, field trial), commercially ripe stage; range <0.02-85; fresh weight, n = 10)

    Measured on: EFSA 2020 Table 38 summarising literature: S. melongena, commercial state, Italy 2012 (Mennella et al.), HPLC-UV, dry-weight figures converted to fresh weight by EFSA. Other lines in the same table: retail UK 1981 n 2 mean 79 (76-82, colorimetric as alpha-solanine); Spain 2010 n 3 mean 14.3 (11-20, LC-MS/MS); Italy 2016 n 3 commercial 311 and Italy 2019 n 3 commercial 435 (field trials, dry-weight converted).

Sources