Nicotine in Food: Tomatoes, Potatoes and Aubergines

Yes, some everyday foods contain nicotine: tomatoes, potatoes, aubergines (eggplant) and peppers have tiny natural traces, and nicotine has also been found in tea, wild mushrooms and spices. The amounts are measured in nanograms (billionths of a gram) per gram of food. A nicotine pouch contains milligrams — so you would need tens to thousands of kilos of vegetables to match the nicotine in a single pouch.

Below are the actual measured figures, where they come from, and a simple calculation that puts them next to the strengths printed on the cans we sell.

What is nicotine, and why is it in vegetables?

Nicotine is an alkaloid — a nitrogen-containing compound that plants produce, partly as a defence against insects. It is best known from tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum), which makes large amounts. Tobacco belongs to the nightshade family, Solanaceae, and so do tomatoes, potatoes, aubergines and peppers. These relatives produce nicotine too, but only in trace quantities.

In the body, nicotine acts on the brain’s nicotinic receptors and is addictive. It is broken down quickly: its elimination half-life is about two hours, and its main metabolite, cotinine, has a half-life of around 16 hours (Benowitz, US National Cancer Institute monograph).

How much nicotine is in tomatoes, potatoes and aubergines?

The figure most often quoted comes from a 1993 letter in the New England Journal of Medicine by Domino and colleagues, who measured nicotine in common vegetables:

Food (Domino et al., 1993)	Nicotine (ng per g)	Per kg
Aubergine / eggplant	100	0.1 mg
Tomato purée	52	0.052 mg
Green tomatoes	42.8	0.043 mg
Cauliflower	16.8	0.017 mg
Potatoes	7.1	0.007 mg
Ripe tomatoes	4.3	0.004 mg

A later analysis presented at CORESTA in 2015 (Moldoveanu and colleagues) measured on a dry-weight basis and found roughly 180 ng/g in tomato and aubergine, 74 ng/g in green pepper and 43 ng/g in whole potato. Fresh vegetables are mostly water, so per gram of fresh food those numbers are much lower. The same study found around 10 ng/g in fruit such as banana, pear and blueberry and suggested these might reflect contamination — and noted that contamination or measurement problems can explain why published values vary so much.

The honest takeaway: exact numbers differ between studies, but all of them are in nanograms per gram.

How many vegetables equal one nicotine pouch?

Here is our own arithmetic, using the Domino values and typical strengths as printed on the can. It compares nicotine content, not how much your body absorbs — swallowed nicotine and nicotine absorbed through the gum behave differently — so treat it as a sense of scale, not a dose equivalence.

Food	3 mg pouch	6 mg pouch	≈30 mg (Pablo Exclusive)
Aubergine	30 kg	60 kg	300 kg
Cauliflower	≈180 kg	≈360 kg	≈1,800 kg
Potatoes	≈420 kg	≈850 kg	≈4,200 kg
Ripe tomatoes	≈700 kg	≈1,400 kg	≈7,000 kg

About the last column: some brands, including Pablo and Cuba, print strength in mg per gram rather than per pouch. Pablo Exclusive at 50 mg/g works out at roughly 30 mg in a 0.6 g pouch — five times a typical 6 mg pouch like ZYN Cool Mint Mini 6 mg. That is why our nicotine strength chart shows every product “as printed on the can” and flags the per-gram brands.

Put differently: a large ratatouille is not a nicotine product, and a single pouch is not “like eating vegetables”. Those are different orders of magnitude, and it is worth keeping both facts in mind when you read headlines about nicotine in food.

Tea, mushrooms, spices and coffee

Nicotine has also turned up in food testing outside the nightshade family. The EU sets maximum residue levels (MRLs) for nicotine and has repeatedly adjusted them:

Wild mushrooms: temporary limits were introduced in 2010 (Regulation (EU) 765/2010) after nicotine was found in controls.
Tea, herbal infusions and herbs: temporary limits followed in 2011 (Regulation (EU) 812/2011). Several limits were lowered in 2023 after a potential acute risk was identified for teas and rose hips.
Spices: 0.3 mg per kg, in force since 26 February 2024.
Coffee: 0.05 mg per kg, applicable since 11 February 2025.

Where the nicotine in these products comes from is not fully established. Contamination during harvesting, drying, storage or transport is considered possible. Limits are as of November 2026 and can change.

How much dietary nicotine is considered safe?

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) set an acute reference dose for nicotine in food of 0.0008 mg per kg of body weight, and Germany’s BfR derived the same value. For a 70 kg adult that is about 0.056 mg. EFSA built in a safety factor of 10 and a correction for oral absorption, so it is a deliberately cautious food-safety threshold, not a line where symptoms begin.

Two things follow. A normal portion of vegetables stays well below it — 300 g of aubergine at 100 ng/g is about 0.03 mg. And a single nicotine pouch contains many times more nicotine than that food threshold, which is a fair reminder that pouches are a nicotine product for adults, not something comparable to diet.

Why the “eat X kilos” figures online disagree

You will see wildly different claims, such as “10 kg of aubergine equals one cigarette”. They differ for three reasons. First, the vegetable values themselves vary between studies, partly because measuring nanogram amounts is hard and contamination is easy. Second, some figures are per dry weight and some per fresh weight. Third, many comparisons mix up how much nicotine a product contains with how much a person absorbs, and they rarely say which assumption they use. That is why our table above compares content with content and says so.

What this means if you use nicotine pouches

Diet is irrelevant to your nicotine intake. The strength of the pouch you choose is what counts.
Read the can carefully. “mg/g” and “mg per pouch” are different numbers. A 50 mg/g can is not a 50 mg pouch, but it is still very strong.
Start low. If you are new, begin in the light range rather than with high-strength products.
Nicotine is still nicotine. Pouches are for adults only and not for anyone pregnant, breastfeeding or with a heart condition.

How we calculated it: a worked example

You can check our numbers yourself. Take aubergine at 100 ng per gram. One kilogram is 1,000 g, so it holds 100,000 ng — that is 100 micrograms, or 0.1 mg. A 6 mg pouch therefore matches the nicotine content of 6 ÷ 0.1 = 60 kg of aubergine. For ripe tomatoes at 4.3 ng/g, one kilo holds 0.0043 mg, so 6 mg corresponds to roughly 1,400 kg. The same method works for any food in the table and any strength on our strength chart: divide the pouch’s mg by the food’s mg per kg.

Common myths

“Eating tomatoes helps with nicotine cravings”

Given the amounts above, there is no plausible nicotine effect from normal eating. We found no authoritative source recommending vegetables as a nicotine substitute.

“Vegetables can make you fail a nicotine test”

Tests usually look for cotinine. With vegetables containing nanograms per gram, a positive result from diet alone is very unlikely compared with tobacco, nicotine products or second-hand smoke. If a test matters for work or insurance, ask the testing provider about cut-off levels.

“Nightshades are addictive”

No. The nicotine dose in food is far too low; nightshade vegetables are part of a normal diet.

FAQ

Which foods contain nicotine?

Mainly nightshades: aubergine, tomato, potato and peppers. Traces have also been reported in cauliflower and, through testing, in tea, wild mushrooms, spices and coffee.

Which vegetable has the most nicotine?

In the 1993 NEJM measurements, aubergine had the highest level at about 100 ng/g.

How much eggplant equals a cigarette?

Figures like “10 kg” circulate online, but they rest on assumptions about absorption. By content, 1 kg of aubergine holds about 0.1 mg — a fraction of a typical pouch.

Is there nicotine in tea?

Nicotine has been detected in tea, which is why the EU sets residue limits for it. The source is not fully clear and contamination is one possibility.

Does cooking remove nicotine from vegetables?

We did not find reliable data on this. Note that tomato purée measured higher per gram than ripe tomatoes, likely because it is concentrated.

Do organic tomatoes contain less nicotine?

In the 2015 CORESTA analysis one organic tomato sample measured 82 ng/g (dry weight) against 182 ng/g for a conventional one. That is a single comparison, not proof of a general rule, and both values are tiny.