Is tomato foliage edible?

Is tomato foliage edible? - Side view of crop unrecognizable mature ethnic female gardener in casual clothes giving ripe tomato to young daughter during harvesting works in farm

I was picking some home-grown basil for a simple pasta dish yesterday, and like many people who grow in home-made compost find tomato seedlings are very common weeds. Obviously the leaves of basil and tomato are very different shapes, but the colour is very similar and it was only as I ripped up the leaves that I noticed they weren't all basil.

So I started wondering whether tomato leaves can be eaten. By this I mean whether they're safe to eat, and also whether they're pleasant to eat, in the sort of quantities we might use for herbs or salad.

I've looked online and there's disagreement: NYT says they're edible, even tasty when done right. Many sources make the same claim as Modern Farmer, that the leaves are actually toxic (in quantity -- I linked to a more cautious article than some).

I'm ideally looking for something definitive.



Best Answer

Tomato leaves are edible, both the articles agree on that. The Modern Farmer article says you'd have to eat pounds and pounds of them before you'd get appreciable amounts of toxins to make you ill, and even then it's more of an upset stomach issue. Some people might react more to Tomatine, which is the mild toxin in the leaves, and is also in green tomatoes. People eat fried green tomatoes enough without getting sick.

For me the cooking issue is flavor, the leaves are pretty pungent and I haven't seen a recipe that uses them without burying them in the middle of a host of other ingredients. They're too strongly flavored to be a salad leaf, and they generally need to be cooked as they're tough.

The flavor thing can work out, you can put a couple of tomato leaves in a tomato sauce to boost flavor in the last few minutes of cooking, then pick them out. They can also be put into a pesto, adding a strong tomato flavor.

The message is you can eat them as long as it's not very large amounts, which you'd probably not want to do anyway because they're so strong.

EDIT: if you grow tomatoes you'll have tomato leaves for weeks, not one single harvest. Once the plants mature and you start to get tomatoes you'll typically prune many of the leaves off to concentrate the plant's energy on ripening the tomatoes, that's actually when you get most of the edible leaves off the plant, a good time to make a pesto if you want to try it. You don't want to harvest many leaves when the tomatoes start ripening as the plant needs what's left for photosynthesis, but you could prune one or two to put into a sauce. As the last tomatoes ripen the plants start to die back and you probably wouldn't want to eat them then.




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Is tomato foliage edible? - Japanese umbrella near lawn and boulder with kitsune mask
Is tomato foliage edible? - Dreamy ethnic gardener among olive branches in countryside
Is tomato foliage edible? - Ethnic farmer picking olives from tree on plantation



Quick Answer about "Is tomato foliage edible?"

Contrary to popular opinion, yes—tomato leaves are flavorful, fragrant, and 100 percent edible. You can cook the fresh, young leaves like most other sturdy garden greens, such as kale, collards, or cabbage (leafy greens that need a little longer cooking time to become tender).

Can you eat tomato foliage?

But the leaves of the plant are tender, fragrant and, yes, completely edible. Contrary to popular opinion, you can eat tomato leaves just like any other garden green. They're tasty, abundant and packed with phytonutrients.

Is tomato foliage toxic?

There appears to be no risk in consuming tomato leaves in moderate quantities, so it's best to conclude that the idea that tomato leaves are toxic is a myth. Just don't overdo it!

What part of tomato plant is poisonous?

While the leaves and stalk of the tomato plant are toxic, the fruit is not.

Are tomato leaves and stems edible?

Wariness about tomato leaves stems, in large part, from the plant's status as part of the nightshade family. While this family plays host to a variety of toxic, \u201cdeadly\u201d plants, the tomato is not one of them, despite containing the alkaloids tomatine and solanine.



Are tomato leaves edible? #tomatoes #tomatoleaves #tomatoleavesrecipe




Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Images: Zen Chung, Ryutaro Tsukata, Gary Barnes, Gary Barnes