Endogenous Plant Toxicants

Plants provide humans with over 70% of the necessary protein and a number of other useful substances. Although, over the millennia, acutely and severely poisonous plants or their toxic parts have been excluded from the human diet, mostly by trial and error, in some cases, we still have to deal with plant compounds that have a harmful effect either by long-term consumption of so-called anti-nutritional compounds, or by playing some kind of a risky game. A half-ripe or a wrongly stored part of an otherwise edible plant might turn out to be poisonous. Toxic components can also reach our food through, for example, the milk or meat of animals that have been fed toxic plants or honey, that has been contaminated with environmental toxicants. The list of endogenous plant toxicants involved in the further discussion is not by far exhaustive. Here, the reader will find the most important plant-borne toxicants from different parts of the world.