>>> I get hit with ridiculous quantities of those veggies that must be eaten to equal the nicotine content of one cigarette.
Actually, that is comparing the plant fruit to the plant leaves. The fruit doesn't have the same amount as the leaves. BUT, the leaves of the nightshade plants all have high levels of nicotine. You could smoke tomato plant leaves!
If someone was to do a test for alkaloids, whether you had a cigarette of a tomato salad, you would test positive.
Interesting - I did not realize that. Thanks for the info.
::Disclaimer from post 25::
I've never smoked tomato plant leaves!
I don't think one would test positive for primary smoking by eating plants from the nightshade family. There's a huge difference between measurements in primary smokers and non-smokers exposed to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). Most of the research and analysis I did was to examine anti-smokers claims that non-smokers are regularly exposed to significant amounts of ETS. The fact is that non-smokers are not exposed to an awful lot of tobacco smoke in many places these days. The government estimated through the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) that on average, non-smokers were exposed to approximately 75% less tobacco smoke in 1999-2000 than they were back in 1990. Those measurements are so low that diets rich in nightshades is much more likely to give false positives.
Gabz, you're right that they don't test for nicotine itself because it has such a short half-life. They test for the cotinine, which is a product of nicotine metabolization.
Which reminds me of a Jerry Senfield episode. Elaine loved to eat rolls loaded with poppy seeds.
Her boss wanted her to take a physical so she could go over seas with him. Well, she tested positive for OPIUM!
She couldn't figure it out until one guy noticed she was eating a roll with poppy seeds. And he told her that her urine would show that she was taking opium when she was not, just because of her eating poppy seeds.