Humans tend to make the same mistakes over and over, usually with a different coat of paint. If there’s one thing that never ceases to amaze me, it’s the species’ infinite capacity to ignore cold, hard data in favor of a scary story.

Nicotine: natural ingredient of many edible plants

Nicotine is an alkaloid found in tobacco leaves, but also in potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants and peppers. The nicotine content in these vegetables is very low compared to tobacco leaves, but it is still present. In tobacco leaves, the nicotine content is usually between 6 and 30 mg/g, compared e.g. to 0.0001 mg/g in eggplant.