food poisoning from bitter silk squash last night for dinner I made of a dish of silk squash (cantonese: sing gua, 'gua' is used to call all the melons, 'silk' in cantonese is homophonic to 'dead' and 'losing' so we call it 'sing' which means 'triumphant', haha, how cute is us cantonese?). one hour later I had a small yogurt, another half hour later I started to feel dizzy and sleepy, accompanying by a mild nausea and feebleness all over the body, I thought, maybe I had been staying up too late these couple of day and now it's coming to get me, so I quickly climbed up to me bed. it took me more than one and a half hour to sleep because my stomach was feeling rather unsettling and I was sweating slightly, eventually I was able to fall asleep, a couple of hours later I woke up and the unsettling was still there, I dozed off and again woke at around 5:30, the uneasiness of the stomach prevented me from falling asleep again so I got up and started to prepare my lemon tea and breakfast, then the first vomit hit me, 15 minutes later a 2nd one, much more violent, another 15 minutes came the 3rd one, 20 minutes after, the 4th, another 25 minutes the 5th, during these last two bouts my stomach was practically empty but the vomit still seized upon me. I went online to check food poisoning related to silk squash, there are cases of poisoning after eating silk squash, bottle gourd, and bitter gourd, reported from china, india, and canada. the thing with these vegetables belonging to the cucurbitaceae family is, when they for some reason turn bitter, indicating the presence of a natural toxin called tetracyclic triterpinpoid, they become highly toxic.the toxin is mainly concentrated in the seeds, and in silk squash's case, also in the skin, for last supper I had eaten both. apparently when these vegetables are not abnormally bitter, they are very good food stuff, how they become bitter is still a mystery. there're cases reported from india that after drinking fresh squeezed juice of these vegetables patients suffer from blood vomiting, there's even one death toll. luckily in my case, after drinking a cup of red tea and a hot ginger tea, my stomach became much more agreeable, and except feeling a little weak (mind you, haven't eaten any breakfast yet), I am again as good as new! now let's see if I can upload a picture of the culprit... picture is from the link: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4074/4913738945_e589e6a5d4.jpg