While everyone knows that you need to be careful of eating certain things like unfamiliar mushrooms that could be dangerous to your health, did you know that we regularly eat a number of plants that are highly toxic if incorrectly prepared and consumed? Here are 6 that you probably have eaten recently!

There are actually a wide range of veggies, fruits, roots, tubers, and other plants which we humans eat on a regular basis, which are secretly poisonous. The trick is in knowing which parts of the plant are edible for us, and how to prepare them to avoid the toxic effects.

Luckily, we come equipped with great big brains which allow us to learn (and share) knowledge like this, so you can stay healthy – and indeed, even reap their plentiful health benefits – while eating these delicious but deadly plants.

Here are 6 examples most people are quite familiar with, but may not be aware of their dark side:

1. Tomato

The fruit of the tomato isn’t poisonous, but the leaves, roots, and stem (and, in limited doses, even some unripe fruit) are rich in tomatine, an alkaloid that’s mildly toxic to humans. It won’t kill you, unless you chow down pounds and pounds of it, but it is likely to cause you some gastrointestinal distress.

2. Apples, Cherries, and Apricots

The seeds of all of these fruits are not considered edible; they’re hard, bitter, and unpleasant. That bitter flavor is a protective element: The plant puts it there to discourage animals like us from destroying them. And it comes from a substance called amygdalin, which turns into cyanide when it comes into contact with acids in the human digestive system….

3. Kidney Beans

Many legumes can cause mild gastrointestinal distress when undercooked, but red kidney beans (the kind almost always used in chili) are special…. Ingestion of even just a few undercooked kidney beans can cause serious diarrhea and vomiting….

4. Rhubarb

Rhubarb, a springtime stalk most commonly used in the creation of America’s best pie, the strawberry-rhubarb, is a very strange plant indeed. Most often used in sweet applications, it’s a sour vegetable that looks like crimson celery. And its leaves are spectacularly poisonous. Rhubarb leaves are very high in oxalic acid, which quickly causes kidney failure in humans….

5. Asparagus

Like the rhubarb, the part of the asparagus plant that we love—the young stems—are perfectly safe to eat. But the asparagus hides a deceptive, nasty secret: Its fruit, which are bright red berries, are toxic to humans. Just a handful can cause vomiting and diarrhea….

6. Cashews

Cashews are another delicious product that should never, ever be eaten raw. (When you buy them, they’ve usually been roasted.)… You may have noticed that cashews are never found in their shell as almonds or peanuts are, and that’s because when raw, they’re covered with anacardic acid, closely related to the acid that makes poison ivy so irritating. It’s much worse when you eat it.

Check out the full article at ModernFarmer.com…