Nutritional chemist Udo Pollmer took a look at “Why bitter is healthy” and what everyone knows to believe thanks to nutritional advice.

by Udo Pollmer, New Year's Day 2025

We should eat more bitter foods, nutrition experts advise. Bitter substances have a "great effect": they stimulate digestion, contribute to deacidification and stop cravings. If you lose your appetite because of the bitterness, the tip was successful. But don't worry, the cravings will...

...come back and even more fiercely. Disgust has the same effect. From this point of view, spiders are also suitable as appetite suppressants instead of soup with bitter vegetables. 

As word has got around that "bitter" usually means poisonous, advisors make a subtle distinction between "actually poisonous plants" and the "desired bitterness of plants that were once part of our everyday diet". This refers to "wild plants" such as plantain.¹ Plantain may be suitable as a medicinal plant, like other wild herbs that are still in full possession of their defence substances, their natural pesticides. But bitter wild plants only made it into our stomachs in times of need and hunger. It was certainly not "healthy".

The advice to eat bitter foods because medicinal plants taste bitter shows the intelligent contemporary that this stuff belongs as little in the herbal curd as the contents of a medicine chest. Anyone who propagates foods that contain medicinal substances should not be surprised if they fall ill. Sooner or later, the liver, in particular, will be knocked out.^2,3 Fortunately, generations of farmers and breeders have succeeded in removing the bitterness from our vegetables

Children taste bitter substances much more intensely than their parents, they are considered supertasters. This is nature's way of ensuring that they spit out the highly healthy stuff that their immature liver cannot yet metabolise. Their mothers already know this: when they were pregnant, their appetite liked to go on capers. Most of them served to protect the fetus from toxins, especially secondary plant substances.⁴ This is exactly the same biological mechanism.

Detoxing by deep frying

Nevertheless, it is already recognised that the bitter substances in courgettes, pumpkins and even cucumbers are risky. Due to the cucurbitacins, which sometimes reach considerable concentrations in home-grown seeds, circulatory collapse can be caused.^5,6 The elderly are particularly at risk on hot days.⁷ After a refreshing cucumber salad or a courgette pan, they collapse.⁸ As this is often accompanied by severe diarrhoea, many doctors mistakenly suspect noroviruses and the like. Such incidents are anything but rare. Poison centres have stories to tell about it. But are there any doctors who question the consumption of pumpkins? 

Meanwhile, some nutritionist websites mention the often downplayed toxicity of potato sprouts and green skins. But they defiantly claim that you would have to eat many kilos of them to reach a lethal dose of the poisonous solanine. They therefore recommend thin-skinned varieties, as the skin could also be eaten without hesitation. 

Breeders have long since "rethought" the potato, as the saying goes, and given it thin skins. At the time of harvest, the alkaloid content is usually kept within limits.⁹ However, the content of thin-skinned potatoes often rises rapidly during storage.¹⁰ As a result, these potatoes are often more toxic than those with barky skins, especially those from illuminated supermarket vegetable shelves. In addition, the content of individual potatoes varies greatly. If things go wrong, one or two tubers with skin are enough to poison a child. The alkaloid that poses a risk to children is α-chaconine, which is found in alarming concentrations in stored potatoes.¹⁰ In general, potato alkaloids are 100 to 500 times more toxic to humans than to normal laboratory animals.¹¹

Since poisoning causes diarrhoea and vomiting, misdiagnosis is normal. As a reaction to nausea caused by bitter food, some children put earth or sand in their mouths. Anyone who suspects early childhood trauma or mineral deficiencies is on the wrong track. The consumption of soil, mostly clay, is widespread wherever wild plants are eaten. Clay binds their defence substances and excretes them.¹² Children who eat soil don't need psychotherapy or alkaline powders, they need something decent on their plates. 

French fries, for example. The alkaloids accumulate in the frying fat, they are absolutely heat-stable but fat-soluble.^11,13 A hot air fryer is not a good idea. But instead of nutritious fries, children are forced to eat bitter salads such as endive, radicchio or chicory, all descendants or relatives of chicory. Their most important bitter substances are sesquiterpenes called lactucin and lactucapicrin.^14,15 There are also a large number of related compounds. These are all tried and tested drugs that were once traded in pharmacies as German opium.^16,17

Salad with brains

Pretty much the same sesquiterpenes can also be found in lettuce, recognisable by its slightly bitter taste. A century ago, it was only eaten after dinner to make it easier to fall asleep.^18,19 Most dope is found in the wild form, known as poisonous lettuce. To extract its bitter milky juice, the stems were cut, the juice collected and dried. According to the narcotics expert Ernst Freiherr von Bibra in 1855, it exuded a "strongly narcotic odour reminiscent of opium”.²⁰

In many places, the milky juice of chicory is still used today as a sleeping pill. Mostly for children, because it is "purely herbal". The effect is sometimes so strong that the little ones have to be brought back to life with naloxone, as in the case of opium poisoning.²¹ Many nutritionists know no pardon; they advise mothers to regularly serve their offspring salads whose bitter milky juice used to be sold in pharmacies as a psychotropic drug.

A growing number of publications confirm that these sesquiterpenes have a pronounced calming, sleep-inducing and analgesic effect that can easily compete with modern medicines such as ibuprofen.^22,23 Children with immature livers therefore have every reason to refuse consume them. Simple sugar is enough to lighten their mood.

For their mothers, who eat these salads with great appetite, the balance is different. Lettuce, endive and chicory lack an important side effect that is common to many other psychotropic foods and medicines, such as chocolate: lettuce has no effect on intestinal peristalsis. They lighten the mood without favouring constipation.

When the forest orders the rain 

Plants not only use sesquiterpenes to ward off pests and predators, they even use them to manipulate the weather. According to the Swiss Paul Scherrer Institute, what at first sounds like a "made-up nonsense" is of fundamental importance for the ecosystem: with their sesquiterpenes, plants, especially forests, ensure cloud formation and thus the necessary rainfall.²⁴

In order for raindrops to be formed, they need condensation nuclei. According to the institute, around half of these nuclei are first formed in the air. Although sesquiterpenes are not particularly volatile, they react with other plant hydrocarbons such as isoprene. This leads, quite unexpectedly for the chemists, to a massive formation of condensation nuclei. Under drought stress, tree emissions increase. They produce their sesquiterpenes from carotenoids.

Sugar addiction - a myth that won't die

A leaf of iceberg lettuce on a hamburger is also okay for children. This may even contribute a little to its popularity. But nutritionists are not satisfied: if kids eat the leaves often enough, they will get used to them. This is important because bitter foods like these salads are seen as the cure par excellence for "sugar addiction".¹ Everything is turned upside down here.

Children are supposedly born with "addiction". Dribbling sugar water onto the tongue of newborn babies triggers friendly facial expressions. This also works in other mammals, as photo documentation by taste researchers shows.^25,26 Mother's milk is also sweet, sweeter than cow's milk. If Mother Nature endows mammals with a tendency towards sweetness, the term "addiction" is out of place, as this tendency fulfils important biological functions.

However, if you blindly follow the advice, there is a little devil lurking in the mother's breast, just waiting to lure the infant into the abyss of "addiction" with sweet milk. How wicked! Many mothers had already declared war on their breasts beforehand: the advice to follow a low-fat, calorie-reduced diet serves to make their competitors' breasts sag. The female body is the first to do without this fat stored in the breasts which signals fertility.

Those who want to exert power over other people use fear: now normal sugar is even said to promote cancer!²⁷ How gruesome. The justification for this is as follows: 100 years ago, the famous Otto Warburg discovered that tumours feed on sugar, on blood sugar. It is true that the carbohydrate metabolism of animals and plants generally runs via this so-called glycolysis, and tumours are no exception. But Warburg discovered that many tumours have a higher glucose requirement in order to generate the energy for their growth.²⁸

This gave rise to the idea that giving up sugar could stop the tumour. But because our body needs glucose, it produces blood sugar itself as required. And it does so day and night. The glucose that flows into our blood from food comes not so much from sugar, but from starch: in other words from rice, pasta, bread, muesli - including wholemeal. Starch contains twice as much glucose as household sugar. Wholemeal cereals would therefore be a far greater cancer risk than soft drinks.

Fructose syrup

The fructose syrup made from corn called HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) is more harmful than ordinary sugar from beetroot or cane, according to the internet.²⁹ The fructose it contains has a "direct effect on the development or growth of cancer cells".³⁰ If fructose, i.e. fruit sugar, were so carcinogenic, this would be the end of the 5-a-day campaign, which is primarily intended to promote fruit sales. Apple juice with its high fructose content would be taboo for children.

HFCS is a mixture of glucose and fructose, i.e. the two components of our household sugar, which are released from it by our digestion. There is even a product that naturally consists mainly of HFCS: Bee honey. Incidentally, this tempted fraudsters to produce honey from HFCS.³¹ Undeterred, the obligatory busy bee is emblazoned on the label and a "beekeeper" praises the health benefits of real bee honey to the skies.

The stupid ideas about sugar ...

are of no relevance to the tumour. If the sugar in the blood is not enough, it simply obtains its energy from other nutrients. If glucose in the blood were the benchmark for the development of cancer, then diabetics in particular should fall ill with it. But they don't.³² Remember: before the tumour starves to death, the patient starves to death. It would be better if he could keep his strength up by eating well. Appetite keeps body and soul together. 

What can inspire cancer, on the other hand, are often enough bitter plants such as medicinal herbs.³³ Examples are comfrey, coltsfoot or the cucumber herb borage. They contain the dreaded bitter pyrrolizidines, just like the Senecio herbs.^34-36 Or the aristolochic acid in the once popular Easter lily.^37,38 Not to forget the methyl eugenol in various culinary herbs,³⁹ or the indole-3-carbinol in broccoli. It increases the rate of bowel cancer in experimental animals by a factor of ten, but is unwaveringly advertised as cancer protection because it is bitter.⁴⁰ Last but not least, many carcinogenic mould toxins are bitter.⁴¹

Even if not all bitter substances are carcinogenic, they are still far from being "healthy". In lupins, 170 alkaloids are known to date, preferably bitter neurotoxins (quinolizidine alkaloids).⁴² Sweet lupins (like courgettes) can also become bitter again through backcrossing.⁴³ The AOK assures you that you can "eat the seeds of these new varieties without hesitation".⁴⁴

A paper sponsored by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food adds that "very high doses of these alkaloids could at best lead to cardiac arrest or respiratory paralysis".⁴³ According to EFSA, the EU food authority, doses of 10 mg per kg body weight are sufficient for children.⁴⁵ Even a lupin grower who was convinced that he could already taste the toxins paid for this with his life.⁴⁶ Without analysis, therefore, no consumption. There are no maximum levels for lupin toxins.

Injecting an espresso with the needle? 

Of course there are also positive things. The dope in lettuce is not an isolated case. Another bitter substance, caffeine, prevents several types of cancer, especially liver cancer.^47,48 While every poisonous weed mutates into an anti-cancer agent, caffeine, which has been proven to protect against cancer, is met with icy silence. On the contrary, health campaigners warn against this bitter substance.

As humanity enjoys coffee, they feel called upon to expose it as an "addictive substance": the "habituation effect" means that ever larger quantities are needed. Coffee would therefore fulfil the definition of addiction. Consequently, they dub caffeine a "narcotic". Do ragged, hollow-cheeked figures inject their espresso with a needle in street cafés? What kind of weird stuff is smoked or snorted in some health centres?

In real life, coffee consumption remains constant. People thrive on it, whether in the morning with breakfast or as an afternoon coffee in the office. They benefit from this insecticide because it binds to certain receptors in the brain, just like the drugs in salad.^49,50 This brightens the mood and puts people in a better mood. That's why the drink is so popular - even though it's bitter. You don't have to make it palatable to anyone by saying that it helps against "sugar addiction". 

After lunch, older people like to treat themselves to a coffee or even a bitters. But according to the so-called experts, this doesn't help digestion at all. Alcohol, they claim, paralyses the muscles of the stomach.⁵¹ Then the fatty food sits in the stomach like a stone. They advise herbal tea. These experts are not disorientated by experiences to the contrary. Not even if they know that alcohol is a proven fat dissolver. 

Bitters lure the bile out of the reserve, they stimulate fat digestion. Even if the herbs were plucked by elves by moonlight according to the advertisements, the distillers are more likely to "harvest" them in a flavour factory to ensure a consistent taste. Many natural substances can now be chemically produced in high purity. So you know what you have. But not what is missing, what else was in the extract but without any particular flavour of its own. Sometimes this proportion is decisive.

Alcohol makes active ingredients that are not water-soluble bioavailable in the first place. They are missing in herbal tea. This is the reason why phytotherapeutics, i.e. plant extracts, have always been taken dissolved in alcohol. This is also the purpose of herbal spirits. Their bitter substances have proved just as effective in dose and combination as opium in salad, caffeine in coffee, hops in beer or bitter orange in marmalade.⁵²

On the other hand, the bitter stuff that qualified kitchen assistants talk unsuspecting people into eating, whether it's disgusting wild herbs or bitter Brussels sprouts, has not proved itself. They are only bitter if they have not been produced properly. Brussels sprouts can only be harvested when they are frozen in the field. The freezer can also provide some relief. But without frost, they are almost inedible.

Counsellors don't like to miss an opportunity to turn their ignorance into recommendations. If alcohol, they now advise, then at least a bitter spirit instead of a clear one, which is part of every better table in the north and east. There are reasons for these differences, which generally lie in genetics, in the detoxification capacity for secondary plant substances. Enzymes such sulfotransferases determine this.^53,54 Their genetic distribution on earth depends on the climate and the type of food available. In cooler climates, vodka or grain are favoured. Some people cannot tolerate culinary herbs even as adults; even lettuce gives them a headache. Instead of herbal liqueur, they prefer to drink a clear one.

Mens sana?

Bitterness has always been regarded as a sign of effective medicine. This can lead to lazy conclusions: For example, the rat poison strychnine, a bile-bittering secondary plant substance, became a highly praised tonic.⁵⁵ Doping with strychnine used to be as normal as bitter vegetables for children are now. Take the 1904 Olympic Games in St Louis in the USA: Thomas Hicks, the winner of the marathon, was given brandy fortified with strychnine by his doctor instead of water from a water bottle. The poisoned and dehydrated Hicks only managed the last few metres with the help of two assistants who dragged him across the finish line.⁵⁶

His doctor was convinced that the gold medal proved that strychnine spirits were "extraordinarily useful during the race". In his day, rat poison was as popular as alkaline powders are today.⁵⁷ Just over a century ago, the specialised press wrote: "Nowadays it (strychnine) is given for everything and for almost every illness." The doctors based their actions on old, even ancient traditions. They were as willing to prescribe strychnine as a heart tonic as they are vitamins today.⁵⁸ Historical herbal books can mislead "holistic" therapists into thinking that strychnine is a dietary supplement. Poisonings still occur.^59-61

In principle, bitter means poisonous. Children in particular are at risk from bitter foods, but not from their penchant for sweets. The main culprits are nutritionists who drive parents crazy. Here too, however, exceptions prove the rule. When adults consume bitter digestifs, espressos or beer with relish, there are usually good reasons for this. Bitter garden salads may round off a meal, but caution is advised with bitter teas. Even dark chocolate, if consumed frequently, can lead to kidney stones due to its high oxalate content.^62,63 Whole milk nuts, on the other hand, are unproblematic and can be considered a nutritious luxury food. 

Don't let yourself become bitter!

English Editor: Josef Hueber

The use of the lupine

From Reinhardt L: Kulturgeschichte der Nutzpflanzen. Volume IV/1; Munich, E Reinhardt 1911

(Translation by deepl.com) 

"Of other legumes that are still occasionally used by humans today, the white lupin (Lupinus albus) with white flowers and yellow-white seeds, which is native to the eastern Mediterranean region, should be mentioned. In ancient times in western Asia, Egypt and the Mediterranean countries, it was not only cultivated as green fodder, but its seeds were also used as a valued food and medicine for humans and animals. From Theophrastus in the 4th century BC onwards, all authors dealing with agriculture mention them and praise them in part for their flavour and great nutritional value. The Romans received it from the Greeks, who cultivated it partly to use it as green manure and partly to harvest the floury but bitter seeds as food. It is still cultivated today in Italy and the Orient. In the 16th century it was cultivated on the Rhine and in the 18th century in Saxony as a fig or wolf bean. It is particularly valuable for green manure, but cattle disdain both its leaves and seeds."

Detoxification can be  to be the cause of the "savoury taste" of seeds that were actually inedible: The most popular method was to immerse sacks of lupin seeds in running water for several days until they were only slightly bitter. However, it is quite conceivable that in some places other varieties were cultivated than the ones we know today; presumably deficiency mutants with impaired alkaloid synthesis.

Reinhardt: "The common garden lupine (Lupinus hirsutus) with blue or purple-red, also flesh-coloured flowers, which is pubescent on all parts, is at home in the Mediterranean region and was already cultivated by the ancient Greeks, whose seeds served as food for the poorer members of the population, The seeds were used as food for the poorer members of the population, as is still the case today with the inhabitants of the Peloponnese, who are the furthest behind in terms of culture, the Mainots, who inhabit the most inaccessible landscapes of Greece, build their houses like fortresses without windows and pay homage to blood revenge on a large scale. Otherwise it is usually only used as animal feed, as the cattle eagerly eat the herb and seeds of the garden lupine."

Mainots are inhabitants of ancient Laconia, the southern fingers of the Peloponnese. "Probably for the most part descendants of Slavic immigrants, (...) were never conquered by the Turks, lived under their own chieftains from the yield of their mountainous landscape, also from sea robbery. They served well in the War of Independence, but in 1834 they refused to submit to the regency and had to be destroyed by the Bavarian army, which destroyed their towers. Military, which destroyed their towers." Herder's Conversations-Lexikon. Volume 4; Herder'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Freiburg im Breisgau 1856

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