All are edible except Solanaceae i.e. Tomatoes, eggplant and peppers. As to whether they are palatable you must decide that. And there is no need to throw away leggy seedlings of Brassicas, cucurbits or tomatoes. Just plant them deep. Then review your growing methods. Seedlings shouldn't be getting leggy.

Any salad plants of course. Anything where the top is what you eat later.

Odds are yes they are with the off-hand exception of tomatoes and potatoes. Then there are many that while edible sure won't taste very good.

But as there are literally thousands seedling varieties and assuming you aren't growing that many, it would be much easier to answer if you would list the specific seedlings you are asking about. :-)

Better yet rather than eating them why not just transplant them deeply and eliminate whatever is causing them to turn leggy?

Dave

Yes, tomato leaves are technically edible, and are often used by professional chefs as flavoring or garnish. They're just not good for you in large quantities. There is some gardening mythology that says they are poisonous. You have nothing to worry about if you're just consuming seedlings, unless you have a huge number of seedlings.

Nice essay here ... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/dining/29curi.html

I stand corrected.

Sorry but I just can't accept eating members of the nightshade family. Not to mention how differently people would define 'small amounts'. It has no redeeming value to justify recommending or encouraging.

Antifreeze tastes good too but you sure don't want to drink it even in small amounts.

Dave

Well, spinach is poisonous as well. I'd not recommend eating a pound of spinach either. We eat plenty of poisonous vegetables. We just don't eat a lot of them.

Actually, tomatine from tomato leaves, which is the offending glycoalkaloid, won't kill you, but if you eat a lot of it it can cause gastrointestinal distress. Green tomatoes actually have plenty of it.

The offending glycoalkaloid in nightshade is solanine, which is not present in tomatoes. Look out for potatoes, though.

Dave: Sorry but I just can't accept eating members of the nightshade family.

Based on what? There are meaningful differences between the species in the family with respect to the different glycoalkaloids present in them and in the specific forms of those GAs, which makes a huge difference, and, with almost everything, the dose makes the poison. Most of the vegetables we eat contain "toxins". They just occur in doses that are too small to harm us.

Millions if not billions of Asians have been eating pepper leaves for at least a couple hundred years. You'll often see them sold just like any other green veg at Asian markets.

I hope you never eat potato skins, because those contain solanine even when the potatoes aren't green or sprouting. The amounts in potato skin are equal to the amounts in the flesh of a bitter (considered "toxic") potato (the amounts in the skin of bitter potatoes are much higher). Or you could continue to eat the skins and enjoy some possible anti-cancer benefits from the small quantities of glycoalkaloids you consume in them.

In case anyone is interested, it's Solanum aethiopicum that is the eggplant relative which is frequently as much cultivated for its leaves as its fruit.

Not that it applies specifically to the plants discussed here but there is a history of people in Asia eating things that aren't necessarily the best thing for you. Bracken for instance. And for a long time people in Asia, as elsewhere weren't on average living long enough to develop cancers or other difficulties that somebody eating a poisonous traditional food for many years might develop now.

Sort of off-topic, but I believe potato skins are especially high in solanine when they turn green, which exposure to lots of light can do. (Not sure if it is the solanine itself that is green.) Potato sprouts have a lot as well as foliage and stems. Half the nutrients in a potato are in the skin (yeah, potatoes don't have a lot of nutrients ...) so eating the skin is recommended. That being said, potato skins are pretty high in sodium and saturated fat. The standard recommendation is to eat potato skins, but not if they're green, and not a load of them. Yes, non-green potatoes contain some solanine, but not enough to do anyone any harm.

FWIW, solanine is soluble in water, so if you boil potatoes in their skins, the solanine will be removed.

Do not eat potato seedlings.

I just had bracken over the holidays, as no dinner party among Koreans is complete without it.

Bracken isn't any stronger of a carcinogen than alcohol. The carcinogen in it is largely leached out by soaking and denatured by cooking. And I don't eat the stuff every day (mostly because it's annoying to prepare).

There are some foods in every cuisine that are not necessarily good for one if eaten daily and in excess. No reason to single out Asian cuisines on that front.

Nobody is suggesting that TomatoZesty or anyone else subsist on giant servings of tomato greens or pepper leaves.

Potato skins are high in sodium and saturated fat? I'm surprised to hear that. Or do you mean after they are cooked in some specific way? I rarely peel potatoes and have always read that the skins are nutritious. Potato skins .

Returning to the question... it is predicated on the assumption that leggy seedlings are no good. If we could see some pictures we could advise as to whether this is actually the case.

Re: the skins of potatoes

floral_uk: Potato skins are high in sodium and saturated fat?

I was confused by this, too. I think he means the dish we call potato skins in the US, a common bar food, which is usually the skin baked until crispy with toppings like cheese, sour cream, bacon, etc.

daninthedirt: Do not eat potato seedlings.

Agreed.

I stand corrected about potato skins. I looked up what turned out to be FRIED potato skins. That's where the oil and salt come from. Sheesh.

Just don't eat a few pounds of them. Ick. There is a story in the research literature about some folks who ate four large whole potatoes a day for four days (a rather remarkable diet), and they came down with what was interpreted as probably solanine poisoning. Interestingly, solanine is produced by potatoes specifically to kill pests and ward off bacterial and fungal activity. With regard to fried potato skins, solanine does break down some at temperatures of hot oil, but not at temperatures of boiling water. So if you don't mind the fat and salt, you might be able to hold down the solanine.

Both α-solanine and α-chaconine have been discovered to have in vitro cancer fighting effects, BTW. This doesn't necessarily make them "good". But there's little proof that they're "bad" in doses that cause no symptoms, and there's a theoretical possibility that there's a dose at which they could be "good".

There's a ton we don't understand about food because it's a really complicated cocktail of chemicals which interacts with our very complex metabolisms in very complex ways. In other words: food is complicated.

I suspect we'll eventually find a dark side to those foods that are constantly extolled as miracle superfoods (there's already at least a couple theoretical bases for why excess brassica consumption could be bad for health, for example). A lot of super-nutritious foods come with a caveat, such as many of the greens that are especially packed with good nutrients but also contain high levels of oxalate. And many foods which most people benefit from greatly can cause problems in people with sensitivities which are poorly or not at all understood. Much of what we eat hasn't been thoroughly researched.

Good points. The idea seems to be that things we eat are good because, well, we eat them and we don't keel over. Foods, including natural ones, are loaded with "chemicals" and it is simplistic to think that because they're natural they are necessarily good for us.

there is also the fact that saturated fat is good for you. I eat a high fat diet which has resulted in much improved blood analyses. Parsley, too, is a common vegetable that is considered highly toxic (possibly deadly) if you eat a pound. The fact is that all plants have some toxins, otherwise they would have become extinct long ago due to herbivory. Due to the combination of volume and concentration, most toxicity for the general population comes from sugar and fructose, grains and soy, and seed oils.

For an idea of the many microgreens grown commercially (herbs and vegs) take a look here, specially starting at around 3:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cy6e-Zo50Xk

glib: Due to the combination of volume and concentration, most toxicity for the general population comes from sugar and fructose, grains and soy, and seed oils.

This is so true, though "toxicity" may not be the best fit to describe it. "Diet-related health problems" may be a better way to put that.

It should be added that many varieties of nightshade are, in fact quite edible. Their totally ripe berries, very much so. Like totally ripe tomatoes. Might stay away from Bellladona, though. The Black Nightshade leaves have a lot of solanine, but, as noted, it's water soluble, so boiling the leaves largely removes it. Might want to boil them twice!