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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And

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Speaker 1: it's the holidays. We know what we do during the holidays,

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Speaker 1: at least here in the United States of A. You

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Speaker 1: put a lot of stuff in your body that maybe

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Speaker 1: shouldn't be there. That's right, you you eat. You have

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Speaker 1: these various feasts that are all about getting through the

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Speaker 1: winter ahead, getting through the cold, dark winter and surviving

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Speaker 1: to the spring. It's a it's a it's it's a

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Speaker 1: it's a riot as old as human history and we're

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Speaker 1: still doing it. Yeah, even with with nasty, weird contraptions

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Speaker 1: like candy canes. Yes, I have a question, a question.

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Speaker 1: Does anybody really like candy canes? Um? I'm sure my

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Speaker 1: son would like them if if we we'd see him

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Speaker 1: away from it, Like you got a candy cane at

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Speaker 1: some event recently and brought it home and we kind

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Speaker 1: of convinced him, actually, this is a candy that is

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Speaker 1: best served hanging on the tree. This is more of

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Speaker 1: a this is more of a decoration. Really, that's a candy.

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Speaker 1: You don't even have to lie to him to discourage

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Speaker 1: him about you just be like, this will cut your

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Speaker 1: tongue and it's gonna you're gonna be sad you ate it.

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Speaker 1: Your mouth will feel weird and you'll have injuries. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't have the hyper marketing of many modern candies

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Speaker 1: because we we we limit the amount of candy that

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Speaker 1: my son uh eats, and that means we like at Halloween,

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Speaker 1: he was he had access to all these candies, but

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Speaker 1: then he traded them into the switch, which and got

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Speaker 1: a toy in exchange. But there were some candies were

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Speaker 1: just so well marketed he was convinced they were his favorite,

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Speaker 1: Like Ike and Mike for some reason. Pike and Mike, yeah,

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Speaker 1: market they have marketing. Well, I mean they have the

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Speaker 1: no wait, it's Mike and Ike, Mike and I Mike first. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know that those guys that well,

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Speaker 1: forget which one comes first. But the package is like

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Speaker 1: bright green, and they're these colors and he's instantly connecting

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Speaker 1: with it and he's saying, oh, this one, this one's good.

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Speaker 1: Look those are fruits on there. It's bright, it's it's potent.

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Speaker 1: I want to eat that. That's my favorite candy he's

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Speaker 1: actually had it. Huh Well, okay, So today's episode is

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Speaker 1: going to be a sequel to our last episode about

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Speaker 1: dangerous Foods that aired last year, and uh so today

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Speaker 1: is Dangerous Foods to the Revenge, No, the second course,

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Speaker 1: the return of the food. There is never a good thing, yes,

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Speaker 1: a dish best served cold, and there is gonna be

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Speaker 1: a lot of wonderful, dangerous, poisonous weirdness out there to

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Speaker 1: talk about. But we do want to say at the

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Speaker 1: beginning that at least I feel deeply Robert, I hope

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Speaker 1: you feel the same way that being alarmist is very

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Speaker 1: much against the stuff to blow your mind ethos. Right,

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Speaker 1: So we are not going to tell you there is

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Speaker 1: a silent killer lurking in your pantry, that that saved that.

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Speaker 1: For those websites that demonize MSG and stuff we've already debunked,

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Speaker 1: this episode is going to be about dangerous and poisonous

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Speaker 1: misadventures involving rare foods, everyday foods. But no matter what

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Speaker 1: case it is, it's not designed to scare you, but

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Speaker 1: it should be a reminder that we live in a

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Speaker 1: world of very complex and sometimes fragile biochemical interactions. And

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Speaker 1: for those of us living in industrialized countries, I think

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Speaker 1: sometimes our consumer mindset leads us to believe that our

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Speaker 1: food should meet the industry quality controls standards you'd get

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Speaker 1: in the dead products you buy at Walmart or Ikea.

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Speaker 1: Maybe so if every version of the same product number

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Speaker 1: table at Ikea really is the same, no matter which

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Speaker 1: I Kea you go to anywhere in the world, shouldn't

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Speaker 1: every baked potato be the same everywhere you go in

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Speaker 1: the world. But it's not, is it. I mean foods,

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Speaker 1: the foods we eat, our organisms or substances derived from organisms, plants, animals, fungi,

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Speaker 1: and as as much as we might like our food

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Speaker 1: products to be contained and tamed and dependable as the

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Speaker 1: output of a furniture factory, as we all know, sometimes

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Speaker 1: life uh finds a way. Yeah, I mean these are organisms. Now.

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Speaker 1: In some cases, especially with various fruits and whatnot. Uh,

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Speaker 1: it is the the organism's game for you to eat it.

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Speaker 1: It wants you to eat it. But in many other cases,

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Speaker 1: the organism does not want to be eaten and has

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Speaker 1: certain biological systems in place to prevent it, to discourage it,

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Speaker 1: to make it difficult for you to carry this uh,

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Speaker 1: this this act of gluttony out and uh. And also

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Speaker 1: any type of food that is produced, if it's you know,

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Speaker 1: a grown part of a thing's body, or it comes

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Speaker 1: out of the soil or a creature makes it, it

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Speaker 1: is the It is the end of a production line,

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Speaker 1: a production line that is not standardized exactly exactly. No,

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Speaker 1: it depends on the region. It depends on the environment,

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Speaker 1: the climate, the conditions, what materials are available for the

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Speaker 1: organism to work with. So, yeah, biochemistry is a deep

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Speaker 1: web of complex interactions, and the stuff we're getting is

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Speaker 1: not fresh. It's the process. It's the end of a

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Speaker 1: very process, and it's just very common around the world

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Speaker 1: in various ways for something weird to happen somewhere along

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Speaker 1: that process. All right, So what's what's first? First up?

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Speaker 1: What's the first course here? Joe? Okay, Well, I want

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Speaker 1: to tell you a story. Okay. So, in his work

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Speaker 1: known as the Antibossis the ancient Greek historians, Xenophon tells

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Speaker 1: a story from his time as a general in the

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Speaker 1: Greek war against the Persians, and one of his accounts

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Speaker 1: tells of a story that took place in four oh

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Speaker 1: one BC. While while Xenophon and his troops are returning

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Speaker 1: home from battle with a group. Xenophon has got about

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Speaker 1: ten thousand Greek fighters with him, and they're traveling through

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Speaker 1: a col Chiefs, which is a region along the coast

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Speaker 1: of the Black Sea and what is now the country

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Speaker 1: of Georgia. And Xenophon's troops come across a place that

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Speaker 1: is swarming with thousands of bees. It just bees everywhere.

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Speaker 1: And you might think, oh, that sounds horrible, but for

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Speaker 1: a bunch of Greek soldiers, this is actually good news

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Speaker 1: because they knew they're in for a treat, fresh honey

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Speaker 1: from the hive. That's right. They weren't packing any candy

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Speaker 1: canes or I can Mike uh and and Mike ull.

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Speaker 1: It might have. Maybe it was reversed back then. I

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Speaker 1: don't know how they get the Greeks, the ancient Greeks world.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the Greek alphabet I come before M. I'm

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Speaker 1: not sure. At any rate, they probably weren't getting their

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Speaker 1: their sweet tooth satisfied quite like they would they would

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Speaker 1: wish it to be. You know, I comes before M,

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Speaker 1: and our alphabet to the manufacturers of this candy. A

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Speaker 1: little bit of brain problems here with me anyway. So

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Speaker 1: so the Greek fighters, they've got honey delicious, right, But

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Speaker 1: after eating the honey, the soldiers started to give off

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Speaker 1: signs of a strange reaction, and so Xenophon writes that

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Speaker 1: the soldiers began to go out of their heads, and

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Speaker 1: they suffered from diarrhea and vomiting. Then the soldiers collapsed

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Speaker 1: to the ground and wallowed about as if dead drunk,

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Speaker 1: and in some cases they seem to have lost their minds. Uh.

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Speaker 1: In others the men were like men on their deathbeds.

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Speaker 1: Xenophon rights quote. So they lay there in great numbers,

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Speaker 1: as though the army had suffered to defeat, and great

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Speaker 1: despondency prevailed. On the next day, however, no one had died,

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Speaker 1: and it approximately the same hour as they had eaten

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Speaker 1: the honey. They began to come to their senses, and

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Speaker 1: on the third or fourth day they got up as

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Speaker 1: if from a drugging bad honey. So what happened? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I had the local bees risen up against them. Uh. No,

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Speaker 1: Xenophon's fighters had stumbled into a trove of the substance

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Speaker 1: well known to inhabitants of the Black Seacoast, mad honey.

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Speaker 1: This is what the ancients called it. Plenty called it

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Speaker 1: uh oh, I forget to turn out. I think it's

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Speaker 1: millymnomenon the honey that is a mad maker like that.

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Speaker 1: And there are other ancient accounts of mad honey poisoning.

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Speaker 1: So in sixty seven b c. The Roman military leader

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Speaker 1: Pompy the Great is taking a Roman army near the

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Speaker 1: southern shore the Black Sea again while chasing the Persian

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Speaker 1: army of King Mithridates of Pontus and the Persians. They've

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Speaker 1: got a group of allies apparently who know about the

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Speaker 1: mad honey, and these allies set a trap for Pompey's army.

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Speaker 1: They placed honey combs full of mad honey from the

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Speaker 1: local bees into containers and left them along Pompey's path,

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Speaker 1: knowing that some of the soldiers would not be able

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Speaker 1: to resist a swede indulgence. And they were right the home.

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Speaker 1: The Romans were basically Winnie the Pooh. They were Pooh bear,

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Speaker 1: I've got to get the honey. Uh. So many Roman

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Speaker 1: troops ate the honey. They became incredibly sick and disoriented,

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Speaker 1: went out of their heads. While the Romans were wallering,

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Speaker 1: wallowing around, you know, in a bit of a sugary stupor.

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Speaker 1: The Persian army came back, killed him, led to a

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Speaker 1: battle with very asymmetrical outcome. I've read that more than

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Speaker 1: a thousand Roman soldiers were killed and very few Persians died,

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Speaker 1: very asymmetrical outcome. It's a wonderful exactly. Yeah, a little

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Speaker 1: bit of a call back there. Uh, that's I think

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Speaker 1: the term would be a massacre. Actually that's the non massacre,

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Speaker 1: sticky massacre. But there's an excellent article on Mad Honey.

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Speaker 1: Actually I came across by none other than Adrian Mayor.

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Speaker 1: If you remember from our episode on geo mythology. Adrian

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Speaker 1: Mayor is the main scholar we talked about in that

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Speaker 1: that episode, and she's known for the theory that various

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Speaker 1: mythological beasts were inspired by ancient people's coming across the

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Speaker 1: dinosaur fossils. So, for example, people in Central Asia may

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Speaker 1: have found Triceratops remains in the Gobi Desert and this

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Speaker 1: led to the creation of griffin myths. And so we

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Speaker 1: talked about her in that episode. But she has this

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Speaker 1: article in a nine edition of Archaeology magazine called mad Honey.

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Speaker 1: It's a great read. You can look it up online.

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Speaker 1: But she talks about also how in a d a

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Speaker 1: ruler of the Kiev and russ called Olga of Kiev,

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Speaker 1: who in general I looked her up. She seems like

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Speaker 1: she she's pretty be a she's like bad, she's cool. Um,

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Speaker 1: she used fer minted honey from the Black Sea region

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Speaker 1: to poison a group of about five thousand of her

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Speaker 1: enemies and then had them massacred. Wow. So there's a

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Speaker 1: there's a long history of of military missteps or or

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Speaker 1: outright uh poisonings and massacres with mad honey. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: with all these ancient accounts, I mean, you have to

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Speaker 1: wonder to what extent we're we're getting the true story.

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Speaker 1: But these are the accounts as presented by these ancient

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Speaker 1: historians and authors. Because I can also see where this

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Speaker 1: would be a narrative to invoke if you're on the

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Speaker 1: losing side, right, you know, to say, well, yes, our

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Speaker 1: troops were were massacred, and our troops were ambushed, but

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Speaker 1: they were also poisoned by his local honey or or

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Speaker 1: this not because I was right, but but we do

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Speaker 1: know now that this is totally plausible because mad honey

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Speaker 1: is absolutely a real thing, and mad honey the problem

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Speaker 1: is not the bees themselves, but the flowers they pollinate.

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Speaker 1: So in the Black Sea coastal region, bees often consume

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Speaker 1: huge quantities of nectar from the flowers of the rhododendron plant,

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Speaker 1: and rhododendrons produce a potentially deadly neurotoxin called grayanotoxin. So

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna be referring to a paper published in Cardiovascular

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Speaker 1: Toxicology by suz A. Jansen at All called Granotoxin Poisoning

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Speaker 1: Mad Honey Disease and Beyond from two thousand twelve, And

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Speaker 1: what they report is that grayanotoxin is also known as

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Speaker 1: andromedo toxin, acetyal, andromedol and rhodotoxin, and it can be

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Speaker 1: derived from the body parts of plants in the family

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Speaker 1: eric Cassier, which includes rhododendron, pierists, Agarista and Calmia uh.

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Speaker 1: And in reality, granno toxin is a family of related toxins.

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Speaker 1: So there are a bunch of different grano toxins. We

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Speaker 1: should probably speak about it in the plural. There are

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Speaker 1: more than twenty five is a forms that have been

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Speaker 1: derived from rhododendron. And here's the basic way it works

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Speaker 1: in your body. So grannotoxins are poisonous because of their

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Speaker 1: ability to bind to the group too receptor site in

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Speaker 1: voltage gated sodium channels or v g s c s,

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Speaker 1: and so I'll break that down basically, v gs c

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Speaker 1: s are protein structures there a little structures within the

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Speaker 1: body that span across membranes, and they facilitate the transfer

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Speaker 1: of sodium ions which has charged particles of sodium. And

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Speaker 1: so the transfer of these charged particles is important for

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Speaker 1: communication between the bodies different tissues, allowing the passage of

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Speaker 1: action potential in cells like neurons. If you introduce a

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Speaker 1: toxin that binds too receptor sites in these sodium channels,

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Speaker 1: you can essentially event effective communication between body tissues and

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Speaker 1: disrupt the nervous system. Specifically, the researchers think that gray

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Speaker 1: anna toxins work by preventing the inactivation of the sodium channel.

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Speaker 1: To use a metaphor, it would be like leaving the

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Speaker 1: light switch stuck in the on position. You can imagine

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Speaker 1: how this would have negative systemic effects on the nerve

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Speaker 1: cells and the body at large. But specifically, the authors

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Speaker 1: think it probably leads to continuous uninterrupted stimulation of the

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Speaker 1: vaguel nervous system, the vegas nerve, which of course is

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Speaker 1: very important in the body. It interfaces between the brain

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Speaker 1: uh the autonomic nervous system, and many muscles in the body,

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Speaker 1: from the heart and the lungs to the voice production center.

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Speaker 1: So this is bad stuff. You know, you don't want

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Speaker 1: it in your body. It racks the nerves, right. But

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Speaker 1: grayanatoxin contamination of honey occurs most often just in the

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Speaker 1: Black Sea region of Turkey, especially from the plant's rhododendron

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Speaker 1: Rhododendron ponticum and Rhododendron lutam. But rhododendron isn't the only

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Speaker 1: plant to produce nectar containing grayannotoxin, which can filter down

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Speaker 1: into the honey that the bees produced. Of course, honey

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Speaker 1: containing grayannotoxin has also been found in North America, for

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Speaker 1: example in North Carolina, where in the nineteen fifties a

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Speaker 1: sample was found to contain about a hundred parts per

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Speaker 1: million of granotoxin. And what did that come from? While

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Speaker 1: the authors speculated was probably derived from bees that aint

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Speaker 1: the nectar of the mountain laurel or Kalmia latifolia. So

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Speaker 1: I know, if you're a honey fan, you're probably worrying like, oh, no,

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Speaker 1: am I gonna get mad honey? Probably not, probably depending

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Speaker 1: on where you are and how you get your honey.

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Speaker 1: According to a Texas A and M University article citing

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Speaker 1: anthropologist Vaughan Bryant, you can find honey in the United States,

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Speaker 1: but not not so often so, Bryant says, quote, Normally

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Speaker 1: there are not enough rhododendrons in one area for the

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Speaker 1: bees to make concentrated mad honey. However, sometimes there a

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Speaker 1: late cold snap in the Eastern US that kills a

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Speaker 1: lot of flowers but doesn't seem to stun the rhododendrons.

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Speaker 1: Thus they're the only thing blooming, and the bees will

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Speaker 1: focus all their attention on those flowers and produce concentrated

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Speaker 1: mad honey during that period. These flowers are mostly in

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Speaker 1: the Appalachian Mountains of the Eastern US. That also goes

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Speaker 1: with something I've read about this type of poisoning being

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Speaker 1: more common in the early spring, when I guess also

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Speaker 1: some of these granotoxin producing flowers are they're more cold resistant,

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Speaker 1: might might bloom earlier where other flowers aren't available. Interesting,

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Speaker 1: so it would be the it would be these rare

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Speaker 1: incidences where the poisonous flowers. Toxic flowers are the only

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Speaker 1: source for the bees, yeah, because the bees don't love

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Speaker 1: them the most. The bees would rather have another flower.

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Speaker 1: But if all the other flowers are out of the

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Speaker 1: game for some reason, they will go to the granotoxin

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Speaker 1: plants and make their honey from that sweet, sweet nectar

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Speaker 1: that people also some people have a taste for. Now,

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Speaker 1: I'm guessing too that this is going to be more

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Speaker 1: of a situation with your certainly your wild honeys in

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Speaker 1: these affected areas, and maybe maybe maybe with with some

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Speaker 1: like extreme indie honey. I guess you're probably not going

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Speaker 1: to get this from a mass produced honey because that

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Speaker 1: that involves. I mean, number one, there's just quality control,

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Speaker 1: so they tend to know what types of flowers the

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Speaker 1: nectar is coming from. But then there is also massive

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Speaker 1: mixing involved. So when you get mass produced honey, they're

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Speaker 1: blending together huge batches of honey from different hives, and

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Speaker 1: even if there were some containing toxin, it would probably

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Speaker 1: be mixed and thus diluted way down to a level

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Speaker 1: that's not a threat. Okay, So outside of the Black

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Speaker 1: Sea region, you would have to you would have to

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Speaker 1: really have a string of bad luck, I think to

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Speaker 1: run across this stuff, right probably. I mean you could

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Speaker 1: come across if somebody's like a wild honey collector, you know,

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Speaker 1: or like you said, extreme indie honey. Uh, and there

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Speaker 1: are they don't necessarily know what they're doing, or they

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Speaker 1: have some bad luck with with what flowers there bees

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Speaker 1: have access to and they don't realize it in time

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Speaker 1: before they give it to somebody to eat. You could

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Speaker 1: encounter mad honey in other parts of the world, but

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Speaker 1: it's gonna definitely going to be most common in the

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Speaker 1: Black Sea region, especially in Turkey. So if you eat

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Speaker 1: some mad honey today, what's going to happen to you? Well?

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Speaker 1: Clinical characteristics gonna list a few. This is also this

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Speaker 1: is back to Jansen at all. So there's hypotension meaning

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Speaker 1: low blood pressure, problems with cardiac rhythm, nausea and vomiting, sweating, dizziness,

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Speaker 1: and quote impaired consciousness. It's kind of a euphemism, right. Uh.

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Speaker 1: There's also less often but still noted, fainting, blurred vision,

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Speaker 1: diplopia or double visions, salivation, convulsions, atrial fibrillation, cardiac arrest,

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Speaker 1: and myocardial infarction meaning a heart attack. All that really

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Speaker 1: from a hit of bad honey. Yes, if you get

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Speaker 1: enough of a concentrated dose you and eat, you eat

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Speaker 1: enough of it, you can have symptoms like these. I

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Speaker 1: would have liked to have seen a clinical list of

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Speaker 1: symptoms that also included the various injuries that the Persian

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Speaker 1: military have afflicted on you in ancient times. Side effects

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Speaker 1: include massacre, yeah, dismemberment, etcetera. But here's one more thing.

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Speaker 1: Not all known cases of mad honey poisoning or accidental

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Speaker 1: Sometimes people take granna toxin contaminated honey intentionally as an

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Speaker 1: aphrodisiac or as an alternative medicine. And I think the

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Speaker 1: jury is still out as to whether at low doses

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Speaker 1: granna toxin may actually have some kind of positive effects.

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Speaker 1: I think it's not clear yet whether that actually is effective.

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Speaker 1: But the authors of the study I mentioned speculate that

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Speaker 1: regularly taking contaminated honey for these reasons may lead to

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Speaker 1: a condition called chronic mad honey intoxication syndrome. That sounds

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Speaker 1: like a syndrome you don't want to have to put

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Speaker 1: on your little form you fill out when you get

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Speaker 1: a new doctor. That's right, alright. On that note, let's

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Speaker 1: take a quick breaking. When we come back, we will

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Speaker 1: discuss the dead man's fingers. Alright, we're back, Robert. You

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Speaker 1: have piqued my interest dead man's fingers. Are you literally

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Speaker 1: talking about eating the fingers of a corpse? Um? No,

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Speaker 1: but in a way it's kind of figurative. So are you?

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Speaker 1: Are you? Yeah? Digitally if you will. But here's the thing.

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Speaker 1: Are you a crab band? Do you enjoy eating crab?

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Speaker 1: I don't eat it that often, but I do like it.

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Speaker 1: Do you what is the most crab like form of

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Speaker 1: your crab consumption? So? Do do you? Do you enjoy

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Speaker 1: soft shell crab on the sandwich, the legs and the

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Speaker 1: claws sticking out on the sides. It's another thing. I

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Speaker 1: don't eat that often, but when I've had it, I've

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Speaker 1: liked it. Okay, it's it's my absolute favorite. I think

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Speaker 1: it's the It is the best way to eat an

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Speaker 1: animal where there's just there's there's less deniable about what

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Speaker 1: you're doing. You're just you're biting into this crab. The

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Speaker 1: whole shape is their shape? Is there might as well

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Speaker 1: eat a cockroach? Yeah? Yeah, And it's it's the meat,

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Speaker 1: but also all these other substances that are all fried up,

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Speaker 1: all the other bits of its anatomy. It's I feel

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Speaker 1: like it's a very honest mode of consumption, even though

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Speaker 1: it is cooked. So it's not like you're just eating

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Speaker 1: the raw living crab. No, I can get with that. Okay,

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Speaker 1: well this is uh, we're not just talking about crabs

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Speaker 1: here though, of course, we're talking about about the dead

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Speaker 1: man's fingers. Which if you've ever actively engaged in the

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Speaker 1: cook cooking of crabs, and catching of crabs, then you

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Speaker 1: you probably have some degree of familiarity of what I'm

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Speaker 1: talking about here. So in our last Dangerous Foods episode,

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Speaker 1: we discussed the manner by which food goo puffer fish

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Speaker 1: become edible via the skilled culinary removal of certain tetrodo

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00:20:51,480 --> 00:20:54,920
Speaker 1: toxin laden inerts. If you it's got certain organs that

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Speaker 1: have especially high concentrations of this toxin. Right, so you

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00:20:58,440 --> 00:21:01,400
Speaker 1: need a skilled chef to cut that little sliver out,

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Speaker 1: cook it up and it's good to go. Right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: But a good sushi chef will know what they were,

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Speaker 1: what they're doing, right, They'll be able to get it

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Speaker 1: out of there and you shouldn't have to worry about it.

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Speaker 1: If if you're in good hands exactly. So this is

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Speaker 1: faintly similar to that. But but this is definitely a

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Speaker 1: category where we're going to be dispelling a lot of

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Speaker 1: ideas about dangerous foods rather than uh, you know, giving

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Speaker 1: you the science behind why it's actually dangerous. Okay, Well

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Speaker 1: you've got to tell me where the name comes from. Okay. Uh,

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Speaker 1: As far as I can tell that, the name itself

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Speaker 1: is just kind of lost to history. You know, we

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Speaker 1: don't know like where, you know, what region this came from.

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Speaker 1: But you do find dead man's fingers in edible crabs,

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Speaker 1: and it's a it's of course, it's it's wonderful fear

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Speaker 1: marketing right decided you have this rotting hand of the

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Speaker 1: drowned dead that's inside your food, and if you eat it,

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Speaker 1: according to the you know, the the urban legends, it

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Speaker 1: depends what. It depends on the legend. What happens. Maybe

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Speaker 1: you're to become violently ill, maybe you're going to contract

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Speaker 1: a disease. I found people who said, oh yeah, when

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Speaker 1: when we were cleaning crabs as a kid, um, my

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00:22:07,640 --> 00:22:09,720
Speaker 1: parents are a big brother. You know, it depends who's

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Speaker 1: screwing with you, basically, and who's saying, oh, don't eat

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Speaker 1: those parts. If you eat the dead man's fingers, you'll die,

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00:22:15,160 --> 00:22:19,239
Speaker 1: or you'll catch a disease, or or you'll become violently ill. Uh.

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Speaker 1: The versions are various, but I find the stories particularly

387
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Speaker 1: interesting given our relationship with crabs, creatures that we have

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Speaker 1: to keep alive and then cook alive in order to

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Speaker 1: to eat them. So it's it's perfectly strange that we

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Speaker 1: summon this tiny, rotting humanoid hand inside the body of

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Speaker 1: our victim. Yeah, that is a nice metaphor. Is like

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Speaker 1: that the hand that places them into the pot boiling

393
00:22:43,880 --> 00:22:47,520
Speaker 1: water comes back from inside the shell. Yeah, so it's

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Speaker 1: kind of kind of beautiful in its own way. And uh,

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Speaker 1: And in trying to figure this out, because I'm not

396
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Speaker 1: gonna spoil it just yet, if you don't know what

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Speaker 1: the dead man's hand is, you might expect it to

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Speaker 1: be something related to digestion, right, Yeah, I'm guessing crab

399
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Speaker 1: anus or I don't know. No, as far as I

400
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Speaker 1: know you, you you eat the that portion of the crab,

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00:23:05,800 --> 00:23:09,119
Speaker 1: at least with the soft show crab. But but but

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00:23:09,280 --> 00:23:11,920
Speaker 1: you know, there are plenty of examples of animals for

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Speaker 1: which we cast aside certain internal organs um, either out

404
00:23:16,160 --> 00:23:18,399
Speaker 1: of necessity or just we don't want to bother uh

405
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Speaker 1: processing them into sausages or dog food or whatever. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Even the komodo dragon will sling the intestines of intestines

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Speaker 1: of a kill around in order to loosen the feces

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Speaker 1: from the intestines so that they can eat them. So yeah,

409
00:23:33,640 --> 00:23:36,000
Speaker 1: I've never heard of that. Yeah, it's pretty great because

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00:23:36,040 --> 00:23:39,560
Speaker 1: they they don't like uh being feces, but they do

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Speaker 1: want the large intestine. Yeah. Yeah, they're tasty. They'll eat

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Speaker 1: everything but that and the baby komodo dragons there's no

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Speaker 1: child rearing and komodo dragon culture. Uh. So the baby

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Speaker 1: komotos have to have to climb up trees to get

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Speaker 1: away from the adults who will try to eat them,

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Speaker 1: but they can. They've also been observed to smear themselves

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Speaker 1: in feces and or at least they wind up covered

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Speaker 1: in feces, and then the parents will not eat them

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Speaker 1: because they're disgusting. So it's kind of like Predator with

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Speaker 1: Arnold Schwarzenegger in the mud, but they can't see them.

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Speaker 1: They're just not tasty. Yeah, that would be a good

422
00:24:12,760 --> 00:24:15,720
Speaker 1: interpretation on Predator. Oh yeah, what if all the mud

423
00:24:15,800 --> 00:24:17,879
Speaker 1: was poop, and then the predators just like, look, I

424
00:24:17,920 --> 00:24:20,240
Speaker 1: can't do this exactly. That's what was going on the

425
00:24:20,280 --> 00:24:24,359
Speaker 1: whole time. He could see him, but you know. But anyway,

426
00:24:24,440 --> 00:24:26,640
Speaker 1: but based on all of this, it feels somewhat accurate

427
00:24:26,880 --> 00:24:29,560
Speaker 1: that there would be the sickening, disease spreading or even

428
00:24:29,640 --> 00:24:32,440
Speaker 1: deadly portion of the common food crap. Right, Yeah, I

429
00:24:32,480 --> 00:24:34,560
Speaker 1: would think so it winds up with the puffer at

430
00:24:34,600 --> 00:24:38,680
Speaker 1: least would just intuitively looking at a crab, it looks

431
00:24:38,760 --> 00:24:41,600
Speaker 1: like something that would have poisonous parts. Yeah, you would

432
00:24:41,640 --> 00:24:43,240
Speaker 1: look at it. It looks back at you, and you

433
00:24:43,320 --> 00:24:46,159
Speaker 1: might ask yourself, can I eat all of this? Clearly not,

434
00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:48,840
Speaker 1: because a lot of it's very, very hard and pointy.

435
00:24:50,200 --> 00:24:53,560
Speaker 1: So the fingers that we're talking about here are nothing

436
00:24:53,640 --> 00:24:57,280
Speaker 1: more than the crabs gills, and this is where respiration

437
00:24:57,520 --> 00:25:01,160
Speaker 1: and filtration takes place, and they consist of uh many

438
00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:05,240
Speaker 1: different plume like filaments arranged around a central axis. In

439
00:25:05,320 --> 00:25:07,680
Speaker 1: the blue crab, for instance, there are eight gills on

440
00:25:07,840 --> 00:25:09,840
Speaker 1: either side. So and and if I guess, if you

441
00:25:09,960 --> 00:25:12,480
Speaker 1: you kind of squint at them, and I've I've looked

442
00:25:12,480 --> 00:25:15,480
Speaker 1: at him when cleaning crabs, and instructed by my my

443
00:25:15,600 --> 00:25:17,720
Speaker 1: in laws who know what they're doing, and I do

444
00:25:17,800 --> 00:25:19,199
Speaker 1: not know what I'm doing, but they tell me, oh,

445
00:25:19,520 --> 00:25:21,480
Speaker 1: that's the dead man's hand right there. Are they like

446
00:25:21,840 --> 00:25:25,720
Speaker 1: crab country people? Oh yeah, yeah, my uh, my wife's

447
00:25:25,760 --> 00:25:29,480
Speaker 1: family has a Cajun blood and her brother lives down

448
00:25:29,600 --> 00:25:32,720
Speaker 1: in um In Ocean Springs, Mississippi. So yeah, they're like

449
00:25:32,840 --> 00:25:36,679
Speaker 1: constantly crabbing, catching crabs, bringing them back. The whole family

450
00:25:36,760 --> 00:25:39,359
Speaker 1: have taken them apart um, and it's it's good eating.

451
00:25:39,840 --> 00:25:41,960
Speaker 1: But but yeah, if you really, if you, if you

452
00:25:42,080 --> 00:25:44,400
Speaker 1: want to interpret it as such, the dead man's hand

453
00:25:44,520 --> 00:25:47,080
Speaker 1: might look like a little diseased lepre con claw or

454
00:25:47,160 --> 00:25:50,480
Speaker 1: something or two of them. Now, the reality here, of course,

455
00:25:50,520 --> 00:25:53,000
Speaker 1: is the crab is an organism, so there's a lot

456
00:25:53,119 --> 00:25:56,840
Speaker 1: going on underneath that shell um or you know, underneath

457
00:25:56,880 --> 00:25:58,800
Speaker 1: where the shell would be if you're using a soft shell,

458
00:25:59,280 --> 00:26:02,200
Speaker 1: The white muscle meat, that's the prize stuff. That's the

459
00:26:02,240 --> 00:26:05,840
Speaker 1: stuff that gets picked away and put into other other recipes.

460
00:26:05,960 --> 00:26:08,280
Speaker 1: That's the stuff you might buy in bulk, pre picked

461
00:26:08,560 --> 00:26:11,480
Speaker 1: for an exaggerated price. But you also find all these

462
00:26:11,520 --> 00:26:14,199
Speaker 1: other things. If you've ever cleaned a crab, or if

463
00:26:14,240 --> 00:26:16,840
Speaker 1: you've ever eaten soft shell crab. You know what I'm

464
00:26:16,840 --> 00:26:20,280
Speaker 1: talking about. There's just some weird, nasty sauce inside the carapace.

465
00:26:20,680 --> 00:26:23,400
Speaker 1: Potentially a lot of it's open to interpretation because there's

466
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:28,080
Speaker 1: there's a yellowish mustard that is the fat. In females

467
00:26:28,160 --> 00:26:31,520
Speaker 1: you'll find orange ovaries, and in males who find a

468
00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:36,119
Speaker 1: small white testies. There's a stomach, there's a little gray heart. Uh,

469
00:26:36,200 --> 00:26:38,919
Speaker 1: there are intestines, there is an anus. Everything you might

470
00:26:38,960 --> 00:26:43,119
Speaker 1: expect to find when you're taking apart an animal. Uh,

471
00:26:43,280 --> 00:26:46,960
Speaker 1: certainly one that was just living before you boiled it

472
00:26:47,040 --> 00:26:50,359
Speaker 1: up or um. And and also if you're eating a

473
00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:53,439
Speaker 1: spried soft shell crab right off the bun, you definitely

474
00:26:53,560 --> 00:26:57,760
Speaker 1: encounter that that yellow mustard fat and all these other ingredients.

475
00:26:57,920 --> 00:26:59,600
Speaker 1: So we're you supposed to get rid of that stuff

476
00:26:59,680 --> 00:27:02,840
Speaker 1: or what? Well, the instructions vary. So you know, some

477
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:05,159
Speaker 1: people are gonna be very pure about there about the

478
00:27:05,359 --> 00:27:07,600
Speaker 1: picked crab, right because that's that's the meat, and that

479
00:27:07,720 --> 00:27:11,399
Speaker 1: if you're if you're picking apart cooked crabs, you're just

480
00:27:11,440 --> 00:27:14,479
Speaker 1: gonna probably eat the meat out of it. Right. But uh,

481
00:27:14,680 --> 00:27:16,560
Speaker 1: but but it it depends. I mean, they're a lot

482
00:27:16,600 --> 00:27:18,960
Speaker 1: most of this is edible. The fat is certainly edible,

483
00:27:19,080 --> 00:27:21,080
Speaker 1: and with soft shell crabs you just kind of bite

484
00:27:21,119 --> 00:27:22,920
Speaker 1: into the whole thing and just eat it whole like

485
00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:28,560
Speaker 1: a monster. But at at most what generally what is

486
00:27:28,760 --> 00:27:30,800
Speaker 1: is prescribed as that you remove the eyes, and you

487
00:27:30,880 --> 00:27:33,359
Speaker 1: remove the gills the dead man's fingers, and it's not

488
00:27:33,440 --> 00:27:36,959
Speaker 1: because they're poisonous, but because they're chewy and it's cartilage,

489
00:27:37,080 --> 00:27:39,560
Speaker 1: and and they might be a bit bitter. But it's

490
00:27:39,640 --> 00:27:42,480
Speaker 1: not a do or die situation. It's merely a these

491
00:27:42,520 --> 00:27:44,840
Speaker 1: are the parts of the crab that are not delicious

492
00:27:44,960 --> 00:27:50,400
Speaker 1: and or are not fun to eat, but they're not poisonous,

493
00:27:50,400 --> 00:27:53,800
Speaker 1: they don't carry diseases, and interestingly enough, you know it

494
00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:55,479
Speaker 1: also is going to depend on the culture. I ran

495
00:27:55,520 --> 00:28:00,320
Speaker 1: across a wonderful Serious Eats article by writer cheech Wing,

496
00:28:00,800 --> 00:28:03,680
Speaker 1: and she does this series titled the Nasty Bits, where

497
00:28:03,760 --> 00:28:06,280
Speaker 1: she she kind of she talks about the nasty bits

498
00:28:06,320 --> 00:28:10,320
Speaker 1: of various um foods sources uh, and in particular she

499
00:28:10,359 --> 00:28:13,240
Speaker 1: talks about about crabs. In one of these, she cuts

500
00:28:13,280 --> 00:28:17,440
Speaker 1: open a live crab and tries out crab miso or

501
00:28:17,520 --> 00:28:20,919
Speaker 1: connie miso, which is this Japanese tradition that typically involves

502
00:28:21,119 --> 00:28:26,880
Speaker 1: cooking a partially vivisected crab directly over a low burning flame. Yeah,

503
00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:29,560
Speaker 1: it's like cooking it in its little shell after you

504
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:32,159
Speaker 1: just cut it open. That's brutal. It well, I mean,

505
00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:35,800
Speaker 1: it's all of its brutal, that's true. But here's a

506
00:28:35,840 --> 00:28:37,879
Speaker 1: quote from it, because she sums it up really nicely.

507
00:28:38,320 --> 00:28:40,480
Speaker 1: I poured a bit of saki into the shell. The

508
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:44,880
Speaker 1: grayish green contents bubbled vigorously over the small flame. I

509
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:48,120
Speaker 1: cooked the parts until they were just heated through, soft

510
00:28:48,240 --> 00:28:51,400
Speaker 1: and rich, with a taste not unlike liver. But kenny

511
00:28:51,480 --> 00:28:53,960
Speaker 1: miso was a delight to eat right out of the shell,

512
00:28:54,080 --> 00:28:56,440
Speaker 1: though I saved a portion of it to have on toast,

513
00:28:56,680 --> 00:28:59,400
Speaker 1: and yet another to have with rice. And it did

514
00:28:59,440 --> 00:29:01,120
Speaker 1: it look very you know, very cool. We eat all

515
00:29:01,160 --> 00:29:04,000
Speaker 1: sorts of weird parts of animals. Uh, some are more

516
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:06,800
Speaker 1: acquired taste than others. So it makes sense, especially in

517
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:10,280
Speaker 1: a within Japanese cuisine, right that is so dependent upon

518
00:29:10,400 --> 00:29:13,040
Speaker 1: the riches of the ocean, that there would be uh

519
00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:17,600
Speaker 1: a finer use of the crab innerds here. Well, I

520
00:29:17,680 --> 00:29:21,160
Speaker 1: gotta respect that. But but the dead man dead man's fingers,

521
00:29:21,200 --> 00:29:24,720
Speaker 1: specifically the gills so you're saying, not poisonous, nothing to

522
00:29:24,840 --> 00:29:27,600
Speaker 1: this myth at all. No, not poisonous, not going to

523
00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:30,160
Speaker 1: cause a disease, not gonna kill you. It's just a

524
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:33,880
Speaker 1: taste issue. It's uh and uh and and the consistency

525
00:29:33,960 --> 00:29:35,840
Speaker 1: of it. And yet some would find even a way

526
00:29:35,880 --> 00:29:38,200
Speaker 1: to appreciate that. Yeah, that's right. I mean, there are

527
00:29:38,840 --> 00:29:41,760
Speaker 1: diverse flavors to play with there beyond the white meat

528
00:29:41,880 --> 00:29:44,480
Speaker 1: of the crab. And uh. If you want to learn

529
00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:47,840
Speaker 1: more about this, especially if you have access or obligations

530
00:29:49,360 --> 00:29:52,600
Speaker 1: of surrounding live crabs and freshly cooked crabs and and

531
00:29:52,760 --> 00:29:55,320
Speaker 1: you know, pulling them apart. I ran across a wonderful

532
00:29:55,440 --> 00:29:59,360
Speaker 1: pdf from math in science dot info. It's like an

533
00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:03,080
Speaker 1: educational web site, and this particular pdf guides you through

534
00:30:03,240 --> 00:30:07,480
Speaker 1: a quote edible dissection of a blue crab. And so

535
00:30:07,640 --> 00:30:09,880
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of a combination between a you know,

536
00:30:09,960 --> 00:30:15,560
Speaker 1: like a school like a biology class dissection and culinary preparation.

537
00:30:16,200 --> 00:30:18,880
Speaker 1: So it it takes you through the creatures anatomy as

538
00:30:18,920 --> 00:30:21,240
Speaker 1: you take it apart, and also tells you what you

539
00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:23,400
Speaker 1: can eat and how you go about eating it. Well,

540
00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:26,560
Speaker 1: I do think in general, for people, if you're gonna

541
00:30:26,640 --> 00:30:28,880
Speaker 1: eat meat. If you're gonna eat the body parts of

542
00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:32,000
Speaker 1: an organism, I think it's good to familiar yourself. Familiarize

543
00:30:32,040 --> 00:30:35,160
Speaker 1: yourself with that organism and what the parts you're eating

544
00:30:35,240 --> 00:30:37,840
Speaker 1: are and where they come from. Yeah, I agree. I mean,

545
00:30:38,280 --> 00:30:41,120
Speaker 1: I think we do we do ourselves. We do our

546
00:30:41,160 --> 00:30:44,880
Speaker 1: and we do our animals a disservice when we distance

547
00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:48,760
Speaker 1: ourselves from the source and the reality of our sustenance. Yeah,

548
00:30:48,800 --> 00:30:51,200
Speaker 1: if you just think about the meat that you're eating

549
00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:54,480
Speaker 1: as a thing that arrives wrapped in plastic wrap. Yeah,

550
00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:58,040
Speaker 1: maybe with a mystical dead leprecha in hand at some point.

551
00:30:58,360 --> 00:31:01,240
Speaker 1: So I'll include links out to both the Nasty Bits

552
00:31:02,320 --> 00:31:06,000
Speaker 1: article as well as the edible dissection instructions on the

553
00:31:06,080 --> 00:31:07,880
Speaker 1: landing page for this episode of Stuff to Blame mind

554
00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:10,600
Speaker 1: dot Com. Okay, Robert, I have a food to ask about,

555
00:31:11,200 --> 00:31:13,960
Speaker 1: and I only know about it because of a line

556
00:31:14,280 --> 00:31:18,040
Speaker 1: in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I remember you

557
00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:22,240
Speaker 1: remember the scene with the French character who's taunting Arthur

558
00:31:22,360 --> 00:31:26,040
Speaker 1: and his knights. I think that's played by John Cleese, right, Yeah,

559
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:30,160
Speaker 1: and he outrageous French knights. Yeah, and yeah, so he

560
00:31:30,240 --> 00:31:32,000
Speaker 1: gives a lot he gives a lot of great insults

561
00:31:32,080 --> 00:31:35,680
Speaker 1: to the Knights of Camelot, and at one point he

562
00:31:36,080 --> 00:31:42,320
Speaker 1: alleges that their father smelled of elderberries. And I always

563
00:31:42,400 --> 00:31:44,840
Speaker 1: found that funny. But it's one of those things where

564
00:31:44,840 --> 00:31:47,000
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've had this experience where you find something

565
00:31:47,080 --> 00:31:49,880
Speaker 1: funny without knowing what it means. It's just the sound

566
00:31:50,000 --> 00:31:53,680
Speaker 1: of the words that makes you laugh. I've never seen

567
00:31:53,720 --> 00:31:56,160
Speaker 1: an elderberry. I've never, as far as I know, never

568
00:31:56,280 --> 00:31:59,120
Speaker 1: tasted an elderberry. I don't know what the deal with

569
00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:03,320
Speaker 1: him is, but they poisonous um. Yeah, this is an interesting,

570
00:32:03,840 --> 00:32:06,800
Speaker 1: uh subject, because elder berries are another example of a

571
00:32:06,840 --> 00:32:10,600
Speaker 1: food item that can prove dangerous if you consume it

572
00:32:10,760 --> 00:32:15,840
Speaker 1: raw under the right circumstances. But it's also regularly traditionally

573
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:20,280
Speaker 1: used in h cooking for in various consumable forms. It's

574
00:32:20,320 --> 00:32:24,280
Speaker 1: been used in medicine for ages, it has antioxidant properties,

575
00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:27,400
Speaker 1: it's used to treat sinus infection, cold and flu, and

576
00:32:27,480 --> 00:32:32,080
Speaker 1: then on on the culinary side, has been used in jams, pies, liqueurs,

577
00:32:32,680 --> 00:32:35,760
Speaker 1: and according to BBC Good Food, it is a must

578
00:32:35,880 --> 00:32:39,400
Speaker 1: for quote the famous German black forest ham that is

579
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:43,960
Speaker 1: salted in seasoned with spices, elderberries and juniper berries. Yeah,

580
00:32:44,440 --> 00:32:49,480
Speaker 1: and the liqueur in particular, it's actually similar to gin,

581
00:32:49,800 --> 00:32:53,120
Speaker 1: which is uh created with the with juniper berries, so

582
00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:56,080
Speaker 1: it's uh similar to that. But um, but this is

583
00:32:56,360 --> 00:32:58,640
Speaker 1: elder berries is something you tend to pick wild, and

584
00:32:58,720 --> 00:33:02,600
Speaker 1: it's especially a thing in traditional English cooking because this

585
00:33:02,720 --> 00:33:04,120
Speaker 1: is something you would you would run out to the

586
00:33:04,200 --> 00:33:07,120
Speaker 1: hedgerow and you pick some elderberry and you bring it back,

587
00:33:07,360 --> 00:33:12,080
Speaker 1: but not stand there at the hedgerow eating raw, right expect. Well,

588
00:33:12,440 --> 00:33:14,720
Speaker 1: there are accounts of people eating it, and there are

589
00:33:14,720 --> 00:33:18,440
Speaker 1: accounts of people eating it raw and not feeling any

590
00:33:18,560 --> 00:33:21,320
Speaker 1: symptoms from it. But this is not this is certainly

591
00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:26,080
Speaker 1: not recommended. Um. So the the UK's Food Standards Agency

592
00:33:26,120 --> 00:33:29,840
Speaker 1: recommends cooking elder berries to destroy toxins they're present in

593
00:33:29,960 --> 00:33:32,800
Speaker 1: the raw berries. And it's also a general rule of

594
00:33:32,840 --> 00:33:36,760
Speaker 1: thumb to avoid unripe berries. So generally, the way this, uh,

595
00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:39,280
Speaker 1: this is gonna work is that you you're only gonna

596
00:33:39,320 --> 00:33:42,840
Speaker 1: deal with blue or purple berries, and you're gonna avoid

597
00:33:42,920 --> 00:33:46,400
Speaker 1: the red ones completely. Uh So they tend to like

598
00:33:46,560 --> 00:33:49,000
Speaker 1: dark end as they age. Yes, yeah, so you have

599
00:33:49,160 --> 00:33:53,560
Speaker 1: avoid the ripe ones. Uh, it's also also a general

600
00:33:53,600 --> 00:33:57,480
Speaker 1: good rule of thumb. Pregnant breastfeeding individuals as well as

601
00:33:57,520 --> 00:34:01,080
Speaker 1: people with autoimmune conditions auto and the deficiencies rather are

602
00:34:01,120 --> 00:34:04,160
Speaker 1: encouraged to skip elder berries because there is that possibility

603
00:34:04,240 --> 00:34:07,600
Speaker 1: for there's also a possibility for for interactions with various

604
00:34:07,800 --> 00:34:12,200
Speaker 1: uh drugs. But but generally speaking, if it's cooked, it's

605
00:34:12,200 --> 00:34:16,719
Speaker 1: prepared properly, especially like you know, jams, deserts, etcetera. It's

606
00:34:16,760 --> 00:34:21,040
Speaker 1: not being consumed on its own, then you're you're you're fine,

607
00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:25,359
Speaker 1: it's been used without incident, you know, for for for ages, um,

608
00:34:26,400 --> 00:34:30,319
Speaker 1: they're There are different varieties of elderberry, and the main

609
00:34:30,440 --> 00:34:34,080
Speaker 1: ones that you encountered. There's a Sambosis negra, which is

610
00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:37,960
Speaker 1: uh the European elder, also called the black elder, and

611
00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:42,080
Speaker 1: that one is most often used for medicinal purposes. And

612
00:34:42,200 --> 00:34:46,000
Speaker 1: then it's generally advised to avoid the dwarf elder to

613
00:34:46,040 --> 00:34:50,120
Speaker 1: Sambosis elbas uh completely and because he gives you a

614
00:34:50,200 --> 00:34:53,560
Speaker 1: cursed magical stone. Yeah, it sounds wonderful that the black

615
00:34:53,600 --> 00:34:57,040
Speaker 1: elder in the forest meet the black elder at the hedgerow.

616
00:34:57,480 --> 00:35:00,600
Speaker 1: But uh, yeah, so, but been in tern of what's

617
00:35:00,640 --> 00:35:06,480
Speaker 1: toxic here. The active alkaloids in elderberry plants are hydrocyanic

618
00:35:06,560 --> 00:35:10,280
Speaker 1: acid and uh SAM boosting, and both will cause nausea

619
00:35:10,480 --> 00:35:13,279
Speaker 1: Sam boosey. And is there any connection to sambuca or

620
00:35:13,360 --> 00:35:16,400
Speaker 1: those just set a false cognate? That may be a

621
00:35:16,440 --> 00:35:19,560
Speaker 1: false cognate. I cannot say one way another on that,

622
00:35:20,160 --> 00:35:23,439
Speaker 1: but I doubt it. Okay, So, so far we've talked

623
00:35:23,480 --> 00:35:26,759
Speaker 1: about mad Honey, We've talked about dead Man's fingers, We've

624
00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:30,479
Speaker 1: talked about elderberries. Uh what what is next? Surely there's

625
00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:33,680
Speaker 1: some exotic food item that you have for us to

626
00:35:33,760 --> 00:35:36,400
Speaker 1: discuss here. Well, Robert, I want to take you on

627
00:35:36,520 --> 00:35:41,440
Speaker 1: a food poisoning mystery adventure. Okay, in nineteen seventies England. Okay,

628
00:35:42,520 --> 00:35:46,520
Speaker 1: this is fitting to follow elderberry. So in nineteen nine,

629
00:35:47,200 --> 00:35:50,440
Speaker 1: on the second day of the autumn term, at a

630
00:35:50,520 --> 00:35:54,479
Speaker 1: school in South London, a bunch of schoolboys, all the boys.

631
00:35:54,520 --> 00:35:59,560
Speaker 1: They're lined up for a school lunch including steak pie, gravy,

632
00:36:00,120 --> 00:36:05,080
Speaker 1: boiled potatoes, cabbage and or canned carrots, followed by a

633
00:36:05,239 --> 00:36:09,960
Speaker 1: dessert of apricots or something called quote syrup sponge pudding.

634
00:36:10,239 --> 00:36:13,319
Speaker 1: Oh that sounds delicious if our British listeners can tell

635
00:36:13,360 --> 00:36:18,320
Speaker 1: me what that is. I would love to know sponge pudding. Anyway,

636
00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:22,719
Speaker 1: after this lunch, seventy eight boys who had eaten the

637
00:36:22,760 --> 00:36:27,880
Speaker 1: school lunch became sick with things like abdominal pain or

638
00:36:28,200 --> 00:36:34,440
Speaker 1: diarrhea or vomiting, headache, fever. Seventeen had to go to

639
00:36:34,480 --> 00:36:38,480
Speaker 1: the hospital, and three of those were considered dangerously ill.

640
00:36:39,120 --> 00:36:42,360
Speaker 1: U two had what was reported as minimal pain, but

641
00:36:42,600 --> 00:36:47,279
Speaker 1: quote diarrhea was copious. And what I'm quoting from here

642
00:36:47,480 --> 00:36:52,040
Speaker 1: is the ninet edition of the Quarterly Journal of Medicine

643
00:36:52,080 --> 00:36:56,279
Speaker 1: and article by Mary McMillan and J. C. Thompson. Continuing,

644
00:36:56,480 --> 00:37:00,960
Speaker 1: the three boys considered dangerously ill were homatose or in

645
00:37:01,040 --> 00:37:04,799
Speaker 1: a stupor and had peripheral circulatory collapse when they were

646
00:37:04,800 --> 00:37:07,920
Speaker 1: admitted to the hospital. The others admitted to the hospital

647
00:37:08,040 --> 00:37:14,240
Speaker 1: had symptoms such as convulsive twitching or spasms, confusion, hallucination,

648
00:37:14,440 --> 00:37:19,440
Speaker 1: and general delirium. Now, fortunately nobody died. All of the

649
00:37:19,520 --> 00:37:21,879
Speaker 1: boys were well enough to go back home within six

650
00:37:21,960 --> 00:37:24,759
Speaker 1: to eleven days of admission, but with a few of

651
00:37:24,840 --> 00:37:28,120
Speaker 1: them it seemed very close. So what had made them sick?

652
00:37:29,440 --> 00:37:33,600
Speaker 1: Onto the Hunt lab tests for bacterial and viral infection.

653
00:37:33,640 --> 00:37:37,360
Speaker 1: All return negative, so it was not a microbial infection

654
00:37:37,440 --> 00:37:41,960
Speaker 1: of any kind. Doctors also tested the boy's blood and

655
00:37:42,080 --> 00:37:45,319
Speaker 1: feces to see if they could detect other toxic substances,

656
00:37:45,400 --> 00:37:50,279
Speaker 1: for example, elevated levels of lead, arsenic copper. They also

657
00:37:50,320 --> 00:37:53,360
Speaker 1: looked for zinc because at the time zinc phosphide was

658
00:37:53,520 --> 00:37:56,840
Speaker 1: used as a common rat poison. They looked for signs

659
00:37:56,880 --> 00:38:00,520
Speaker 1: of organic compounds such as nicotine, organophile, us for us,

660
00:38:00,960 --> 00:38:05,320
Speaker 1: various pesticides, and defoliants. All of it negative. Okay, So

661
00:38:05,440 --> 00:38:09,440
Speaker 1: if we ruled out the syrup sponge putting it not

662
00:38:09,560 --> 00:38:13,000
Speaker 1: necessarily no, all of these could be suspect. What if

663
00:38:13,040 --> 00:38:17,359
Speaker 1: it was the gravy. We don't know what's in gravy. Finally, well,

664
00:38:17,640 --> 00:38:20,480
Speaker 1: that is what's in school lunch, maybe the same thing

665
00:38:20,560 --> 00:38:24,600
Speaker 1: that's in syrups sponge putting mostly circus animals. Right. Finally,

666
00:38:25,280 --> 00:38:28,839
Speaker 1: one doctor Mary Whittaker of the University of Exeter, as

667
00:38:28,880 --> 00:38:30,960
Speaker 1: well as the authors of the study I just mentioned,

668
00:38:31,040 --> 00:38:35,480
Speaker 1: Mary McMillan and J. C. Thompson um they determined the culprit.

669
00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:38,800
Speaker 1: They found that the sick boys blood plasma had a

670
00:38:38,920 --> 00:38:43,680
Speaker 1: deficiency of something called pseudocolon ester race. Okay, now I

671
00:38:43,719 --> 00:38:47,120
Speaker 1: gotta explain a little body chemistry here. Colon ester Race

672
00:38:47,239 --> 00:38:50,600
Speaker 1: is a naturally occurring enzyme in your body. It's in

673
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:54,560
Speaker 1: your blood plasma, and it's necessary for the correct functioning

674
00:38:54,800 --> 00:38:58,399
Speaker 1: of an animal's nervous system. So your body, like other

675
00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:01,279
Speaker 1: animal bodies, has a nervous dome as its command center,

676
00:39:01,360 --> 00:39:05,080
Speaker 1: and your muscles, skin, inner organs don't do much without

677
00:39:05,120 --> 00:39:08,000
Speaker 1: the nervous system telling them to do it. And you

678
00:39:08,040 --> 00:39:10,400
Speaker 1: shouldn't just think about this in the you know, conscious,

679
00:39:10,440 --> 00:39:13,000
Speaker 1: deliberate sense of using your brain to move your skeletal

680
00:39:13,080 --> 00:39:16,200
Speaker 1: muscles to jump over a pothole or throw a bowl

681
00:39:16,239 --> 00:39:18,400
Speaker 1: of soup at somebody, or whatever it is you do

682
00:39:18,520 --> 00:39:22,440
Speaker 1: with your body. Uh, this also applies to the unconscious

683
00:39:22,480 --> 00:39:25,960
Speaker 1: functioning of most of your internal organs. They need electrical

684
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:30,800
Speaker 1: stimulation or inhibition from the nervous system, and these electrical

685
00:39:30,920 --> 00:39:35,759
Speaker 1: signals are transported through the body through structures called synapses. Synapses,

686
00:39:35,840 --> 00:39:37,799
Speaker 1: of course we've talked about it on the show before,

687
00:39:37,880 --> 00:39:42,120
Speaker 1: but they're the gateways between neurons or nerve cells, and

688
00:39:42,239 --> 00:39:45,719
Speaker 1: they allow electrical and chemical signals to pass through. And

689
00:39:45,920 --> 00:39:49,120
Speaker 1: so these signals are often carried by a chemical called

690
00:39:49,239 --> 00:39:53,480
Speaker 1: acetal coline. Meanwhile, you can stop these signals with a

691
00:39:53,600 --> 00:39:57,879
Speaker 1: specific colon ester ace enzyme called acetal colon ester ace,

692
00:39:58,200 --> 00:40:00,759
Speaker 1: which breaks down the acetal coal and that allows the

693
00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:03,759
Speaker 1: passage of the signals. So you need both. You need

694
00:40:03,880 --> 00:40:07,360
Speaker 1: both chemicals in your body to allow and regulate proper

695
00:40:07,440 --> 00:40:10,799
Speaker 1: functioning of the nervous system. If you don't have enough

696
00:40:10,920 --> 00:40:14,440
Speaker 1: colon ester as to break down the acetal colin, your

697
00:40:14,480 --> 00:40:17,320
Speaker 1: nervous system is going to start to experience the equivalent

698
00:40:17,800 --> 00:40:20,520
Speaker 1: of a streak congested with lots of cars, and the

699
00:40:20,600 --> 00:40:24,440
Speaker 1: cars won't stop, so you can experience negative effects all

700
00:40:24,520 --> 00:40:27,280
Speaker 1: over the body as a result of the nervous system

701
00:40:27,360 --> 00:40:32,160
Speaker 1: being unable to effectively inhibit signals firing across synapses. Okay,

702
00:40:32,200 --> 00:40:34,320
Speaker 1: so if this were a game of clue, at this

703
00:40:34,400 --> 00:40:36,800
Speaker 1: point we kind of know what the murder weapon was,

704
00:40:36,960 --> 00:40:40,920
Speaker 1: but not who or whether what the murder is? Is

705
00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:44,640
Speaker 1: it the what was it? Was? It? Was it Colonel Syrup,

706
00:40:44,719 --> 00:40:49,839
Speaker 1: Sponge Pudding, or General Gravy or one of these other

707
00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:54,520
Speaker 1: fine suspects, or in the British version, Reverend Gravy. Uh yeah,

708
00:40:54,680 --> 00:40:57,480
Speaker 1: good questions. So, so the boys have been poisoned by

709
00:40:57,600 --> 00:41:01,240
Speaker 1: something that inhibited the production of colon strays in their bodies,

710
00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:04,319
Speaker 1: or it generally inhibited colonester as. Actually I can't remember

711
00:41:04,320 --> 00:41:06,960
Speaker 1: if it was the production or if it naturally lowered. Anyway,

712
00:41:07,160 --> 00:41:10,080
Speaker 1: they had decreased colon ester as and this allowed the

713
00:41:10,160 --> 00:41:14,719
Speaker 1: researchers to isolate the cause of the outbreak because they

714
00:41:14,840 --> 00:41:17,360
Speaker 1: knew what in the meal had the ability to do that.

715
00:41:18,239 --> 00:41:22,320
Speaker 1: Potatoes poisoned potatoes. And before you think, what, who on

716
00:41:22,400 --> 00:41:24,839
Speaker 1: earth would try to poison a group of English schoolboys

717
00:41:25,120 --> 00:41:28,240
Speaker 1: with a weapon as pure and honest as the potato,

718
00:41:28,719 --> 00:41:31,680
Speaker 1: The answer is nobody. It wasn't intentional at all. The

719
00:41:31,800 --> 00:41:35,840
Speaker 1: poisoning was traced to a sack of old potatoes in

720
00:41:35,880 --> 00:41:39,440
Speaker 1: the school kitchen that had been sitting around since summer,

721
00:41:40,160 --> 00:41:44,640
Speaker 1: long enough to develop a formidable poison profile. The potatoes

722
00:41:44,760 --> 00:41:48,000
Speaker 1: were poisoned by their very own nature, and this was

723
00:41:48,080 --> 00:41:50,560
Speaker 1: backed up by interviews with the students, where it was

724
00:41:50,680 --> 00:41:53,719
Speaker 1: later found that the really the only thing all of

725
00:41:53,800 --> 00:41:56,160
Speaker 1: the students who became sick had in common was that

726
00:41:56,280 --> 00:41:59,320
Speaker 1: they'd eaten the potatoes. For example, like a vegetarian student

727
00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:02,479
Speaker 1: was boys and the other things had different options about

728
00:42:02,520 --> 00:42:05,200
Speaker 1: desserts and stuff. But all the sick boys had eaten

729
00:42:05,239 --> 00:42:09,000
Speaker 1: those old potatoes from the summer term. So how on

730
00:42:09,120 --> 00:42:11,719
Speaker 1: earth would an old potato from the summer term do

731
00:42:11,960 --> 00:42:16,560
Speaker 1: something that crazy, dear nervous system. Well, the everyday potato

732
00:42:16,960 --> 00:42:20,839
Speaker 1: is the tuber of a plant called Solanum tuberosum, which

733
00:42:20,880 --> 00:42:24,800
Speaker 1: is a member of the plant family uh Solanassia, or

734
00:42:24,960 --> 00:42:27,520
Speaker 1: the night shade family, which, of course you might recall,

735
00:42:27,840 --> 00:42:32,080
Speaker 1: is sort of known for its poisons. Eggplants, tomatoes, and

736
00:42:32,200 --> 00:42:34,520
Speaker 1: some of their fruits are also members of this family.

737
00:42:35,080 --> 00:42:41,320
Speaker 1: Potato plants naturally contain a range of defensive poisons called glycoalkaloids,

738
00:42:41,600 --> 00:42:46,000
Speaker 1: and two primary alkaloids, and potatoes are called solanine and

739
00:42:46,280 --> 00:42:49,880
Speaker 1: check a scene, And in most cases of potato poisoning,

740
00:42:49,960 --> 00:42:52,880
Speaker 1: the solanine is the one that gets most often singled

741
00:42:52,920 --> 00:42:55,719
Speaker 1: out by name as the primary cause of illness, But

742
00:42:55,960 --> 00:42:59,880
Speaker 1: there there are multiple glycoalkaloids at work, and these toxins

743
00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:01,640
Speaker 1: can be found in many parts of the plant. So

744
00:43:01,719 --> 00:43:04,120
Speaker 1: if you ever decide to grow a potato plant for

745
00:43:04,200 --> 00:43:07,120
Speaker 1: yourself in your home garden, do not eat the fruit

746
00:43:07,200 --> 00:43:10,479
Speaker 1: of this plant, do not eat its flowers, and don't

747
00:43:10,560 --> 00:43:12,480
Speaker 1: get it in your head to make yourself a nice

748
00:43:12,520 --> 00:43:15,880
Speaker 1: cup of potato leaf tea, because all throughout the plant

749
00:43:15,920 --> 00:43:18,880
Speaker 1: you will find the presence of these glycoalkaloid poisons that

750
00:43:19,000 --> 00:43:21,880
Speaker 1: can do to you what happened to the South London

751
00:43:21,960 --> 00:43:26,640
Speaker 1: school boys. Now, most recorded cases of solenine poisoning do

752
00:43:26,800 --> 00:43:29,440
Speaker 1: not end in death, but in some cases, especially where

753
00:43:29,480 --> 00:43:34,640
Speaker 1: they're like aggregating factors such as malnutrition or starvation at play,

754
00:43:34,680 --> 00:43:37,680
Speaker 1: solanine poisonings can be deadly. And I want to give

755
00:43:37,680 --> 00:43:41,239
Speaker 1: a few examples from a book about food intolerance called

756
00:43:41,520 --> 00:43:44,480
Speaker 1: Was It Something You Ate? By John Emsley and Peter Fell,

757
00:43:44,680 --> 00:43:48,080
Speaker 1: published by Oxford University Press in two thousand two. Uh

758
00:43:48,200 --> 00:43:51,760
Speaker 1: they signed an example where during the Korean War, food

759
00:43:51,880 --> 00:43:55,360
Speaker 1: shortages in North Korea forced people in many communities to

760
00:43:55,480 --> 00:43:59,440
Speaker 1: survive on things like rotten potatoes, and in one area,

761
00:43:59,520 --> 00:44:03,160
Speaker 1: three and eighty two people became sick from soulanine poisoning,

762
00:44:03,480 --> 00:44:06,840
Speaker 1: of which fifty five were hospitalized and twenty two died.

763
00:44:07,520 --> 00:44:11,799
Speaker 1: Symptoms included weak pulse, blue lips and ears, pale skin,

764
00:44:12,480 --> 00:44:15,680
Speaker 1: enlargement of the heart and liver, swelling of the face,

765
00:44:15,960 --> 00:44:20,279
Speaker 1: abdomen and extremities, and death usually occurred within five to

766
00:44:20,360 --> 00:44:23,040
Speaker 1: ten days. In the cases where people died in the

767
00:44:23,160 --> 00:44:27,360
Speaker 1: last stages before death, people experienced excitability and attacks of

768
00:44:27,520 --> 00:44:30,680
Speaker 1: shaking all over the body, and they eventually died from

769
00:44:30,800 --> 00:44:34,160
Speaker 1: respiratory failure. It's reported, and there are a couple of

770
00:44:34,239 --> 00:44:38,640
Speaker 1: other cases. In nineteen eighteen in Glasgow, Scotland, sixty one

771
00:44:38,719 --> 00:44:42,640
Speaker 1: people got sick with vomiting, diarrhea and headache after eating potatoes.

772
00:44:42,800 --> 00:44:45,920
Speaker 1: Of them, one boy died of strangulation of the bowel.

773
00:44:46,680 --> 00:44:49,400
Speaker 1: And also in nineteen five a family of seven was

774
00:44:49,520 --> 00:44:53,239
Speaker 1: poisoned by green potatoes and two of them died. Well Joe.

775
00:44:53,280 --> 00:44:55,720
Speaker 1: At this point, I imagine a lot of our listeners

776
00:44:55,760 --> 00:44:59,280
Speaker 1: are thinking, well, heck, we live in of a French

777
00:44:59,320 --> 00:45:02,399
Speaker 1: fry nation. We live in a a fully loaded baked

778
00:45:02,440 --> 00:45:06,000
Speaker 1: potato nation. This is this is bad news. I mean,

779
00:45:06,080 --> 00:45:10,120
Speaker 1: we eat so much potato, our children eat so many

780
00:45:10,160 --> 00:45:14,239
Speaker 1: potato products. The how do we steer clear of this

781
00:45:14,640 --> 00:45:17,600
Speaker 1: potato poisonous? Are we begging for death? Yeah? How to

782
00:45:17,680 --> 00:45:21,440
Speaker 1: avoid uh? The reaper soulanine and its chemical brethren in

783
00:45:21,520 --> 00:45:25,600
Speaker 1: hoods Uh? No, So most potatoes are fine. This is

784
00:45:25,640 --> 00:45:27,880
Speaker 1: the thing you really shouldn't worry about. And there are

785
00:45:27,920 --> 00:45:29,759
Speaker 1: clear signals to look out for, and I'll tell you

786
00:45:29,840 --> 00:45:32,160
Speaker 1: what they are. But there's no reason to freak out

787
00:45:32,160 --> 00:45:37,120
Speaker 1: about potatoes in general. Potatoes do contain some amount of

788
00:45:37,200 --> 00:45:41,200
Speaker 1: solanine naturally, And actually Dr Harriet hall Over at Science

789
00:45:41,239 --> 00:45:44,040
Speaker 1: Based Medicine has a really good blog post about this,

790
00:45:44,160 --> 00:45:48,279
Speaker 1: about general soulanine content and potatoes. She writes, quote, it's

791
00:45:48,400 --> 00:45:51,160
Speaker 1: estimated that it would take two to five milligrams per

792
00:45:51,239 --> 00:45:54,200
Speaker 1: kilogram of body weight to produce toxic symptoms, and she's

793
00:45:54,239 --> 00:45:58,720
Speaker 1: referring to soulanine there and the glycoalkaloids. A large potato

794
00:45:58,760 --> 00:46:02,080
Speaker 1: ways about three d rams and has a soulanine content

795
00:46:02,200 --> 00:46:05,840
Speaker 1: of less than zero point two milligrams per gram. That

796
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:09,799
Speaker 1: works out to about zero point zero three milligrams per

797
00:46:09,920 --> 00:46:13,640
Speaker 1: kilogram for an adult, a hundredth of the toxic dose.

798
00:46:14,280 --> 00:46:16,759
Speaker 1: I figure a murderous wife would have to feed something

799
00:46:16,880 --> 00:46:20,040
Speaker 1: like sixty seven large potatoes to her husband in a

800
00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:23,480
Speaker 1: single meal to poison him, unless he's a phenomenally big

801
00:46:23,520 --> 00:46:27,400
Speaker 1: eat or arsenic would be a better bet. So regular

802
00:46:27,480 --> 00:46:30,719
Speaker 1: potatoes with normal soulanine content. This is not something you

803
00:46:30,800 --> 00:46:33,560
Speaker 1: need to worry it right, unless you're eating hundreds of potatoes,

804
00:46:33,600 --> 00:46:37,879
Speaker 1: and then you probably need to worry about all those somethings. Yeah, yeah,

805
00:46:37,920 --> 00:46:40,840
Speaker 1: you'll probably have I don't know, a reaction to the

806
00:46:40,920 --> 00:46:45,239
Speaker 1: salt first or something. But properly farmed potatoes produced by

807
00:46:45,280 --> 00:46:49,279
Speaker 1: experienced growers tend to be bread for really low glcoalkaloid

808
00:46:49,400 --> 00:46:52,719
Speaker 1: and specifically solanine content in the tuber much lower than

809
00:46:52,760 --> 00:46:55,600
Speaker 1: you'd find in a wild potato UH and according to

810
00:46:55,719 --> 00:46:58,840
Speaker 1: that Emsley and fell book I mentioned earlier, the average

811
00:46:58,840 --> 00:47:04,000
Speaker 1: potato has maybe three to six milligrams of solanine perms

812
00:47:04,040 --> 00:47:05,920
Speaker 1: of mass, so that might be a different figure than

813
00:47:06,000 --> 00:47:08,560
Speaker 1: Hall had, but either way this is not a threat.

814
00:47:09,640 --> 00:47:11,440
Speaker 1: Most of this also is going to be on the

815
00:47:11,560 --> 00:47:14,280
Speaker 1: outside near the peel, so if you peel the potato,

816
00:47:14,360 --> 00:47:17,160
Speaker 1: you're probably getting rid of most of it, and the

817
00:47:17,320 --> 00:47:20,680
Speaker 1: concentration of solanine and the potato tends to increase if

818
00:47:20,719 --> 00:47:24,480
Speaker 1: the potato is bruised or exposed to light, which tends

819
00:47:24,560 --> 00:47:28,880
Speaker 1: to cause greening. You've seen green potatoes before, those are

820
00:47:28,920 --> 00:47:31,680
Speaker 1: the ones you don't eat. Solanine is generally found in

821
00:47:32,040 --> 00:47:35,560
Speaker 1: UH in higher proportions, and potatoes that are have turned

822
00:47:35,640 --> 00:47:38,759
Speaker 1: green or especially have begun to sprout. I think that. Yeah,

823
00:47:38,760 --> 00:47:40,960
Speaker 1: where I've seen the green potatoes, the most have been

824
00:47:41,080 --> 00:47:46,319
Speaker 1: the uh, the sort of science classroom potato experiments. Yes,

825
00:47:46,400 --> 00:47:48,920
Speaker 1: where you have it have toothpick stuck in it and

826
00:47:48,960 --> 00:47:51,840
Speaker 1: you're you're you're growing it out or something. Yeah, and

827
00:47:52,040 --> 00:47:54,239
Speaker 1: it's been exposed to light for a long period, or

828
00:47:54,680 --> 00:47:57,600
Speaker 1: or classic Mr potato head, I imagine, though I don't

829
00:47:57,640 --> 00:48:00,120
Speaker 1: know that I've ever actually encountered one of those. Oh

830
00:48:00,160 --> 00:48:02,319
Speaker 1: I've never thought about him being poisoned, but he really

831
00:48:02,800 --> 00:48:05,560
Speaker 1: probably is gets out on the counter all day. Well,

832
00:48:05,640 --> 00:48:07,800
Speaker 1: so you're thinking, how can I know to avoid this

833
00:48:07,920 --> 00:48:10,480
Speaker 1: kind of poisoning? How do I keep the glycoalkaloids out

834
00:48:10,520 --> 00:48:13,800
Speaker 1: of my body? Well, simple steps. Store your potatoes in

835
00:48:13,840 --> 00:48:18,279
Speaker 1: a cool, dry place, don't eat old potatoes, don't eat

836
00:48:18,320 --> 00:48:21,560
Speaker 1: a potato that is green or sprouting, and if you're

837
00:48:21,560 --> 00:48:25,000
Speaker 1: in doubt, peel your potatoes because there's likely much more

838
00:48:25,120 --> 00:48:27,759
Speaker 1: poison in the peel than in the starchy center. Alright,

839
00:48:27,800 --> 00:48:29,600
Speaker 1: I feel better At this point, I was a little nervous,

840
00:48:29,640 --> 00:48:32,120
Speaker 1: So now I feel better. Okay. Another fun fact about

841
00:48:32,120 --> 00:48:34,400
Speaker 1: the green potatoes, though, the green you see in a

842
00:48:34,480 --> 00:48:38,640
Speaker 1: green potato that maybe quite poisonous. Is not soulanine or

843
00:48:38,680 --> 00:48:42,600
Speaker 1: any other glycoalkaloid itself, but regular old chlorophyll stuff that

844
00:48:42,680 --> 00:48:46,279
Speaker 1: makes plants green. The soulanine and the chlorophyll chlorophyll, they're

845
00:48:46,320 --> 00:48:49,760
Speaker 1: just correlated. So if you see chlorophyll, it probably means

846
00:48:49,840 --> 00:48:53,000
Speaker 1: there are metabolic processes going on in the potato. Uh

847
00:48:53,200 --> 00:48:55,759
Speaker 1: that this means it's probably been exposed to sun or

848
00:48:55,800 --> 00:49:00,160
Speaker 1: something which tends to increase the sulanine content. Okay, One

849
00:49:00,239 --> 00:49:04,680
Speaker 1: last historical side note. In the mid nineteen sixties, researchers

850
00:49:04,719 --> 00:49:07,480
Speaker 1: in the United States bred a new strain of potato

851
00:49:07,760 --> 00:49:10,600
Speaker 1: that was known as the Lenape potato and it was

852
00:49:10,680 --> 00:49:14,760
Speaker 1: released in November nineteen sixty seven by the Crops Research

853
00:49:14,880 --> 00:49:17,640
Speaker 1: Division of the U. S Department of Agriculture and the

854
00:49:17,760 --> 00:49:21,520
Speaker 1: Agricultural Experiment Station of Pennsylvania. And it was a cross

855
00:49:21,640 --> 00:49:25,960
Speaker 1: between some existing potato varieties selected to create a tuber

856
00:49:26,360 --> 00:49:30,120
Speaker 1: perfect for making potato chips. So it had a high

857
00:49:30,280 --> 00:49:33,799
Speaker 1: specific gravity, meaning a high solids content that's a dry matter,

858
00:49:34,520 --> 00:49:38,200
Speaker 1: and a resistance to common parasites and potato diseases such

859
00:49:38,239 --> 00:49:44,080
Speaker 1: as late blight, potato scab, mild mosaic and tuber necrosis

860
00:49:44,200 --> 00:49:47,160
Speaker 1: from leaf roll and stem end browning. No potatoes have

861
00:49:47,280 --> 00:49:49,440
Speaker 1: the best disease name, do I mean? I guess that

862
00:49:49,840 --> 00:49:51,880
Speaker 1: they're just they're just ready for they're always already a

863
00:49:51,880 --> 00:49:54,440
Speaker 1: little bit grotesque, right, Yeah. And it was also considered

864
00:49:54,520 --> 00:49:57,120
Speaker 1: to make potato chips with good color. Could make good

865
00:49:57,120 --> 00:49:59,840
Speaker 1: potato chips even after it's been in cold storage. So

866
00:50:00,200 --> 00:50:03,120
Speaker 1: new superior potato. This is the age if you want

867
00:50:03,120 --> 00:50:07,600
Speaker 1: to Christine just shining like ivory white potato chip. Yes,

868
00:50:07,719 --> 00:50:10,640
Speaker 1: before we reached its age of like cool multicolored potato chips.

869
00:50:10,719 --> 00:50:14,279
Speaker 1: Exactly people wanted it. It should look like it was

870
00:50:14,520 --> 00:50:18,840
Speaker 1: made out of plastic. But unfortunately there was a problem.

871
00:50:19,320 --> 00:50:22,960
Speaker 1: The lenape varietal was found to have a defect. It

872
00:50:23,160 --> 00:50:27,719
Speaker 1: was poisonous, reportedly able to cause headaches, nausea, vomiting, fever,

873
00:50:28,440 --> 00:50:31,840
Speaker 1: bad symptoms. And what was the culprit, Well, the potato

874
00:50:32,120 --> 00:50:37,400
Speaker 1: naturally contained elevated levels of glycoalkaloids. So the lenape potato

875
00:50:37,560 --> 00:50:42,799
Speaker 1: was withdrawn from consumer consumer production production and shame, I don't.

876
00:50:43,080 --> 00:50:45,239
Speaker 1: I don't think it actually ever made it to the

877
00:50:45,360 --> 00:50:47,960
Speaker 1: stores to the consumers themselves, or if it did, it

878
00:50:48,080 --> 00:50:51,920
Speaker 1: was pretty soon after withdrawn. But reading up on this

879
00:50:52,160 --> 00:50:53,800
Speaker 1: I wanted to note it was my first occasion to

880
00:50:53,920 --> 00:50:57,160
Speaker 1: check out a nineteen sixties edition of the American Potato Journal.

881
00:50:57,360 --> 00:51:00,360
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the youth is your first experience. You're not

882
00:51:00,480 --> 00:51:03,600
Speaker 1: picked up this this journal previously. It's a fascinating general

883
00:51:04,760 --> 00:51:07,600
Speaker 1: But also I wanted to mention that I think because

884
00:51:07,640 --> 00:51:10,560
Speaker 1: of its inclusion and influential book, the story about the

885
00:51:10,640 --> 00:51:14,319
Speaker 1: lenape potato was often referenced in the nineteen nineties during

886
00:51:14,360 --> 00:51:17,840
Speaker 1: the first big debate on GMO crops, though the poison

887
00:51:17,920 --> 00:51:21,640
Speaker 1: potato itself was the product of more traditional plant breeding. Yeah. Like,

888
00:51:21,880 --> 00:51:24,840
Speaker 1: so that's the thing, right, I mean, we've been with

889
00:51:25,120 --> 00:51:29,000
Speaker 1: our with our cultivated um agricultural products. We have been

890
00:51:29,160 --> 00:51:33,000
Speaker 1: manipulating them for quite a while, exactly regular levels, like

891
00:51:33,120 --> 00:51:36,480
Speaker 1: non genetic manipulation I mean, and really by the virtue,

892
00:51:36,600 --> 00:51:39,520
Speaker 1: I mean, it's still genetic manipulation. We've been we've been

893
00:51:39,600 --> 00:51:43,160
Speaker 1: manipulating these plants for ages. Yeah, exactly. I think it

894
00:51:43,280 --> 00:51:45,920
Speaker 1: was just generally considered an example of the dangers of

895
00:51:45,960 --> 00:51:48,800
Speaker 1: what happens when you use science to mess around with

896
00:51:48,920 --> 00:51:52,640
Speaker 1: pure natural foods. But of course the other potato varieties

897
00:51:52,719 --> 00:51:55,360
Speaker 1: that you know, we know and love are the product

898
00:51:55,440 --> 00:51:59,279
Speaker 1: of agriculture and breeding, and you know, scientific investigation into

899
00:51:59,320 --> 00:52:03,680
Speaker 1: the daily in genetics of potato varietals. Uh, and a

900
00:52:03,840 --> 00:52:08,000
Speaker 1: much less dangerous You can produce a much less dangerous

901
00:52:08,040 --> 00:52:12,880
Speaker 1: potato through these processes than the glycoalkaloid rich wild potato.

902
00:52:13,680 --> 00:52:16,919
Speaker 1: So I'm not sure what kind of argument that makes, really,

903
00:52:18,480 --> 00:52:21,120
Speaker 1: So we're continuing to to to try and breathe the

904
00:52:21,239 --> 00:52:25,720
Speaker 1: quizette's how to rack of the potato. But there's always potatoes.

905
00:52:26,600 --> 00:52:29,160
Speaker 1: There's always the chance you'll create these various monsters on

906
00:52:29,239 --> 00:52:32,520
Speaker 1: the way, right, I think, So, all right, we're gonna

907
00:52:32,560 --> 00:52:34,640
Speaker 1: take a quick break, and when we come back, we

908
00:52:34,680 --> 00:52:38,080
Speaker 1: will jump into another dangerous food example, and yes, there

909
00:52:38,080 --> 00:52:45,239
Speaker 1: will be at least one more dune reference. All right,

910
00:52:45,280 --> 00:52:47,960
Speaker 1: we're back. So this is a big one, of course.

911
00:52:48,200 --> 00:52:50,759
Speaker 1: I think everybody's run across an example of this, someone

912
00:52:50,880 --> 00:52:55,560
Speaker 1: saying the apple, the sweet innocent apple, the everyday apple

913
00:52:55,600 --> 00:52:59,560
Speaker 1: a day keeps the doctor away. Fruit. This contains seeds,

914
00:52:59,640 --> 00:53:02,480
Speaker 1: and if you eat these seeds, you will you will

915
00:53:02,560 --> 00:53:05,040
Speaker 1: be become poisoned and you will die. If you heard

916
00:53:05,280 --> 00:53:07,520
Speaker 1: variations of this, I don't know if I've been told

917
00:53:07,560 --> 00:53:10,160
Speaker 1: I would die, but I've heard that the seeds contain poison,

918
00:53:10,400 --> 00:53:13,800
Speaker 1: and I think in a limited sense that is true, correct,

919
00:53:14,000 --> 00:53:15,920
Speaker 1: I mean, it is true. It's one of it. As

920
00:53:15,960 --> 00:53:18,840
Speaker 1: we'll discuss. It's definitely one of these cases where you

921
00:53:19,120 --> 00:53:22,960
Speaker 1: are not going to poison yourself eating the seeds of apples.

922
00:53:23,000 --> 00:53:25,279
Speaker 1: It's just there. There's there's no there's no record of

923
00:53:25,320 --> 00:53:28,200
Speaker 1: this ever happening, And when you start looking at the

924
00:53:28,280 --> 00:53:31,279
Speaker 1: math and the quantity of toxins and the seeds, it's

925
00:53:31,320 --> 00:53:34,800
Speaker 1: just it's just impossible. Yeah. I think, as with almost

926
00:53:34,840 --> 00:53:36,960
Speaker 1: everything else we've talked about in this episode, the old

927
00:53:37,000 --> 00:53:40,800
Speaker 1: adage and chemistry holds true. Or is it chemistry toxicology?

928
00:53:41,040 --> 00:53:46,600
Speaker 1: The dose makes the poison anything, including water, including sugar,

929
00:53:46,719 --> 00:53:50,480
Speaker 1: including whatever. Anything in the correct dose it just poisonous.

930
00:53:50,760 --> 00:53:52,600
Speaker 1: So the question is how much of it are you

931
00:53:52,719 --> 00:53:56,560
Speaker 1: getting and how little does it take to hurt you. Yeah,

932
00:53:56,640 --> 00:53:59,240
Speaker 1: So the reality here is that, yes, the seeds, pits,

933
00:53:59,320 --> 00:54:03,000
Speaker 1: and stones of many varieties of fruit contains small amounts

934
00:54:03,160 --> 00:54:06,759
Speaker 1: of cyanide. Uh. There are a number of forms of cyanide,

935
00:54:06,840 --> 00:54:09,000
Speaker 1: and if you take enough of the wrong one or

936
00:54:09,040 --> 00:54:10,920
Speaker 1: the right one, depending on what your your goal is,

937
00:54:11,440 --> 00:54:15,239
Speaker 1: you can suffer poisoning. Symptoms include headache, dizziness, fast heart rate,

938
00:54:15,320 --> 00:54:18,600
Speaker 1: shortness of breath, and vomiting. Uh. This may be followed

939
00:54:18,600 --> 00:54:22,359
Speaker 1: by seizures, slow heart rate, low blood pressure, loss of consciousness,

940
00:54:22,480 --> 00:54:25,960
Speaker 1: and you know, cardiac arrest and death. I mean, it's cyanide.

941
00:54:26,040 --> 00:54:31,520
Speaker 1: It's it's a poison. Now. Apples in particular contain a

942
00:54:31,640 --> 00:54:34,520
Speaker 1: compound called a migdalin in their seeds, and this is

943
00:54:34,560 --> 00:54:38,400
Speaker 1: a cyanide and sugar based molecule. All right, So if

944
00:54:38,400 --> 00:54:42,719
Speaker 1: you start chewing the seeds, uh, your saliva enzymes they

945
00:54:42,840 --> 00:54:46,600
Speaker 1: hit this particular compound. They cut off the sugar part

946
00:54:46,840 --> 00:54:50,800
Speaker 1: from the molecule, and the remainder then can decompose to

947
00:54:50,920 --> 00:54:55,720
Speaker 1: produce the poisonous gas hydrogen cyanide. Yeah, which which sounds

948
00:54:55,760 --> 00:54:58,640
Speaker 1: crazy and and definitely makes me think of that seen

949
00:54:58,719 --> 00:55:02,200
Speaker 1: in Dune where where where the duke bites into the

950
00:55:02,320 --> 00:55:05,600
Speaker 1: poison tooth in his mouth, uh, and then breathes out

951
00:55:05,719 --> 00:55:08,160
Speaker 1: in an attempt to kill his captors, to kill the

952
00:55:08,840 --> 00:55:11,680
Speaker 1: Vladimir Harconin. Oh, that's a that's a good scene. It's

953
00:55:11,719 --> 00:55:13,640
Speaker 1: a great scene. Yeah, and it makes you think, well,

954
00:55:13,680 --> 00:55:16,319
Speaker 1: maybe you should just been into an apple and just done.

955
00:55:16,480 --> 00:55:19,719
Speaker 1: He fails to kill Harcona. He does he kills Peter, Oh,

956
00:55:19,920 --> 00:55:21,800
Speaker 1: Peter de Friz. Yeah, he's he's so he's able to

957
00:55:21,840 --> 00:55:24,839
Speaker 1: take out one of the batties. But but but luck,

958
00:55:25,000 --> 00:55:27,960
Speaker 1: pure luck saves the baron, as you allude to. Yeah,

959
00:55:28,000 --> 00:55:29,960
Speaker 1: that scene would have been much more awkward if he'd

960
00:55:30,000 --> 00:55:32,680
Speaker 1: been trying to hold on while I eat sixty apples.

961
00:55:33,360 --> 00:55:35,920
Speaker 1: You allow me to chew the My final request is

962
00:55:35,960 --> 00:55:38,719
Speaker 1: that you give me unlimited apple seeds to chew, and

963
00:55:38,840 --> 00:55:40,719
Speaker 1: you hang out really close to my face. It would

964
00:55:40,719 --> 00:55:42,880
Speaker 1: have it was not that that is not a mentat

965
00:55:43,239 --> 00:55:47,279
Speaker 1: created plan, a mentat approved plan. Okay, but so how

966
00:55:47,360 --> 00:55:50,520
Speaker 1: many seeds does it really take? Okay? So here's another case,

967
00:55:51,000 --> 00:55:53,000
Speaker 1: as like we did in a previous example, where you

968
00:55:53,040 --> 00:55:56,640
Speaker 1: have to bust out some grams and milligrams so cyanide

969
00:55:56,680 --> 00:56:00,520
Speaker 1: that toxicity and humans, you're generally talking point five to

970
00:56:00,680 --> 00:56:05,040
Speaker 1: three point five milligrams per kilogram of body weight, so

971
00:56:05,160 --> 00:56:07,879
Speaker 1: you know it depends on your body how big you are.

972
00:56:08,480 --> 00:56:11,839
Speaker 1: Um for a fatal dose, you'd need to hit at

973
00:56:12,000 --> 00:56:16,399
Speaker 1: least one point five milligrams per kilogram of body weight. Okay,

974
00:56:16,480 --> 00:56:18,440
Speaker 1: so that's kind of do Now you have a basic

975
00:56:18,640 --> 00:56:23,839
Speaker 1: range of toxicity and death the seeds of the apple themselves.

976
00:56:24,440 --> 00:56:29,120
Speaker 1: You're looking at three milligrams of cyanide per gram of seeds,

977
00:56:29,480 --> 00:56:33,160
Speaker 1: and one seed is approximately point seven grams, so you

978
00:56:33,239 --> 00:56:36,239
Speaker 1: would it would be like two points something milligrams of

979
00:56:36,320 --> 00:56:39,359
Speaker 1: cyanide per seed. Yeah, you need to Basically, you would

980
00:56:39,400 --> 00:56:42,040
Speaker 1: need to chew an absurd number of apple seeds to

981
00:56:42,080 --> 00:56:44,840
Speaker 1: pull this off. And there are no reports of anyone

982
00:56:45,080 --> 00:56:48,080
Speaker 1: actually doing it, either intentionally, you know, out of I

983
00:56:48,120 --> 00:56:52,959
Speaker 1: don't know madness, or or accidentally. Even Johnny apple Seed

984
00:56:53,600 --> 00:56:57,360
Speaker 1: running around two and on apples all day was not

985
00:56:57,480 --> 00:56:59,560
Speaker 1: able to kill himself. But I think there are some

986
00:56:59,760 --> 00:57:02,680
Speaker 1: other seeds in natural fruits that we eat all the

987
00:57:02,760 --> 00:57:05,920
Speaker 1: time that are a little bit more dangerous than apple pits. Right,

988
00:57:06,120 --> 00:57:08,800
Speaker 1: this is true. Uh, And there's there's actually an excellent

989
00:57:08,920 --> 00:57:12,239
Speaker 1: article that came out in The Guardian uh last year,

990
00:57:12,320 --> 00:57:15,040
Speaker 1: actually uh really good and has a wonderful chart that

991
00:57:15,120 --> 00:57:18,600
Speaker 1: just shows you the different levels of cyanide and these

992
00:57:18,640 --> 00:57:20,560
Speaker 1: different fruits often include a link to it on the

993
00:57:20,640 --> 00:57:22,280
Speaker 1: landing page for this episode is Stuff to Blow your

994
00:57:22,280 --> 00:57:27,680
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. But the basics are that apple seeds

995
00:57:27,760 --> 00:57:31,960
Speaker 1: with three milligrams. Program that places apple somewhere in the

996
00:57:32,040 --> 00:57:35,960
Speaker 1: middle of our spectrum between the point one milligram program

997
00:57:36,120 --> 00:57:39,560
Speaker 1: of the common nectarine, So that's the low end up

998
00:57:39,640 --> 00:57:44,000
Speaker 1: to the seventeen point five milligrams program in the European

999
00:57:44,800 --> 00:57:47,400
Speaker 1: green gauge plum. I've never heard of that. Yeah, I

1000
00:57:47,480 --> 00:57:51,360
Speaker 1: had not either. It's a European specialty. Uh And it's yeah,

1001
00:57:51,400 --> 00:57:55,200
Speaker 1: that's that's a big one. Likewise, the apricot is pretty

1002
00:57:55,240 --> 00:57:59,080
Speaker 1: big too. The kernels of the apricot fourteen point four.

1003
00:58:00,160 --> 00:58:03,880
Speaker 1: And there have been plenty of cases of problematic ingestion

1004
00:58:04,000 --> 00:58:07,600
Speaker 1: of apricot kernels, typically by children, as well as a

1005
00:58:07,720 --> 00:58:10,200
Speaker 1: cherry pits or another one. Cherry pits have three point nine.

1006
00:58:10,640 --> 00:58:12,600
Speaker 1: Now with those, I think i've read that you have

1007
00:58:12,840 --> 00:58:17,320
Speaker 1: to do some processing to make them especially dangerous, right,

1008
00:58:17,400 --> 00:58:19,840
Speaker 1: Like if you chew up cherry pits, there's something they're

1009
00:58:19,880 --> 00:58:23,400
Speaker 1: more dangerous, that's right. So remember the saliva that I

1010
00:58:23,440 --> 00:58:25,840
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier in the apple seeds, So there's that breaking

1011
00:58:25,880 --> 00:58:29,360
Speaker 1: down in the separation of that compound. Uh So, yeah,

1012
00:58:29,600 --> 00:58:33,280
Speaker 1: chewing the seeds, chewing the kernel. Also, i've i've I've

1013
00:58:33,320 --> 00:58:35,000
Speaker 1: heard that if you were to just grind up a

1014
00:58:35,080 --> 00:58:37,960
Speaker 1: bunch of cherry pits. You might have similar scenario as well.

1015
00:58:38,680 --> 00:58:41,439
Speaker 1: I mean you would have a similar scenario. So those

1016
00:58:41,520 --> 00:58:44,680
Speaker 1: are those are the areas where you there's more concern,

1017
00:58:44,880 --> 00:58:48,600
Speaker 1: and generally that means that the concern with cherries, for example,

1018
00:58:49,120 --> 00:58:52,560
Speaker 1: is going to be improper food preparation, like somebody who

1019
00:58:52,600 --> 00:58:54,680
Speaker 1: has no idea what they're doing and they grind up

1020
00:58:54,720 --> 00:58:58,760
Speaker 1: a bunch of of cherries for something without removing the pit.

1021
00:58:59,280 --> 00:59:00,800
Speaker 1: Or it's a case where child gets ahold of a

1022
00:59:00,840 --> 00:59:03,520
Speaker 1: bunch of kernels from apricots or a bunch of of

1023
00:59:03,720 --> 00:59:06,680
Speaker 1: of cherry pits and starts chewing them. Those are situations

1024
00:59:06,760 --> 00:59:09,720
Speaker 1: where the condition often escalates and there is you know,

1025
00:59:09,800 --> 00:59:12,720
Speaker 1: some serious toxicity that a doctor has to deal with. Well,

1026
00:59:12,720 --> 00:59:15,560
Speaker 1: I gotta invite you all over for a taste of

1027
00:59:15,720 --> 00:59:20,440
Speaker 1: my fresh made pasta with home ground apricot pit pesto.

1028
00:59:21,680 --> 00:59:23,760
Speaker 1: But it's one of these situations where, yeah, the average

1029
00:59:23,760 --> 00:59:28,560
Speaker 1: person might not realize that the the average cherry with

1030
00:59:28,720 --> 00:59:31,280
Speaker 1: the with the pit in it does contain bits of

1031
00:59:31,360 --> 00:59:35,560
Speaker 1: cyanide and you could you could have a lethal dose

1032
00:59:35,640 --> 00:59:39,000
Speaker 1: of cyanide in your house. It's just if you're following

1033
00:59:39,080 --> 00:59:41,480
Speaker 1: the rules, you're going to be throwing all that cyanide out.

1034
00:59:42,760 --> 00:59:45,480
Speaker 1: If you eat it the normal way, there's no danger, right.

1035
00:59:46,040 --> 00:59:48,640
Speaker 1: But this is maybe a good reason why I remember

1036
00:59:48,680 --> 00:59:52,440
Speaker 1: when I was a kid having there being games about

1037
00:59:52,480 --> 00:59:55,320
Speaker 1: spitting fruit pits. Did you have games I feel like

1038
00:59:55,360 --> 00:59:57,920
Speaker 1: spitting fruit fruit pits? Yeah, it's like you you you know,

1039
00:59:58,040 --> 01:00:00,880
Speaker 1: how far can you spit the watermelon seeds? Getting watermelon

1040
01:00:00,920 --> 01:00:03,320
Speaker 1: seeds saying they're dangerous? But maybe the same is true

1041
01:00:03,360 --> 01:00:05,840
Speaker 1: of cherry pits and stuff like that. Maybe this is

1042
01:00:05,880 --> 01:00:11,600
Speaker 1: a way of culturally preserving the instinct to not chew

1043
01:00:11,720 --> 01:00:15,840
Speaker 1: up and swallow those those poisonous apricot pits and cherry seeds. Huh. Well,

1044
01:00:15,880 --> 01:00:17,680
Speaker 1: you know I was. I was thinking about this when

1045
01:00:17,760 --> 01:00:21,240
Speaker 1: we first discussed this, because just last night, my son,

1046
01:00:21,360 --> 01:00:24,160
Speaker 1: he's four and a half, he eats all the time,

1047
01:00:24,280 --> 01:00:26,440
Speaker 1: and I was giving him some some orange slices to

1048
01:00:26,480 --> 01:00:28,960
Speaker 1: eat in the bathtub, because you have to there has

1049
01:00:29,000 --> 01:00:30,920
Speaker 1: to be some overlap, otherwise he would there would be

1050
01:00:31,000 --> 01:00:34,240
Speaker 1: no going to bed. Uh. And he is he's especially

1051
01:00:34,320 --> 01:00:36,880
Speaker 1: recently he's been very demanding about how he doesn't want

1052
01:00:36,880 --> 01:00:39,360
Speaker 1: seeds in anything. And he and I bring him the

1053
01:00:39,440 --> 01:00:41,920
Speaker 1: fruit and he says, oh, does he have seeds in it.

1054
01:00:41,960 --> 01:00:44,480
Speaker 1: I don't want the seeds. And I explain, if you

1055
01:00:44,680 --> 01:00:47,080
Speaker 1: you take the seeds out, you spit the seeds out.

1056
01:00:47,160 --> 01:00:50,120
Speaker 1: This is how fruit works. And you just have to

1057
01:00:50,320 --> 01:00:53,320
Speaker 1: to roll with the Yeah, well not into the bat

1058
01:00:53,400 --> 01:00:54,760
Speaker 1: you know, he asked the same thing. I can just

1059
01:00:54,760 --> 01:00:56,280
Speaker 1: spit him in the bath. No, you can't spit him

1060
01:00:56,280 --> 01:00:57,800
Speaker 1: in the bad and back. And this is why you

1061
01:00:57,840 --> 01:01:00,600
Speaker 1: have a bowl with fruit now. But but I wonder,

1062
01:01:00,720 --> 01:01:02,520
Speaker 1: like to what extent this is a you know, this

1063
01:01:02,600 --> 01:01:06,520
Speaker 1: is a natural instinct for for young children, especially to

1064
01:01:07,080 --> 01:01:10,240
Speaker 1: be appalled by the seed because in in fact, the

1065
01:01:10,360 --> 01:01:14,880
Speaker 1: seed of some fruits could prove dangerous to them, you know,

1066
01:01:14,960 --> 01:01:17,080
Speaker 1: in the same way that I've I've heard some there's

1067
01:01:17,120 --> 01:01:19,560
Speaker 1: some theories about picky eating and children that are basically

1068
01:01:19,600 --> 01:01:22,800
Speaker 1: amounts to the same thing that that that picky eating

1069
01:01:22,840 --> 01:01:28,080
Speaker 1: and children is a natural inborn defense mechanism against potentially

1070
01:01:28,280 --> 01:01:30,600
Speaker 1: dangerous foods that are going to be more dangerous for

1071
01:01:30,680 --> 01:01:33,720
Speaker 1: them given their their small body size. That's funny because

1072
01:01:33,760 --> 01:01:37,840
Speaker 1: I see the exact same evolutionary process working itself out

1073
01:01:37,920 --> 01:01:40,400
Speaker 1: in some babies and in my dog, where it seems

1074
01:01:40,480 --> 01:01:42,920
Speaker 1: like just anything that will fit in the mouth will

1075
01:01:43,000 --> 01:01:46,760
Speaker 1: go in there but then come back out right. Sometimes

1076
01:01:46,880 --> 01:01:49,440
Speaker 1: with the dogs, Oh yeah, sometimes, I mean I don't know,

1077
01:01:49,840 --> 01:01:53,560
Speaker 1: my dog wants to eat things that I often think

1078
01:01:53,680 --> 01:01:56,960
Speaker 1: like that doesn't make biological sense to have a drive

1079
01:01:57,440 --> 01:02:00,680
Speaker 1: to try to eat that rock. Well, am I correct

1080
01:02:00,720 --> 01:02:02,560
Speaker 1: in this that with dogs like that's part of their

1081
01:02:02,600 --> 01:02:06,480
Speaker 1: tasting process, like to to to judge the food it

1082
01:02:06,560 --> 01:02:08,760
Speaker 1: goes in the mouth first. Oh yeah, I guess that

1083
01:02:08,880 --> 01:02:10,800
Speaker 1: kind of makes sense. Yeah, I could be wrong and

1084
01:02:10,840 --> 01:02:13,760
Speaker 1: that I'm not a dog expert, but but at any rate,

1085
01:02:14,120 --> 01:02:16,640
Speaker 1: that also the the you know, the the whole incident

1086
01:02:16,720 --> 01:02:19,120
Speaker 1: here with with seeds also comes up. I understand with

1087
01:02:19,280 --> 01:02:23,040
Speaker 1: some pets that I didn't really explore that thread, but

1088
01:02:23,240 --> 01:02:26,120
Speaker 1: I was seeing a number of different posts and articles

1089
01:02:26,160 --> 01:02:27,640
Speaker 1: out there about oh do I need to be concerned

1090
01:02:27,680 --> 01:02:30,200
Speaker 1: about my dog eating these pits? Well, there's certainly lots

1091
01:02:30,280 --> 01:02:34,120
Speaker 1: of foods that are probably not dangerous to you, but

1092
01:02:34,320 --> 01:02:37,000
Speaker 1: might be dangerous to a pet for a couple of reasons,

1093
01:02:37,320 --> 01:02:40,320
Speaker 1: for different body chemistry, but also just because of different

1094
01:02:40,320 --> 01:02:43,720
Speaker 1: body size. A serving that is contains nothing all that,

1095
01:02:44,200 --> 01:02:48,120
Speaker 1: you know, nothing in concentration dangerous to you, might be

1096
01:02:48,240 --> 01:02:51,160
Speaker 1: a big dose for a small animal. Right, yeah, especially

1097
01:02:51,200 --> 01:02:53,720
Speaker 1: a small dog, small cat, etcetera. All right, you know,

1098
01:02:53,800 --> 01:02:55,960
Speaker 1: on on a final note here, you know, so many

1099
01:02:55,960 --> 01:02:57,680
Speaker 1: of the things we've been talking about, we've been talking

1100
01:02:57,760 --> 01:03:02,320
Speaker 1: about like the dosage level, the quantity ease. Uh, keep

1101
01:03:02,360 --> 01:03:06,280
Speaker 1: in mind the spice rack. Okay. Uh. We actually have

1102
01:03:06,320 --> 01:03:08,680
Speaker 1: an older episode of Stuff to blow your mind that

1103
01:03:08,920 --> 01:03:11,400
Speaker 1: is all about nutmeg nutmeg, and I encourage you to

1104
01:03:11,480 --> 01:03:13,840
Speaker 1: check that episode out because nutmeg is fascinating. It has

1105
01:03:13,920 --> 01:03:18,040
Speaker 1: this weird, wonderful history full of like Eastern medicine, um,

1106
01:03:18,440 --> 01:03:24,560
Speaker 1: European fashion, um, medieval medieval manipulation of the humors. Also

1107
01:03:24,720 --> 01:03:29,480
Speaker 1: like bloody colonial monopolies. It's I've definitely read about its

1108
01:03:29,640 --> 01:03:33,840
Speaker 1: use as a recreational drug. Yeah, they're a Malcolm x

1109
01:03:34,160 --> 01:03:36,840
Speaker 1: uh wrote about it's it's use in prisons. You would

1110
01:03:36,840 --> 01:03:39,160
Speaker 1: take a match box full of nutmeg and you would have,

1111
01:03:40,200 --> 01:03:43,600
Speaker 1: you know, an altered state. Uh. There are various other

1112
01:03:43,640 --> 01:03:47,400
Speaker 1: accounts from from history. Samuel Samuel Peeps wrote about an

1113
01:03:47,440 --> 01:03:50,480
Speaker 1: individual who who took nutmeg and ran naked through the

1114
01:03:50,560 --> 01:03:55,640
Speaker 1: streets of London. Samuel Peeps. Yeah, yeah, so so there's

1115
01:03:55,640 --> 01:03:58,520
Speaker 1: a lot there's a rich history with nutmeg. But yeah,

1116
01:03:58,640 --> 01:04:01,640
Speaker 1: nutmeg is an example of something where if you you uh,

1117
01:04:02,080 --> 01:04:04,800
Speaker 1: use just a few sprinkles here and there on top

1118
01:04:04,840 --> 01:04:08,080
Speaker 1: of your egg nog or whatever, and it's it's perfectly fine.

1119
01:04:08,080 --> 01:04:10,520
Speaker 1: I put a little on my smoothie every morning. Um.

1120
01:04:11,000 --> 01:04:13,760
Speaker 1: But if you take larger quantities there can be toxic

1121
01:04:13,840 --> 01:04:18,600
Speaker 1: effects spice trans yes, spice trands essentially except a very

1122
01:04:18,680 --> 01:04:22,520
Speaker 1: unpleasant spice trans uh with lots of nausea and a

1123
01:04:22,680 --> 01:04:26,840
Speaker 1: really horrible hangover. Now I've read no accounts of recreational

1124
01:04:27,000 --> 01:04:31,160
Speaker 1: nutmeg use beyond sprinkles for flavoring that end. Well, it's

1125
01:04:31,200 --> 01:04:35,400
Speaker 1: all grotesque, and nobody tries at a second time uh

1126
01:04:35,640 --> 01:04:37,600
Speaker 1: for the most part unless they have no other option.

1127
01:04:37,640 --> 01:04:40,520
Speaker 1: There are just extremely bored. But but it serves as

1128
01:04:40,600 --> 01:04:43,680
Speaker 1: a I think a fine lesson because if you look

1129
01:04:43,840 --> 01:04:46,280
Speaker 1: at your spice rack in your house, you were looking

1130
01:04:46,360 --> 01:04:49,400
Speaker 1: at a number of different substances that are in many

1131
01:04:49,480 --> 01:04:54,880
Speaker 1: cases toxins. There. They they evolved in the original plants

1132
01:04:55,000 --> 01:04:57,560
Speaker 1: that they came from as a deterrent to keep people

1133
01:04:57,600 --> 01:04:59,600
Speaker 1: from eating them, or to keep people from eating them

1134
01:05:00,120 --> 01:05:03,240
Speaker 1: on you know, certain portions. Yeah, in many cases the

1135
01:05:03,400 --> 01:05:07,200
Speaker 1: pungency and flavor that we prize them for when applied

1136
01:05:07,240 --> 01:05:09,680
Speaker 1: to a very small amount in our food is by

1137
01:05:09,760 --> 01:05:15,080
Speaker 1: itself disgusting. This is it's by design disgusting. It's supposed

1138
01:05:15,080 --> 01:05:17,919
Speaker 1: to be that way as a defense mechanism. Yeah, food

1139
01:05:17,960 --> 01:05:21,520
Speaker 1: technologies essentially our mastery of all of these elements. We

1140
01:05:21,600 --> 01:05:24,440
Speaker 1: figured out how to manipulate them, how to change them,

1141
01:05:24,840 --> 01:05:28,840
Speaker 1: often with fire, and then and then utilize even these

1142
01:05:28,960 --> 01:05:33,600
Speaker 1: these these potent poisons in very small quantities that changes

1143
01:05:33,680 --> 01:05:37,160
Speaker 1: the flavor. So yeah, anything in your spice rack, if

1144
01:05:37,160 --> 01:05:40,680
Speaker 1: you took it in sufficient quantities, you in many cases

1145
01:05:40,720 --> 01:05:44,480
Speaker 1: could have an altered experience, probably not a good altered experience,

1146
01:05:44,520 --> 01:05:48,800
Speaker 1: but an altered one, and or experienced the toxic effects.

1147
01:05:49,760 --> 01:05:51,600
Speaker 1: So it's just you know, worth keeping in mind. I

1148
01:05:51,640 --> 01:05:53,880
Speaker 1: think nutmeg is a great example of that. Uh and

1149
01:05:53,960 --> 01:05:57,200
Speaker 1: I love nutmeg and uh uh and yet I would

1150
01:05:57,320 --> 01:06:01,040
Speaker 1: I would definitely not advise eating a matchbox full of it. Okay,

1151
01:06:01,080 --> 01:06:04,480
Speaker 1: So main takeaways from this episode. Don't eat the green potatoes.

1152
01:06:05,320 --> 01:06:09,000
Speaker 1: The dose makes the poison. Don't grind up cherry wrapper

1153
01:06:09,080 --> 01:06:13,919
Speaker 1: coop pits and make a pesto out of them. Don't

1154
01:06:13,960 --> 01:06:16,120
Speaker 1: freak out over the dead man's fingers though, you know,

1155
01:06:16,680 --> 01:06:20,720
Speaker 1: take them out for flavor purposes, don't eat four cups

1156
01:06:20,760 --> 01:06:25,479
Speaker 1: of nutmeg. I mean basically the take home is, don't

1157
01:06:25,520 --> 01:06:29,360
Speaker 1: take your food for granted, Like, no have some basic

1158
01:06:29,480 --> 01:06:32,880
Speaker 1: idea of where food comes from, the processes that that

1159
01:06:33,040 --> 01:06:36,240
Speaker 1: lead it to your plate, uh, the organisms from that

1160
01:06:36,360 --> 01:06:38,480
Speaker 1: they stem from, and like if you have, the more

1161
01:06:38,560 --> 01:06:41,560
Speaker 1: you know about about what your food actually is, the

1162
01:06:41,680 --> 01:06:44,680
Speaker 1: less shocking any of these dangers are, and also the

1163
01:06:44,760 --> 01:06:48,280
Speaker 1: better prepared you are for these for for the often

1164
01:06:48,360 --> 01:06:51,000
Speaker 1: you know, small chances that you might encounter these problems.

1165
01:06:51,080 --> 01:06:53,120
Speaker 1: I think that's a really good point. Maybe that's the

1166
01:06:53,160 --> 01:06:56,160
Speaker 1: main takeaway from this episode. When you think about your food,

1167
01:06:56,760 --> 01:06:59,720
Speaker 1: think about organisms. Don't think about it as a product

1168
01:07:00,000 --> 01:07:02,040
Speaker 1: it came from a factory, though in many cases it

1169
01:07:02,080 --> 01:07:04,160
Speaker 1: probably was probably you know, if it's a package product,

1170
01:07:04,200 --> 01:07:07,280
Speaker 1: probably was processed in a factory somewhere. But it is

1171
01:07:07,360 --> 01:07:10,680
Speaker 1: an organism or derived from an organism. Think about the

1172
01:07:10,840 --> 01:07:13,800
Speaker 1: organism it came from, the plant, the animal, whatever it is.

1173
01:07:14,160 --> 01:07:16,400
Speaker 1: Think about its place in nature, all the things that

1174
01:07:16,560 --> 01:07:19,400
Speaker 1: fed it and grew its bones, as it in turn

1175
01:07:19,560 --> 01:07:22,440
Speaker 1: feeds you and grows your bones and hopefully doesn't poison you.

1176
01:07:23,120 --> 01:07:24,960
Speaker 1: And I think that's a perfect message for the holiday.

1177
01:07:26,000 --> 01:07:28,520
Speaker 1: So on that note, if you would like to certainly

1178
01:07:28,600 --> 01:07:31,200
Speaker 1: check out any of the links we mentioned here, that

1179
01:07:31,280 --> 01:07:35,800
Speaker 1: older episode on Nutmeg, last year's episode on dangerous foods, etcetera,

1180
01:07:35,880 --> 01:07:37,760
Speaker 1: you can check all of that out it's stuff to

1181
01:07:37,800 --> 01:07:40,760
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind dot com. You also find blog posts,

1182
01:07:41,080 --> 01:07:43,040
Speaker 1: you will find videos, You will find links out to

1183
01:07:43,160 --> 01:07:45,880
Speaker 1: various social media accounts as well, and if you want

1184
01:07:45,920 --> 01:07:47,960
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us directly, as always, you

1185
01:07:48,000 --> 01:07:50,440
Speaker 1: can email us at blow the Mind at how stuff

1186
01:07:50,440 --> 01:08:03,560
Speaker 1: works dot com for more on this and thousands of

1187
01:08:03,600 --> 01:08:12,280
Speaker 1: other topics. Because it how stuff works dot com. The

1188
01:08:20,479 --> 01:08:20,519
Speaker 1: f