Why Does Tobacco Contain Nicotine? Surprising Facts About Tobacco You Might Not Know.

Good evening,Heated cigarette blogger Genki (@MOQLOG_JP)It is.

Rather than talking about "heated cigarettes" today, I would like to share a small story about cigarettes.

We usually smoke cigarettes without thinking about it, but there are quite a few things we don't know.

I hope you will think "huh" at least one thing.

Table of Contents for this article.

What is a "cigarette?"
postscript

What is a "cigarette?"

Needless to say, "tobacco" is a product made by processing tobacco leaves.

The Tobacco Business Act defines "manufactured cigarettes" as those made for smoking purposes.

Well, the standard sentence is something like this, but the public has the stronger impression that it is a luxury item that contains a large number of nicotine and other harmful substances.

Recently, with the creation of a new genre of "heated cigarettes," harmful substances other than nicotine have been reduced considerably.

Today I would like to introduce you to why tobacco leaf contains nicotine? What is a tobacco leaf anyway? That's what we are going to talk about.

*For the purposes of this article, plant tobacco will be described as "tobacco" and the tobacco we smoke will be described as "manufactured tobacco.

1. "Tobacco" is a plant

As many of you know this, "tobacco" is a member of the eggplant family.

The eggplant family includes the genus Capsicum (peppers and peppers) and the genus Tomato (tomatoes), one of which is the genus Tobacco, and the species belonging to this genus are the raw materials for the "manufactured tobacco" referred to in the genus.

It is said that there are over 70 species in the "tobacco genus," but only two (Nicotiana tabacum and Nicotiana rustica) can actually be used as "manufactured tobacco" for us to smoke.

The varieties often used for "manufactured tobacco" include "yellow," "burley," "Orient," and "native. "yellow variety," "burley variety," "oriental variety," "native variety," etc., which belong to the two varieties mentioned above, he said.

The bottom line is this.

Varley species of Nicotiana tabacum of the family Solanaceae, genus Tobacco. ..long.

2. Why cigarettes contain nicotine

Why do "cigarettes" contain nicotine in the first place?

There are various theories, but the most popular is that it is to protect oneself from "pests.

It is often said that potato sprouts should not be eaten! Don't eat potato sprouts!

That one produces a compound called an alkaloid that keeps insects from eating the shoots.

The same is true of cigarettes, which produce nicotine, a type of alkaloid, to prevent pests from eating them.

Nicotine in cigarettes is to protect against pests.like a ...

3. Dare to cut off the flowering stems.

If we produce nicotine to protect ourselves from pests, then nicotine would not be produced as much if we did not have to worry about pests, right?

So our ancestors came up with the idea of intentionally damaging the "tobacco" to make it look as if it had been attacked by a pest.

This process is called "shindome," or "heart stop," and the flowering stems are roughly cut off.

This is partly to ensure that nutrients are delivered to the leaves, but it also has the effect of creating the illusion that the "tobacco" has been attacked by pests by damaging it, which produces nicotine and also sends it to the leaves.

The nicotine-stored leaves are then processed into "manufactured tobacco.

Purposely cutting off the flowers encourages nicotine production.