Poisonous plant of the year 2023: The dark side of parsley

Peterle is the affectionate name for parsley in Baden.

The plant from the umbelliferae family is also my favorite among the kitchen herbs.

It tastes great with quark, fish, schnitzel and a wide variety of potato recipes.

Of course, I raise my Peterle myself on the balcony.

Freshly chopped up and sprinkled with the juice of your own limes, every dish becomes a special treat for the palate.

Andrew Frey

Freelance author in the science section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper.

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Unfortunately there is a catch, or rather two.

Firstly,

no longer thrives on our south-facing balcony in the endlessly hot Baden-Mediterranean summer.

And secondly, parsley is poisonous.

Yes, you read that right, poisonous!

Parsley was recently voted poisonous plant of the year 2023, as reported by the Hamburg-Wandsbek Botanical Special Garden.

Has love blinded me?

Isn't the Peterle with its delicate green leaves as innocent as it seems?

Helge Masch is currently confronted with irritated inquiries more frequently.

However, the plant expert from Hamburg's special botanical garden can quickly reassure most: "Continuing to eat is healthy." Consuming the parsley leaves does not usually pose any danger. On the contrary, the high content of vitamins C and K is even particularly good for the parsley Body.

However, says Helge Masch, parsley has a dark side that fewer and fewer people are aware of.

The gardener sees this as a symptom of man's increasing alienation from nature and food.

No danger for insects

It's like this: The danger with parsley only occurs in the second year after flowering, when flower stems and finally umbels grow up from the rosette - which we have usually eaten up long ago.

Pretty yellow-green flowers will soon appear - and these will develop into seeds that may contain poisonous essential oil.

This substance in parsley oil is called apiol and is also found in the root.

In small doses it has a stimulating effect, but in high concentrations it is toxic.

Intestines, bladder and especially the uterus can be damaged as it affects the smooth muscles.

In the Middle Ages, parsley broth was even used to perform abortions.

It is said to have an aphrodisiac effect on men.

The following wisdom has been handed down from that time:

However, parsley is not dangerous for pollinating insects, and so it transforms the balcony into a small idyll.

The small yellow flowers look pretty and almost magically attract bees.

We can look forward to that in spring.

According to Helge Masch, the fact that a harmless-looking useful plant like parsley was voted poisonous plant of the year this winter and not typical representatives with more scary potential, such as fly agaric, foxglove or amaryllis, is coincidence.

But last year, friends of poisonous plants voted the unsuspecting potato poisonous plant of the year, before that it was the opium poppy.

Those who want to stop this trend and defend the honor of crops have until May 20th.

Garden lovers can choose the poisonous plant of the year 2024 from a list of suggestions.

My favorite is the asparagus.

Then you could prepare a veritable poisonous dish next year: Fresh potatoes, garnished with Peterle, with asparagus spears.

I'll get it.