Charlie Pridham wrote:
In article ,
says...

I don't know, but are they like yew berries in that the most toxic
bit is the seed which passes through the birds gut while the flesh is
edible? (at least for blackbirds!) The birds certainly will not touch
them until they reach the over ripe stage and are starting to drop.

And therein lies the problem.

Just what are we talking about when we state (often categorically) that "x"
is poisonous? Fruit? Seeds? Kernel?

How about being even more specific? Consider the ackee, where the unripe
aril is the poisonous part. So we could add a "when" to the equation, as
the ripe aril is presumably ok to eat.

There are some quite interesting observations on this page (referring to
plants fed to reptiles), which could be applied to most trials of a new
plant food
http://www.anapsid.org/resources/plants.html

Also, remember that rabbits can safely eat deadly nightshade, as they can
deal with the atropine. Humans can't. Although its berries don't taste bad
(better than woody nightshade, IMO), I wouldn't swallow even one of them.

--
Jeff
(cut "thetape" to reply)