Rhubarb is a favorite vegetable of gardeners in temperate climates since it is so easy to grow. We eat the stems, and know that you should never eat the leaves since they are poisonous due to high levels of oxalic acid.
I’ve known this fact since I was a kid so you can imagine my surprise when I learned a few weeks ago that this is all a big myth. Lets dig into the truth.
Is Oxalic Acid Poisonous?
Oxalic acid is a natural chemical produced by many plants. It is a nephrotoxin (a poison that affects the kidneys) and a corrosive acid. The LD 50 (median lethal dose) for humans is estimated to be 385 mg/kg. A 65 kg (143 lb) human would need to ingest 25 g to be lethal.
Clearly oxalic acid is lethal, but 25 grams is quite a bit.
Oxalic Acid in Rhubarb
The oxalic acid in rhubarb leaves (blade + petiole) is about 0.5 g/100 g, based on fresh weight. To reach the lethal dose of 25 grams, a 65 kg human would need to eat 5 kg of leaves. That is a pretty big salad!
What about the stalks? How much oxalic acid is found in the stalks? I found lots of references that said they contain much less oxalic acid, but only one reference gave a value of 0.4 to 0.5 g/100 g which is only a bit less than the leaves. It is odd that everyone says the value is lower but nobody reports a value.
Update: A new study has looked at oxalic acid in stalks for 71 cultivars and found an average soluble oxalate of 3 g/100 g (1.5 – 6%) and total oxalate of 6 g/100 g (3 – 9%), based on dry weight. Leaves are 90% water so on a fresh weight basis soluble oxalate is 0.3 g/100g and total oxalate is 0.6 g/100g. Another review reported the oxalic found 0.65 g/100 g for rhubarb leaves and 0.46 g/100 g for stalks.
Oxalic Acid in Vegetables
The reason for writing this post is that I came across a list showing the oxalic acid content of other vegetables and it was a real eye opener. Here are the values for some common vegetables (ref 2). These values are similar to those found in the oxalic database. Another source of oxalic acid levels in food.
Carrot – 0.5 g/100 g
Chives – 1.48 g/100 g
Parsley – 1.70 g/100 g
radish – 0.5 g/100 g
Rhubarb leaves – 0.5 g/100 g
If rhubarb leaves are too toxic to eat because of the oxalic acid, why do we eat these other vegetables? Why are we not warned that carrots are as poisonous as rhubarb leaves, and that spinach is twice as poisonous? The reality is that oxalic acid is not as poisonous as people believe.
Some other foods that have high levels of oxalic acid include tea, coffee, draft beer, chocolate, berries and tofu.
What is Oxalic Acid?
Oxalic acid is the acid form of oxalate, the latter being more common in plants and animals. When gardeners talk about a concern for oxalic acid, they are usually talking about oxalate. Oxalate forms soluble salts with potassium, sodium and magnesium. It forms insoluble salts with calcium and iron and these usually pass through our body without being absorbed.
Are Rhubarb Leaves Poisonous?
There are stories on the net about rhubarb leaves being eaten during the first world war and some people died from eating them. These stories may or may not be true. People may have died from something else and rhubarb was blamed. Or the leaves might have been sprayed with toxic pesticides which were in common use at time. Postmortems did not find oxalic crystals in the bodies suggesting that death was due to other reasons (ref 3 and 4).
Plants make thousands of chemicals and many are toxic. Rhubarb makes anthraquinone glycosides which have been proposed as the likely candidate for deaths. The reality is that there are almost no reported deaths due to eating rhubarb leaves and the science on what is the most poisonous thing in the leaves is inconclusive.
The bottom line is that the leaves may be poisonous, if you eat enough – so don’t do that! But oxalic acid is not the culprit.
References:
- The Poison Garden – Rhubarb; http://www.thepoisongarden.co.uk/atoz/rheum_x_hybridum.htm
- Wikipedia – Oxalic Acid; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxalic_acid
- The Chemistry of Rhubarb; http://www.compoundchem.com/2015/04/16/rhubarb/
- Toxicants Occurring naturally in Foods; https://books.google.ca/books?id=lIsrAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
Maybe there is something in rhubarb that is more harmful to some people than to others, depending on their genetic makeup?
maybe – but there would be evidence of people getting sick from eating it.
I am still recovering from oxalate toxicity. Rhubarb has an insanely high amount of oxalates. Approx. 600 to 1032 mg per 1/2 cup depending on how it’s prepared. A normal/safe amount of daily oxalates should be kept at about 150(ish) mg.
Scientific investigation is showing more and more the full effects of oxalates on the body beyond just kidney stones.
If your healthcare practitioner is unaware of the new studies, please tell them to go to the experts in the field doing all the research to learn more:
Can you provide a link to a scientific source for those numbers?
If a safe daily level was 150 mg, then things like carrots and spinach would be considered toxic.
I’d like to know your sources also, if you wouldn’t mind providing. There are so many different sites online saying completely different things!
Yeay, thanks for this. From a similar background as yourself, Robert, this has been an unresolved topic in my head, awaiting the moment I could sit down and look into it.
As a biochemist I am aware of oxalic acid in the respiratory pathway of all of us and so kindof wondered “Why is this toxic, then?” and supposed it could be that it can throw pathways out of balance, provide “backpressures” and the like.
But I also wondered if it was simply taking the blame for some other toxin or part of a joint operation where two separate chemicals work together to provide toxic impact.
So I was impressed with your article and thought “Ah, this is the time to progress investigations”, copied the link and put it on Facebook to stimulate discussion.
Facebook blocked it!
Came across this and another article trying to work out if rhubarb pesticide was effective. Thanks for saving me some time and effort trying it out! To be fair, I was already wondering since I’ve had chickens who (when unsupervised) managed to strip a large rhubarb plant of all its leaves with no apparent ill effects.
Wow what an irresponsible article.
Oxalic acid is not the only toxic chemical found in rhubarb leaves, and the dose isn’t directly comparable to other plants. It apparently has a much lower bioavailability when consumed in carrots and several other plants.
And you’ve written this as if death is the only outcome that matters. Serious harm or serious discomfort can happen at a non fatal dose… As a young daughter of a friend of mine accidentally learned today.
Perhaps before writing so confidently apparently just backed up by ‘Google research’, you should test it on yourself with a portion sufficiently large to be certain.
1) Do you have any published information that rhubarb leaves are harmful?
2) Maybe you did not read the post. It concludes with “The bottom line is that the leaves may be poisonous, if you eat enough – so don’t do that! But oxalic acid is not the culprit.”
I’m interested why they don’t want us eating it? probably cures diseases, it is most likely then a power house of nutrients. It needs its own nutrient fact sheet people, I’d use it like silver beet if l could find a little more info
Two reasons. a) I don’t know if other poisons in them might harm you, and b) I am no medical doctor and don’t want people eating something because I said it might be safe.
Now we need a nutrition fact sheet on rhubarb LEAF , anyone find one? What’s the real benefits their hiding from us.
Try posting that question on our Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/GardenFundamentals/
My county Yorkshire is the home of rhubarb in the UK.
Your article is absolutely fascinating and a tribute to your inquiring mind.- and I won’t be stopping eating my parsley and egg sandwiches.
You still leave the possibility open that a different toxin might be a danger and I won’t be eating rhubarb leaves soon. I will cross it off my list as a way to go.
I’ve also heard and ignored the advise not to compost rhubarb leaves because of toxicity. I lay the discarded leaves under the plant as mulch. I also eat lots of spring greens containing oxalic acid – wood and sheep’s sorrel to mention two. The answer is to eat seasonally and in moderation. If you have a kidney condition and eat a lot of foods and drinks containing oxalic acid then you have to balance it with bio available calcium. Thanks Robert for a great post.