WEBVTT - Nutmeg: The Scary Spice 0:00:00.520 --> 0:00:03.239 Brought to you by the two thousand twelve Toyota Cameray. 0:00:03.440 --> 0:00:11.000 It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind? 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:18.000 From how Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, you welcome to 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:20.120 stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:23.040 and I'm Julie Douglas, and we are just coming off 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:27.360 of the holidays here in which we all, to our shame, 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:29.680 had a little bit too much of all the various 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:34.919 holiday things. Uh, the holiday foods, the holiday visits with family, um, 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:38.600 the holiday travel, the listening to the holiday music at 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:42.240 the train station as it's piped in to fill everyone 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:45.760 with holiday cheer and reduce gang violence. It seems like 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:51.080 Christmas last for several months, just forever. But one of 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:53.400 the things that's reassuring is when we can find some 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:56.160 little bit of Christmas that also has a dark side 0:00:56.160 --> 0:00:58.639 to it, or I don't reassuring to me, be at 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:01.880 Crampus in his his relationship with St. Nick, or in 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:06.160 this case, a little something called nutmeg, which, as you say, 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:07.880 it's a little bit of Christmas that you can find 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:10.880 all year long. Yeah, I mean it basically is the 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:14.319 smell of Christmas, right it is, and and people love it. 0:01:14.360 --> 0:01:18.360 They love it on their eggnog, on their fancy coffee drinks, 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:22.959 and in some savory dishes. Um. It's probably something that 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:26.040 you've never considered before as having an evil side, but 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:30.480 in fact it does. You also have it insiders. Um, 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:33.120 I don't like him. Inside. I love cider, but but 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:35.680 there's something about either if it's hard side or a 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:37.319 soft side, or it's got the nutmeg, and I don't 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:39.960 really go for it. But but in other things, like 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:43.160 a little bit of of nutmeg on top of some eggnog, 0:01:43.160 --> 0:01:45.000 a little bit of nutmeg on top of even like 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:47.840 a vanilla milkshake. It gives it just a little a 0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:50.040 little punch, right, there's a little just some heat to it, 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:53.400 like a dry heat. Yes. And it's actually that's app 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:55.640 that you say that's a dry heat, because it's explained 0:01:55.640 --> 0:01:58.000 that way in what we say, or what we call 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:00.920 the four temperaments. Um. And we talked about this before, 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:03.120 this idea that there are four different tomperaments that rule 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:07.640 the human body. This is a very old idea, dry, cold, hot, 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:11.520 and wet. So Um. This spice is actually thought to 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:15.160 help with various ailments because the idea is that you 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:18.000 have to balance these four temperaments. So when you have 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:21.760 this spice, which is kind of like a bitter cinnamon um, 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:26.400 it is thought, at least in some ancient civilizations and cultures, 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:30.639 that it could actually have a myriad effects on your body, 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:34.320 which we will explore a bit. Yeah, I mean it's 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:36.919 in it's in a lot of cool Indian dishes. It's 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:40.760 it's in coca cola. Uh, you find it all over 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:42.799 the place, but it is. It is, like we said, 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:46.560 it's a very old thing using the nutmeg, But some 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:49.280 of the more ancient uses of it really relate more 0:02:49.400 --> 0:02:53.400 to medicinal purposes and folk medicine purposes, in addition to 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:56.880 in some cases culinary sources as well. So it has 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:59.040 a very interesting history which we're going to get into, 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:00.880 and then it has a very arresting effect on the 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:03.960 human body, depending on how much you're taking in. Well, 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:06.160 let's get to the nut of it, as it were. Yes, 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:09.960 what is the nutmeg? Right? Is it some fancy spice 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:12.639 that I don't know comes out of a dead sand worm? 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:15.440 Is it? Is it carved out of the earth. No, 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:18.480 it's it's like you said, it's from this nut right, Yes, 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:21.600 And it comes actually from the nutmeg tree which has 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:26.760 grown commercially in Indonesia, Penang Island, Malaysia, and the West Indies. 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:30.160 It's an evergreen with thick, dark green leaves and reaches 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:33.360 a maximum height of forty feet um and in some 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:37.160 cases or some areas that actually shrub like, and it 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:41.120 has fragrant yellow flowers that produce yellow fruit about the 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:43.000 size and the shape of apricots. And a lot of 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:45.880 people don't realize that it's actually coming from this fruit 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:48.960 bearing tree. And so you get you have the fruit, 0:03:49.240 --> 0:03:52.560 and if you peel away the fruit, or if you're 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:54.680 like a two can, two cans apparently love to eat 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:57.480 the fruit, peel away the fruit and you'll find basically 0:03:57.560 --> 0:03:59.760 you'll find in here the nutmegs seed and the nutmegs 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:03.440 seed itself is wrapped up in these flaps of of 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:07.040 what is called mace, which is another spice derivative is 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:09.840 obtained from the mace. So that kind of netting on it. Yeah, 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:11.280 it's kind of like this netting kind of like an 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:14.120 outer uh well not an outer skin, but peel a 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:15.880 way the first layer of fruit and then there'll be 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:19.039 another small layer of mace, and then in the very 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:23.880 center that's your nut that's your nutmeg seed, and that's 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:26.760 what's dried by sunlight for about one to two months. 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:29.279 And then when it's dried, it's pretty much like oval 0:04:29.320 --> 0:04:32.680 in shape and about an inch long, has a wrinkled surface, 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:35.560 and it's got fragrant oil contained in the veins of 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:38.719 the seed and that's what gives it that nice scent um, 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:43.400 that that that aroma that we associate with the holidays. Yeah, now, 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:46.920 how long have people been using nutmeg and things. It's 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:49.679 really hard to say, certainly millennia, just to be vague 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:51.520 about it. We know that it's been used in Asia 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:55.120 for just ages. We know that the ancient Romans used it, 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:59.320 but mainly to sprinkle into alcoholic drinks, which which we 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:01.320 still do to some agree today. I was looking around 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:03.200 and uh, there were none of the drinks or anything 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:05.840 I was particularly familiar with. But there are drinks, mixed 0:05:05.880 --> 0:05:08.400 drinks and cocktails that call for nutmeg. That's far to 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:12.080 Medieval Renaissance banquets and mason nutmeg were both very popular, 0:05:12.120 --> 0:05:14.320 along with things like cinnamon, which they would just throw 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:17.560 into dishes, just large amounts, because I guess at that 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:20.520 time maybe the more you could cover up, the better. Right, 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:23.880 and then and then in the centuries to follow it 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:27.159 became so fashionable among French courmets that you'd actually bring 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:30.240 your own nutmeg to a banquet so that you could 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:32.600 add nutmeg to your to your own dish, to your 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:35.919 own particular taste. Well. And that was absolutely a sign 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:38.240 of wealth too at that time, right, because then this 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:41.200 became the spice of the upper classes because it was 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:45.400 so highly coveted at that time the seventeenth century um 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:48.640 and onward into the eighteenth century that European traders were 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:52.040 selling it at nearly a six thousand percent mark up. Yeah, 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:55.320 this stuff was just like gold. It was. We saw 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:57.400 one historian who's referring to it as the iPhone of 0:05:57.480 --> 0:06:00.200 the time too. It's just like so popular. Everybody had 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:02.279 to have it, I mean to the point where people 0:06:02.360 --> 0:06:07.000 had to have it nearly because it was a status symbol. Yeah. Absolutely, 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:08.840 if you were carrying it, that meant that you were 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:11.440 a player. Yeah, you're a player at the table. Like 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:15.240 they had like rap videos back back in the sixteenth century. 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:19.080 You can totally imagine like guys leaning back, uh, you know, 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:23.240 showing off their their nutmeg shaker or grinder or whatever. 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:25.520 Method you would you would choose to to really show 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:29.280 off your nutmegitude. Yeah, I know, I'm just trying. I'm 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:31.640 putting the wrap is now like coming together. I'm thinking 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:34.680 like Tico Brahy kind of a dude, you know, just 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:37.760 really you know, with a total gangster lean kind of 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:40.760 going on with a nutmeg shaker. No, I'm seeing a 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:45.279 tricorn hat perhaps. Yeah. Um. So obviously this becomes a 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:48.520 really big deal in the spice trade, along with clothes 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:51.479 and cinnamon. Um. But what you began to see is 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:54.520 that there are two different countries that are trying to 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:59.240 have some sort of dominancy over this particular nutmeg spice trade, 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:03.480 and that is Britain and um in the Netherlands. And 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:05.240 they're both trying to push each other out because again 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:08.000 we're talking about a six thousand percent markup right, like 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:11.160 this is yielding great results. I mean, they've got crops 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:14.160 that aren't doing nearly as well. Um, They've got you know, 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:16.680 various livestock that's not going to bring in this kind 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:19.800 of money. So it becomes a really big deal. Yeah. 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:21.400 And at the time, the other thing that makes it 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:23.920 really crazy is that as far as anyone knew, there 0:07:23.960 --> 0:07:26.080 was really only one place to get it, despite you 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:28.040 know the fact we mentioned earlier, it was it was, 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:30.040 it was in India. You see it popping up in 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:32.760 the aer vedic traditions, you see it popping up in 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:34.800 Asia the ancient Romans. So we're able to get their 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:36.720 hands on it. But as far as the Dutch and 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:39.560 the English knew, the only place to get it was 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:42.880 to sail out to the Run Islands in the Banda Sea, 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:45.200 which is now eastern Indonesia. And there were a few 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:48.680 islands there, and that's where you went to get the nut. Well, 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:50.720 and you know, this is um this is the part 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:53.960 of eastern Indonesia. And what you have going on here 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:56.800 is you've got the Dutch again trying to be dominant here. 0:07:57.000 --> 0:08:01.400 And unfortunately, what they're doing at this time in the 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:04.280 Run Islands is that they're telling the inhabitants, if you 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:07.520 share any of these seeds with anyone, we will kill you. 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:10.320 And they do. Actually, they actually conduct a bit of 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:14.000 a genocide on this island, really straight up horrible, like 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:17.200 running people off of cliffs, beheading people. And then if 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:19.920 you if you weren't actually killed out right, you ran 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:23.160 the risk of being deported under horrifying conditions that you 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:27.720 probably would not survive. Uh. And in upwards of of 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:30.280 the native population was just wiped out in the name 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:35.360 of this super fashionable spice which everyone was into. I 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:38.040 mean maybe on some level because of the flavor. Sure, 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:40.760 it does add a unique punch to anything you sprinkle 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:43.000 it on, but then so much of it was prestige 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:45.640 and then these various ideas about what it can do 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:48.440 for you healthwise, which we'll get into in a little bit. Right. Right, So, 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:51.280 there are various reasons why the Dutch wanted to try 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:54.680 to clamp down on the islanders and make sure that 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:57.480 they didn't trade these seeds or sell these seats. And yeah, 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:01.200 I mean they're absolutely vicious, very bloody. Um. But that 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:04.680 didn't obviously stop the trade because you have some British 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:06.800 people who would come and they would grab the plants 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:09.760 and then they would just plant them elsewhere. Um. India's 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:13.240 when of the places that they transported Brazil eventually as 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:17.640 Sri Lanka. Yeah, and then you have birds, birds eating 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:20.480 the fruit and then poving out the seeds in various 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:24.160 places along the way. Um, you can't stop the birds. Right. 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:27.680 It reminds me of Monsanto, which is the seed company 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:30.400 here in the United States that has a patent on 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:33.840 certain seeds, and every once in a while they will 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:37.520 try to prosecute farmers who they say are growing their 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:40.880 seeds without having actually purchased the seeds, when in fact 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:43.200 those seeds actually were blown by the wind over to 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:45.120 their land. So it's sort of you know, you get 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:47.200 into this situation where it's kind of futile to try 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:50.280 to control nature like this. But that's what the Dutch did. Yeah, 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:54.480 you see commercialism and imperialism, uh, smashing head on with 0:09:55.000 --> 0:09:59.760 natural cycles of biology. Yeah. So it's it's crazy and 0:09:59.840 --> 0:10:02.240 all simately tragic though that it ends in so much bloodshed. 0:10:02.320 --> 0:10:04.559 And of course this is where Manhattan comes in. Yes, 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:09.439 Manhattan New Amsterdam as some of our older listeners but 0:10:09.559 --> 0:10:12.920 I guess, uh but but yeah, so that the Dutch 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:16.880 had their little slice of New York here and uh, 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:19.520 eventually this goes to British hands, right, But but but 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:22.280 what was the trade? What? What was what was valuable 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:24.600 enough that they would give up the city that what 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:26.920 would become the city that never sleeps? Well, okay, the 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:29.079 Dutch are looking at New Amsterdam. They're saying Okay, there's 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:31.560 a fur trade, fur trade going on here, but it's 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:34.480 not nearly as lucrative as this nutmeg thing. And we've 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:36.680 got to shut this down. Yeah, because they wanted a 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:39.040 monopoly on nutmeg, like that was the whole thing. That's 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:42.480 why they were vicious enough to wipe out the whole populations. 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:45.360 They wanted just to lock down all of it. Nobody 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:48.000 gets nutmeg except through the Dutch. But then there's this 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:50.000 one island out there, what was thought to be the 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:53.480 only place in the world to obtain nutmeg. One island 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:56.600 is in British hands. So this becomes the trade. This 0:10:56.640 --> 0:10:58.760 is that, this is what they have that the Dutch 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:02.160 want more than anything. Yeah, and here's the thing. They say, Okay, look, 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:05.280 we will give you this entire island, all the fur 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:07.600 trading that you could ever want, if we can just 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:10.480 go ahead and close this loophole on run Island and 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:12.560 just go ahead and give it to us officially. And 0:11:12.600 --> 0:11:15.839 the British do acquiesce. They're not very excited by the trade, 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:17.520 by the way, like, I don't know really what to 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:21.679 do about this, um, But this is how how Manhattan 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:27.080 actually changed hands via nutmeg. All right, all that history 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:29.199 stuff will push it to the side because we want 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:32.560 to start talking about nutmeg itself and what it does 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:34.680 to the human body. Yes, now I do want to 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:38.119 mention real quick. I was I was reading and apparently 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:41.000 nutmeg is still a big deal if you're Dutch, like 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:44.679 Dutch cuisine, it like does call for a lot of nutmeg, 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:47.480 a lot of cinnamon, a lot of clothes, you know, 0:11:47.520 --> 0:11:49.280 in any of these things that used to be a 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:51.720 really exotic and powerful spices. I mean, they were so 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:54.880 important at the time. They've remained in an essential part 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:58.800 of their culinary tradition. So even even though around the 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:02.719 eighteen hundreds nutmegs ceased to be the super exotic thing, 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:06.319 people moved on to getting excited about coffee and chocolate, 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:10.120 tobacco more so than before. So but like you said, 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:12.520 what is it due to the body? What? What are 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:15.080 the health benefits? And this was part of the equation 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:17.480 from early on because when we when we look back 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:21.400 at references to nutmeg, nutmeg was showing up in medical 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:24.160 texts and in dietary text before it was showing up 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:27.040 in culinary text. So it's people were realizing this was 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:28.960 something useful, this is something that could be used in 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:31.960 in folk medicine to heal various ailments, and it was, 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:35.840 and it's a wide array of ailments that it could 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:39.400 apparently or supposedly deal with. Yeah, and this is why 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:41.880 I ended up in cookery, right, because people are trying 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:46.360 to incorporate it into what they ingested. Around the time 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:49.120 of the Black plague too, people wore bags of the 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:52.680 spice around their necks as protection against the black plague, 0:12:52.920 --> 0:12:55.439 and that might seem kind of silly, but um, it's 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:59.920 plausible that nutmeg actually repelled fleece that carried plague cause 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:03.640 in bacteria, so there was something perhaps to this. Um. 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:06.480 The smell of nutmeg is actually due to something called 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:09.760 iso u shun all, a natural pesticide that the plant 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:14.080 uses to defend itself against um predators like insects and 0:13:14.160 --> 0:13:17.320 fun guy. So it's very possible that this was a 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:20.599 sort of pesticide that was worn around the neck to 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:25.400 ward off fleas. Cool and another big one was dysentery 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:28.079 or is the Brits caught it back then the bloody flux, 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:31.840 which sounds even more dreadful, but it was believed that 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:35.120 that nutmeg could help with that. So yeah, and then 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:39.559 according to Drs. Joseph Pizzorno and Michael Murray, the authors 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:42.800 of the Encyclopedia of Healing Foods, Nutmeg oil inhibits over 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:46.760 twenty five species of bacteria, including equal I. As far 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:49.920 as nutrients go, nutmeg is a good source of vitamin A, 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:54.560 vitamin C, iron copper, also a protein or MAGA six, 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:58.079 fatty acids, dietary fiber. So there's even if you if 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:00.319 you discount some of the wilder claim, so there's a 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:03.000 lot of really good stuff going on in in nutmeg. 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:06.280 It's good for liver health. Researchers even today have concluded 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:09.400 that that it has a liver productive actions that were 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:12.280 that are due to its ability to reduce inflammatory immune 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:16.280 chemicals in the human body that would otherwise potentially harm 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:19.840 the liver. And it's also been found to relieve symptoms 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:22.720 of pain and inflammation, so it could also help with 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:26.040 other various symptoms, if not even the core ailments. You know. 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:30.520 So there are some definite health advantages just straight straight 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:32.760 up on the table that nuting. They can offer whether 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:36.040 it was actually able to secure any kind of dysentery, 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:38.160 might ever plague, well maybe not, but it is a 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:41.280 healthy thing to ingest, at least in small quantities. Ah, 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:43.560 and that's the key, right. And see that's when if 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:45.640 we had sound effects, we would have like lightning and 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:50.800 thunder cracking, and we begin to talk about nutmeg the vice. Yeah, 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:52.720 and this is this is where the where it really 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:55.520 gets interesting. And I think this was ultimately what initially 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:58.120 drew our interest and certainly continues to draw a lot 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:01.000 of people's interests. The idea of nutmeg as a narcotic 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:05.280 nutmeg as an illicit substance that can do all sorts 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:08.600 of strange things to you despite being just right up 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:12.880 there in the spice rack totally legal and uh and 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:15.760 and just you know, just glaring at you and I 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:20.160 guess tempting you to some weird degree um you here 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:22.880 every time you open the spice cabinet. Now, we do 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:25.280 need to mention though, before we even get into it, 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:27.800 just in case someone wants to run off and grab nutmeg, 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:31.960 do not do it, because because if we're gonna discuss 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:36.520 your taking nutmeg for some sort of illicit pharmaceutical response 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:41.680 is for the most part of stupid idea. Because there 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:44.160 seems to be two categories right right when people take 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:48.640 nutmeg for recreational purposes. Either it makes them horribly sick, 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:53.320 or it gives them just a really horrible time for 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:56.640 about forty eight hours where they're basically just delirious, or 0:15:56.760 --> 0:15:58.480 or there's a third category where you kind of get 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:02.760 both your delirious and you're just violently ill, uh and 0:16:02.800 --> 0:16:06.640 sometimes even hospitalized. Yeah, I mean they kind of you 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:09.160 kind of should look at it is like the runs high, right. Yeah. 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:11.280 The first question comes to mind is when did people 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:13.880 start figuring this out that if you ingest a lot 0:16:13.920 --> 0:16:15.640 of nutmeg, and when we say a lot of nutmeg, 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:18.440 we're talking like spoonfuls of the stuff. We're like a 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:21.160 whole container of nutmeg. But when did people first getting 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:24.000 get this idea in their head that they should try 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:25.760 it or then it or that once they've tried it, 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:27.800 that it does have some sort of strange effect on 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:32.440 the human body. Well from Atlantic Magazine article My Nutmeg 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:36.440 bend Or by Wayne Curtis, he says that the Benedictine 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:41.200 abbess Hilda Guard of binging Nice Benin noted the mind 0:16:41.280 --> 0:16:43.760 altering effects of nutmeg all the way back to the 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:47.960 twelfth century. So we've got some documentation that people were 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:51.480 dabbling around with it. Then apparently in air vadic medicine, 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:55.080 ancient Indian medicine, it was known as mata shonda or 0:16:55.280 --> 0:16:59.360 narcotic fruit, and it was sometimes chewed with beetle to 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:05.200 excite one or it was actually consumed orally to excite 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:09.040 the libido. And this is this is an interesting area, 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:12.360 the idea that that okay, if you take nutmeg, uh, 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:15.679 it could potentially enhance your sex life. And again a 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:18.439 very old idea. We see it in ancient India and 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:20.600 you see it come up again in various other Texas. 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:22.720 People set out to try and figure out exactly what 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:24.960 nutmeg can do for the body when it's taking taken 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:28.000 in abnormal doses. There was a man by the name 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:30.919 of Andrew Board, and he had a book called Dietary 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:34.639 of Health UH in which he says generally nutmegs be 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:36.760 good for them which have cold in their head and 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:40.160 does comfort the site and the brain. But he uh, 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:43.800 interestingly enough, he's a it was a celibate monk, you know, 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:47.560 valve of chastity. And he also suggested that nutmeg damp 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:51.639 and sexual desire, which which were reportedly according to some 0:17:51.720 --> 0:17:54.000 of the dirt on this guy, it didn't really work 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:56.040 all that well for it, or maybe he was trying 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:59.640 to tap down so much desire that even large quantities 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:02.840 of nuting meg didn't help. But then there's another interesting 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:06.080 I guess you would say nutmeg psychonot the Earl of Dorset, 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:10.320 Charles Sackville. And this guy, this is the late sixteen hundreds, 0:18:10.440 --> 0:18:14.640 and we see a reference to him in Samuel Peep's diary. 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:18.240 Charles Sackville would would regularly take a spoonful of nutmeg 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:21.080 before bedtime, and he claimed that this would fill his 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:23.920 dreams with all manner of illicit scenarios, and then he'd 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:27.200 wake up in the morning rather excited by it. Uh 0:18:27.280 --> 0:18:31.200 And and according to Samuel Peete's um, Sackville eventually wound 0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:33.440 up in the slammer after a night of quote running 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:36.320 up and down all night, almost naked through the streets. 0:18:36.480 --> 0:18:40.240 So um, all right, But then again, to what extent 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:44.679 is this just rather excitable guy anyway? And he takes it, 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:48.240 you know, the placebo effect could be in full, full effective. Yeah, 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:50.880 there's no I mean, there's no evidence that it really 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:54.560 is an aphrodisiac, but researchers have found it to increase 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:58.399 mating behaviors in mice, and it's known to stimulate the 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:01.560 circulatory system and increase and flow, so it stands to 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:04.920 reason that it could help in terms of sexual drive. 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:07.400 But and then again, we're talking about large doses here, 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:11.639 because because generally the consensus is small doses of of 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:15.040 nutmeg on a regular basis, as in the kind of 0:19:15.119 --> 0:19:17.760 nutmeg that you would use in cooking or putting on 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:20.720 top of your coffee, or the occasionally a mixed drink 0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:23.679 or Christmas side or what have you. All that is 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:26.199 perfectly fine. It's not gonna hurt you at all, and 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:30.639 it will probably have beneficial effects. But it's the ingestion 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:34.399 of let's say, a whole nutmeg seed. Right, this is 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:36.919 a huge spoonful every night, that kind of right. This 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:38.800 is where we begin to see some some of the 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:42.560 hallucinogenic facts of it. And you had already noted some 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:46.120 of the possible side effects including loose bowels, vomiting, accelerated 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:50.040 heart rate. But also, according to Wing Curtis in that 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:55.520 article my Nutmeg Vendor, nutmeg burps at twenty minute intervals. Yeah, 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:58.520 I mean again, people, this is not sexy stuff here. Um, 0:19:58.520 --> 0:19:59.960 this is probably not something that you want to take 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:02.720 and then uh, you know, have a date. In fact, 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:05.520 you don't want to take it at all. Um. Over 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:08.200 and over again we saw accounts of this, of people saying, 0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:12.600 this is not really um a hallucinatory experience that is 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:16.239 exalted in any way, This is not desirable experience. This 0:20:16.280 --> 0:20:20.520 is I mean because they're also things like giddiness, laughing fits, yes, fantasies, 0:20:20.760 --> 0:20:25.560 but also nausea, the heart palpitations, hallucinations. Generally speaking, there 0:20:25.600 --> 0:20:28.760 seemed to be two categories of people. The vast majority 0:20:28.760 --> 0:20:31.240 are the people who try it once and then realize 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:33.680 it was a stupid thing they did and they never 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:36.680 do it again. And then there's a very small category 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:40.280 of people who were just really maybe there's just a 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:43.560 there's an obsessive personality about them, or they or they 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:46.240 have just an inflated idea of what it's doing for them. 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:49.320 So you see people like Charles Sackville who at least 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:51.520 claims to have taken in large doses of it in 0:20:51.520 --> 0:20:54.800 a regular basis thinking or to some extent, getting some 0:20:54.840 --> 0:20:58.560 sort of illicit use out of it. Or I was 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:01.760 looking around on moder earn message boards and I ran 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:04.480 across one individual who was just really gung ho about 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:06.840 figuring out a way how to how to break the 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:09.879 nutmeg code, like how to how to combine nutmeg with 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:12.720