the essentials in brief
- Taste good Zucchini bitter, consumption carries a high risk of poisoning with, in the worst case, fatal consequences.
- The cause of the bitter taste is the plant's own, poisonous cucurbitacins, which are bred from premium supermarket varieties and are often contained in hobby gardening zucchini.
- Too cool or long storage, heat or drought stress activate the bitter substance production. Cooking or frying does not dissolve the toxins.
Why does zucchini get bitter?
When zucchini taste bitter, your health is at risk. The cause of the dilemma is cucurbitacin, a poisonous plant bitter substance in the skin and pulp. The variety and color are irrelevant. Green and yellow zucchini are equally affected. Even in small amounts, the plant poison causes excruciating symptoms such as nausea, stomach cramps and diarrhea. In higher concentrations, there is a risk of serious to fatal poisoning.
also read
- Peel the zucchini - enjoy the peel or remove it?
- Ten reasons why zucchini is worth growing yourself
- Pickling zucchini - homemade antipasti
The good news is that the poisonous bitter substances have long been bred out of garden varieties. The bad news is that, under special conditions, an unhealthy concentration of bitter substances can still build up. There is usually a serious risk of poisoning when consuming courgettes from their own cultivation.
How can you recognize bitter zucchini?
Before the zucchini is cooked, a bit should be tried to sort out any bitter ones
From the outside, the bitter taste of a zucchini cannot be seen. With a taste you are on the safe side. How to tell if zucchini contain poisonous bitter substances:
- Wash and cut the zucchini
- Put a small piece in your mouth, raw and unseasoned
- With a mild, fruity-nutty note, prepare and serve zucchini as usual
- If the taste is bitter, spit out the sample and dispose of the poisonous zucchini
If you notice an unpleasant, bitter smell before cutting, you can save yourself the taste test. Zucchini poisoned with cucurbitacin have an unappetizing and musty smell.
Take care, dear parents. Please always carry out the taste test for your children yourself. In small children, the sense of taste is often not developed enough to recognize a bitter aroma.
Tips
Mild taste is not the only quality feature of healthy vegetable squash. If you like zucchini best eat raw, there are other important criteria to be observed. If the goods come from the supermarket and do not have an organic seal, pesticide residues on the skin make the fruit vegetables unhealthy. Simply peel and nothing stands in the way of carefree zucchini enjoyment.
Zucchini tastes bitter - when? - What to do? - How come? Overview.
Bitter zucchini should be thrown away
Fatally, cucurbitacin is an extremely resistant plant poison that leaves you little scope for countermeasures. The following table provides an overview of common initial situations and the correct course of action with a brief explanation of the cause.
| Taste test | What to do? | How come? |
|---|---|---|
| bitter after boiling | throw away | Poison not soluble in water |
| bitter after frying | throw away | Poison is heat resistant |
| old zucchini bitter | throw away | toxic due to long storage |
| frozen zucchini bitter | throw away | Poison is frost-resistant |
| slightly bitter | throw away | even the smallest amounts of poison are unhealthy |
| The peel tastes bitter | throw away | Poison is also in the pulp |
| Supermarket zucchini slightly bitter | throw away | Overripe zucchini become poisonous |
Throwing away is the only correct course of action when zucchini taste bitter. The contained toxins do not dissolve under any circumstances. Cooked, fried, or frozen zucchini will remain unhealthy if the sample tasted bitter before processing. If only the peel tastes slightly bitter, peeling does not prevent the threat of poisoning. Old zucchini that have been stored for too long build up an unhealthy concentration of bitter substances in retrospect. This also applies to the very rare case that overripe, purchased zucchini from the supermarket taste bitter.
Digression
Taste test useful for all types of pumpkin
Hobby gardeners take note - cross-pollination makes zucchini bitter.
Hobby gardeners who cultivate their own zucchini are often victims of bitter substance poisoning. The most common cause is the mixed culture with ornamental gourds and the associated cross-pollination. Other causes are drought and heat stress, which cause the content of poisonous bitter substances to skyrocket. When harvesting seeds in the zucchini bed, you can never be sure whether foreign gourd pollen from neighboring gardens has gotten into the genome. This is how you can grow your own delicious zucchini for carefree enjoyment without a bitter aftertaste:
Do not place zucchini next to pumpkins
Zucchini shouldn't be planted next to pumpkins
Ornamental pumpkins naturally contain a high concentration of toxic bitter substances. If busy bees first visit an ornamental gourd flower and then fly to a zucchini flower, the dreaded cross-pollination with increased cucurbitacin load occurs. The best prevention is a rigorous avoidance of a mixed culture of zucchini and pumpkin.
Stress-free zucchini care
The raison d'être of cucurbitacin is not to spoil our culinary zucchini enjoyment. Rather, bitter substances in cucurbits act as the plants' own protective shield against predators, pests and stress-related growth disorders. Influencing factors such as heat, cold or dryness set the substance production in motion and cause the bitter, poisonous taste in zucchini. Stress-free care prevents this process. That is how it goes:
- Grow zucchini in a warm, sheltered location without accumulated heat in summer (heat activates bitter substance production)
- Ideally, young plants should be placed behind glass and planted out from mid-May
- Protect against the cold snap with a fleece cover or Polytunnels(€ 5.80 at Amazon *) (Cold makes zucchini bitter)
- Water regularly if it is dry (lack of water causes a bitter taste)
Pluck it weed in the zucchini bed with your hands. Chopping can cause root damage, to which the plant will react by producing cucurbitacin.
Use certified seeds
Zucchini seeds from specialist shops are reliably free from bitter substances. In this case, ambitious hobby gardeners forego the as an exception to ensure health and safety sowing from self-obtained seeds. The annual purchase of certified seeds for home-growing reduces the risk of bitter-tasting zucchini to a minimum.
The following video provides three important tips for hobby gardeners who grow their own zucchini:
Youtube
frequently asked Questions
Why does zucchini get bitter?
The cause of the bitter taste are the plant's own antibodies, so-called cucurbitacins, with which zucchini arm themselves against all kinds of disorders. In commercial varieties, breeding interventions have been able to deactivate these poisonous bitter substances. In home-grown, bitter toxins are naturally present in many zucchini plants as a result of cross-pollination or unsuitable seeds. Also, refrigeration or freezing in the freezer will make your zucchini bitter. At temperatures below 10 ° Celsius, poisonous bitter substances can also form in refined cultivars.
I ate bitter zucchini. Is that dangerous?
Eating a bitter zucchini does not have to cause any health problems
The consumption of zucchini with a bitter taste does not necessarily have to cause health problems. Your constitution and the amount of bitter substances ingested determine whether symptoms of poisoning occur. If you feel nausea, cramps or suffer from diarrhea after consuming it, please consult your family doctor. The consumption of cucurbitacin is often dangerous when the bitter zucchini come from a hobby garden.
How can you tell if zucchini are poisonous?
A zucchini should taste mild, fruity to slightly nutty. If you notice an unpleasant smell while cutting, you should be careful. Try a small piece of raw, unseasoned zucchini. If the sample tastes slightly bitter, spit it out immediately and throw the zucchini in the garbage can.
Why do old zucchini turn bitter?
Long storage reactivates dormant toxins in zucchini. For this reason, zucchini should be harvested young and stored for a maximum of one week in a dark and cool place at 12 ° to 15 ° degrees.
Can purchased zucchini taste bitter?
Zucchini from the supermarket are noble varieties from which poisonous bitter substances have been bred. When buying, look for a flawless, shiny shell that only gives a little when pressed lightly with the finger. Under these conditions, you can look forward to a mild, fruity culinary delight. Toxins may have formed again in soft, overripe, wrinkled zucchini, which are responsible for the bitter taste.
What to do if the zucchini casserole tastes bitter?
Immediately throw the zucchini casserole in the garbage can if it tastes bitter. The bitter taste is an unmistakable indication of impending poisoning by cucurbitacin. In 2015, a retiree lost his life for ignoring the extremely bitter taste and ingesting a deadly amount of toxins while consuming a zucchini casserole.
Do you get rid of the bitter zucchini taste by cooking or frying?
No. There is no culinary trick to refine bitter zucchini. The bitter note indicates that the fruits are poisoned by cucurbitacin. This plant toxin is heat resistant and does not dissolve in water. Anyone who covers the bitter taste with spices and eats zucchini has to pay for it with serious symptoms of poisoning.
Tips
How devastating when carefully grown zucchini taste bitter. It doesn't have to come to that when you look at yourself bred Do an early taste test of cucurbits. When growing from seeds on the windowsill, taste one of the first cotyledons. If you notice a slightly bitter taste, the seedling in question will be disposed of. This does not replace the final tasting test before consumption. After all, you will save a lot of wasted time on cultivation, maintenance and harvesting.