RHUBARB FOOL

REVIEWING NON-POISONOUSPLANTS

When I asked if it was alright to put horse manure on my rhubarb an old gardener said that would be fine but that personally he preferred custard.
 His jocular answer was better than the advice offered by Toronto’s Sick Kids’ Hospital as they warn us that rhubarbs’ large leaves are ‘known to be poisonous to humans.’

   Together with the Ontario Regional Poison Information Centre they publish an advisory called Information for Families – Plant Safety which is notable for its’ lack of information. Families are on their own.

   Rhubarb leaves contain oxalic acid that can combine with calcium to form painful kidney stones; but so do the leaves of spinach, Swiss chard, beetroot tops and a number of other popular food items such as peas and potatoes. Susceptible types will be much more likely to accrete stones in the kidney or bladder from a diet of spinach than from the unappealing greens of rhubarb.

Speaking for myself alone I must say that rhubarb is not high on my list of favourites. The closest I get is the occasional purchase of a strawberry & rhubarb pie; even then I find that it still calls for a custard topping. Nothing appeals from the rhubarb leaves.

 Anyway, poison is hardly the right word. It takes a steady diet of an offending food item consumed over years before it would result in kidney stones. And when it does, would you call it a poison?

   A hundred years ago during the First World War a government agency in Britain exhorted the people to be mindful of food shortages and “that children were starving in Belgium.” As example it was suggested that those who liked and used rhubarb should not discard the leaves as was the usual practice but to use them too as a vegetable. This provoked strenuous complaints from many who knew its’ reputation as a cause of kidney stones or otherwise had learned that it was deleterious or even poisonous. Once being taken to task for their bad advice they responded by issuing corrections which in fact greatly exaggerated the plants’ dangers as they sought to undo any harm that they had caused. These stories are still echoing today. You would think that after one hundred years we could get the story right. Obviously we cannot look to Sick Kids’ Hospital for solid science and sensible instruction. They apparently know little and care even less.

Recipes for RHUBARB FOOL at www.canadianliving.com