How I Cured my chronic disease successfully
The most poisonous plants of 2025

The most poisonous plants of 2025

Jarek Growin

The Hamburg Botanical Garden has once again announced the winner of the competition for the Most Poisonous Plant of the Year 2025. Surprisingly, the prize was awarded to the popular nuts, which can be found on the shelves of almost every grocery shop in Poland and which often find their way onto our tables. However, their improper preparation can have serious health consequences. Check that you are not consuming them.

Contents:

  1. Most Poisonous Plant of the Year 2025 - results announced
  2. Why did cashew nuts win the title?
  3. Are the cashew nuts available in shops safe?

 

Most Poisonous Plant of the Year 2025 - results announced

For more than two decades, the Hamburg Botanical Garden, known as the Botanische Sondergarten Wandsbek, has been organising a competition to educate the public about the plants that grow in our homes, gardens and public spaces. While many of them stand out for their beauty and health benefits, they can also exhibit dangerous properties that are sometimes underestimated or ignored.

Every year, experts compile a list of plants with toxic effects and then a vote determines the 'winner'. According to the rules of the competition, a plant can only be nominated once every five years, and an award-winning plant cannot compete for the title again in subsequent editions.

Past winners of this title include parsley seeds and the green parts of the potato - including sprouting tubers, as well as the ornamental but highly toxic wisteria.


Winners of the 2025 competition:

  1. Cashew tree (Anacardium occidentale)
  2. Peony (Paeonia)
  3. Coral calla (Viburnum opulus)
  4. Field bush (Anagallis arvensis)
  5. Rubber tree (Ficus elastica)

 

Why did cashew nuts win the title?

In 2025, the title of 'Most Poisonous Plant of the Year' went to cashew nuts, which most of us know as a tasty and healthy snack. These nuts come from the western nanerch (Anacardium occidentale), a tree native to tropical areas of South America, particularly northeastern Brazil. Today, nanerch is cultivated in most tropical countries.

The fruit of the cashew is two-parted and consists of what is known as the cashew apple (the expanded part of the stem) and the actual cashew nut, which is contained in a hard shell.

Although cashew nuts sold in shops are safe, the problem arises when dealing with raw seeds. Unroasted cashew seeds and their shells contain cardol, a toxic oil that can cause severe irritation to mucous membranes. Ingestion of raw cashew nuts leads to severe abdominal pain, and contact with the husk of the fruit can cause painful allergic reactions on the skin, resembling second-degree burns.

 

Are cashew nuts from the shop safe?

If you think that all, even trace amounts of toxins that are available in the raw state in these nuts are completely eliminated in the process of their purification, roasting and drying performed in third world countries, then you are a hurra optimist. I for one would caution against eating cashews if you have any digestive problems, allergies or chronic diseases, especially if you have RA. In the book "How I cured INFLUENCES" this is described in detail even in the first edition of 2023. I am pasting a picture from an excerpt from my book on this subject.

 

If you are interested in more such health nuances that not everyone is aware of, and in knowing the most effective methods possible to heal from difficult chronic cases, then I recommend purchasing the book available here: https://howicured.org/book