WEBVTT - Dangerous Foods II: The Second Course 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:05.920 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:15.520 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:18.040 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:21.360 it's the holidays. We know what we do during the holidays, 0:00:21.360 --> 0:00:23.919 at least here in the United States of A. You 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:26.440 put a lot of stuff in your body that maybe 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:29.639 shouldn't be there. That's right, you you eat. You have 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:32.960 these various feasts that are all about getting through the 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:36.520 winter ahead, getting through the cold, dark winter and surviving 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:38.680 to the spring. It's a it's a it's it's a 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:41.320 it's a riot as old as human history and we're 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:45.280 still doing it. Yeah, even with with nasty, weird contraptions 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:48.479 like candy canes. Yes, I have a question, a question. 0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:53.400 Does anybody really like candy canes? Um? I'm sure my 0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:56.440 son would like them if if we we'd see him 0:00:56.440 --> 0:00:58.639 away from it, Like you got a candy cane at 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:01.319 some event recently and brought it home and we kind 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:03.920 of convinced him, actually, this is a candy that is 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:06.080 best served hanging on the tree. This is more of 0:01:06.120 --> 0:01:08.760 a this is more of a decoration. Really, that's a candy. 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:10.880 You don't even have to lie to him to discourage 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:12.679 him about you just be like, this will cut your 0:01:12.720 --> 0:01:15.000 tongue and it's gonna you're gonna be sad you ate it. 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:17.640 Your mouth will feel weird and you'll have injuries. Yeah, 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:20.119 it doesn't have the hyper marketing of many modern candies 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:22.000 because we we we limit the amount of candy that 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:27.000 my son uh eats, and that means we like at Halloween, 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:28.960 he was he had access to all these candies, but 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:31.360 then he traded them into the switch, which and got 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:33.600 a toy in exchange. But there were some candies were 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:35.880 just so well marketed he was convinced they were his favorite, 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:38.440 Like Ike and Mike for some reason. Pike and Mike, yeah, 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:41.560 market they have marketing. Well, I mean they have the 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:44.640 no wait, it's Mike and Ike, Mike and I Mike first. Yeah, 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:46.240 I don't. I don't know that those guys that well, 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:49.040 forget which one comes first. But the package is like 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:52.280 bright green, and they're these colors and he's instantly connecting 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:54.160 with it and he's saying, oh, this one, this one's good. 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:57.880 Look those are fruits on there. It's bright, it's it's potent. 0:01:57.920 --> 0:01:59.880 I want to eat that. That's my favorite candy he's 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:03.160 actually had it. Huh Well, okay, So today's episode is 0:02:03.160 --> 0:02:05.559 going to be a sequel to our last episode about 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:09.800 dangerous Foods that aired last year, and uh so today 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:13.360 is Dangerous Foods to the Revenge, No, the second course, 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:17.840 the return of the food. There is never a good thing, yes, 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:21.320 a dish best served cold, and there is gonna be 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:24.920 a lot of wonderful, dangerous, poisonous weirdness out there to 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:27.280 talk about. But we do want to say at the 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:30.160 beginning that at least I feel deeply Robert, I hope 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:32.640 you feel the same way that being alarmist is very 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:35.560 much against the stuff to blow your mind ethos. Right, 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:37.600 So we are not going to tell you there is 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:41.440 a silent killer lurking in your pantry, that that saved that. 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:45.639 For those websites that demonize MSG and stuff we've already debunked, 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:48.560 this episode is going to be about dangerous and poisonous 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:53.440 misadventures involving rare foods, everyday foods. But no matter what 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:56.800 case it is, it's not designed to scare you, but 0:02:56.880 --> 0:02:58.960 it should be a reminder that we live in a 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:04.880 world of very complex and sometimes fragile biochemical interactions. And 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:07.519 for those of us living in industrialized countries, I think 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:11.560 sometimes our consumer mindset leads us to believe that our 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:16.440 food should meet the industry quality controls standards you'd get 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:20.720 in the dead products you buy at Walmart or Ikea. 0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:24.919 Maybe so if every version of the same product number 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:28.160 table at Ikea really is the same, no matter which 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:31.320 I Kea you go to anywhere in the world, shouldn't 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:34.640 every baked potato be the same everywhere you go in 0:03:34.680 --> 0:03:37.920 the world. But it's not, is it. I mean foods, 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:45.200 the foods we eat, our organisms or substances derived from organisms, plants, animals, fungi, 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:47.640 and as as much as we might like our food 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:51.000 products to be contained and tamed and dependable as the 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:54.839 output of a furniture factory, as we all know, sometimes 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:59.520 life uh finds a way. Yeah, I mean these are organisms. Now. 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:03.080 In some cases, especially with various fruits and whatnot. Uh, 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:06.600 it is the the organism's game for you to eat it. 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:09.560 It wants you to eat it. But in many other cases, 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:12.160 the organism does not want to be eaten and has 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:17.560 certain biological systems in place to prevent it, to discourage it, 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:20.880 to make it difficult for you to carry this uh, 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:24.159 this this act of gluttony out and uh. And also 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:27.240 any type of food that is produced, if it's you know, 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:29.920 a grown part of a thing's body, or it comes 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:32.240 out of the soil or a creature makes it, it 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:35.680 is the It is the end of a production line, 0:04:35.720 --> 0:04:39.919 a production line that is not standardized exactly exactly. No, 0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:42.480 it depends on the region. It depends on the environment, 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:46.400 the climate, the conditions, what materials are available for the 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:51.359 organism to work with. So, yeah, biochemistry is a deep 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:56.160 web of complex interactions, and the stuff we're getting is 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:59.560 not fresh. It's the process. It's the end of a 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:04.000 very process, and it's just very common around the world 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:07.919 in various ways for something weird to happen somewhere along 0:05:07.960 --> 0:05:11.200 that process. All right, So what's what's first? First up? 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:13.320 What's the first course here? Joe? Okay, Well, I want 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:15.880 to tell you a story. Okay. So, in his work 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:21.719 known as the Antibossis the ancient Greek historians, Xenophon tells 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:24.240 a story from his time as a general in the 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:28.120 Greek war against the Persians, and one of his accounts 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:30.840 tells of a story that took place in four oh 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:35.080 one BC. While while Xenophon and his troops are returning 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:38.120 home from battle with a group. Xenophon has got about 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:41.760 ten thousand Greek fighters with him, and they're traveling through 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:44.520 a col Chiefs, which is a region along the coast 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:46.520 of the Black Sea and what is now the country 0:05:46.520 --> 0:05:50.400 of Georgia. And Xenophon's troops come across a place that 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:54.039 is swarming with thousands of bees. It just bees everywhere. 0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:56.719 And you might think, oh, that sounds horrible, but for 0:05:56.760 --> 0:05:59.360 a bunch of Greek soldiers, this is actually good news 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:02.640 because they knew they're in for a treat, fresh honey 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:04.839 from the hive. That's right. They weren't packing any candy 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:09.799 canes or I can Mike uh and and Mike ull. 0:06:09.800 --> 0:06:11.240 It might have. Maybe it was reversed back then. I 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:13.320 don't know how they get the Greeks, the ancient Greeks world. 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:16.200 Oh yeah, the Greek alphabet I come before M. I'm 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:18.920 not sure. At any rate, they probably weren't getting their 0:06:19.120 --> 0:06:22.480 their sweet tooth satisfied quite like they would they would 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:24.560 wish it to be. You know, I comes before M, 0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:31.480 and our alphabet to the manufacturers of this candy. A 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:33.920 little bit of brain problems here with me anyway. So 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:38.120 so the Greek fighters, they've got honey delicious, right, But 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:41.719 after eating the honey, the soldiers started to give off 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:46.400 signs of a strange reaction, and so Xenophon writes that 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:49.400 the soldiers began to go out of their heads, and 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:53.600 they suffered from diarrhea and vomiting. Then the soldiers collapsed 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:57.239 to the ground and wallowed about as if dead drunk, 0:06:57.680 --> 0:07:01.600 and in some cases they seem to have lost their minds. Uh. 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:04.600 In others the men were like men on their deathbeds. 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:08.920 Xenophon rights quote. So they lay there in great numbers, 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:12.040 as though the army had suffered to defeat, and great 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:16.320 despondency prevailed. On the next day, however, no one had died, 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:19.040 and it approximately the same hour as they had eaten 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:21.480 the honey. They began to come to their senses, and 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:23.960 on the third or fourth day they got up as 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:27.760 if from a drugging bad honey. So what happened? Yeah, 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:31.720 I had the local bees risen up against them. Uh. No, 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:35.920 Xenophon's fighters had stumbled into a trove of the substance 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:40.120 well known to inhabitants of the Black Seacoast, mad honey. 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:43.400 This is what the ancients called it. Plenty called it 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:46.120 uh oh, I forget to turn out. I think it's 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:51.480 millymnomenon the honey that is a mad maker like that. 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:55.000 And there are other ancient accounts of mad honey poisoning. 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:59.040 So in sixty seven b c. The Roman military leader 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:02.120 Pompy the Great is taking a Roman army near the 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:05.680 southern shore the Black Sea again while chasing the Persian 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:10.240 army of King Mithridates of Pontus and the Persians. They've 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:13.320 got a group of allies apparently who know about the 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:17.160 mad honey, and these allies set a trap for Pompey's army. 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:20.280 They placed honey combs full of mad honey from the 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:24.360 local bees into containers and left them along Pompey's path, 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:27.200 knowing that some of the soldiers would not be able 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:31.240 to resist a swede indulgence. And they were right the home. 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:34.280 The Romans were basically Winnie the Pooh. They were Pooh bear, 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:37.559 I've got to get the honey. Uh. So many Roman 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:41.320 troops ate the honey. They became incredibly sick and disoriented, 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:44.280 went out of their heads. While the Romans were wallering, 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:47.600 wallowing around, you know, in a bit of a sugary stupor. 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:51.120 The Persian army came back, killed him, led to a 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:54.760 battle with very asymmetrical outcome. I've read that more than 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:58.600 a thousand Roman soldiers were killed and very few Persians died, 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:06.320 very asymmetrical outcome. It's a wonderful exactly. Yeah, a little 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:09.199 bit of a call back there. Uh, that's I think 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:13.640 the term would be a massacre. Actually that's the non massacre, 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:18.679 sticky massacre. But there's an excellent article on Mad Honey. 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:21.839 Actually I came across by none other than Adrian Mayor. 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:26.760 If you remember from our episode on geo mythology. Adrian 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:29.080 Mayor is the main scholar we talked about in that 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:31.640 that episode, and she's known for the theory that various 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:36.160 mythological beasts were inspired by ancient people's coming across the 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:40.079 dinosaur fossils. So, for example, people in Central Asia may 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:44.240 have found Triceratops remains in the Gobi Desert and this 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:47.120 led to the creation of griffin myths. And so we 0:09:47.160 --> 0:09:48.960 talked about her in that episode. But she has this 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:54.480 article in a nine edition of Archaeology magazine called mad Honey. 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:56.720 It's a great read. You can look it up online. 0:09:57.480 --> 0:10:01.600 But she talks about also how in a d a 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:05.520 ruler of the Kiev and russ called Olga of Kiev, 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:08.320 who in general I looked her up. She seems like 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:13.080 she she's pretty be a she's like bad, she's cool. Um, 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:16.040 she used fer minted honey from the Black Sea region 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:18.320 to poison a group of about five thousand of her 0:10:18.440 --> 0:10:21.840 enemies and then had them massacred. Wow. So there's a 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:25.960 there's a long history of of military missteps or or 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:30.240 outright uh poisonings and massacres with mad honey. Yeah, and 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:32.120 with all these ancient accounts, I mean, you have to 0:10:32.160 --> 0:10:34.760 wonder to what extent we're we're getting the true story. 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:37.960 But these are the accounts as presented by these ancient 0:10:38.040 --> 0:10:40.520 historians and authors. Because I can also see where this 0:10:40.559 --> 0:10:44.200 would be a narrative to invoke if you're on the 0:10:44.240 --> 0:10:47.319 losing side, right, you know, to say, well, yes, our 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:51.240 troops were were massacred, and our troops were ambushed, but 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:54.600 they were also poisoned by his local honey or or 0:10:54.640 --> 0:11:00.200 this not because I was right, but but we do 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:04.520 know now that this is totally plausible because mad honey 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:08.119 is absolutely a real thing, and mad honey the problem 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:11.760 is not the bees themselves, but the flowers they pollinate. 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:15.200 So in the Black Sea coastal region, bees often consume 0:11:15.400 --> 0:11:19.880 huge quantities of nectar from the flowers of the rhododendron plant, 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:27.640 and rhododendrons produce a potentially deadly neurotoxin called grayanotoxin. So 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:31.719 I'm gonna be referring to a paper published in Cardiovascular 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:37.920 Toxicology by suz A. Jansen at All called Granotoxin Poisoning 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:42.200 Mad Honey Disease and Beyond from two thousand twelve, And 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:46.080 what they report is that grayanotoxin is also known as 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:51.240 andromedo toxin, acetyal, andromedol and rhodotoxin, and it can be 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:54.000 derived from the body parts of plants in the family 0:11:54.280 --> 0:12:00.680 eric Cassier, which includes rhododendron, pierists, Agarista and Calmia uh. 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:04.880 And in reality, granno toxin is a family of related toxins. 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:07.240 So there are a bunch of different grano toxins. We 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:09.600 should probably speak about it in the plural. There are 0:12:09.640 --> 0:12:11.960 more than twenty five is a forms that have been 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:16.280 derived from rhododendron. And here's the basic way it works 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:19.640 in your body. So grannotoxins are poisonous because of their 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:24.480 ability to bind to the group too receptor site in 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:28.400 voltage gated sodium channels or v g s c s, 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:31.199 and so I'll break that down basically, v gs c 0:12:31.400 --> 0:12:34.240 s are protein structures there a little structures within the 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:38.640 body that span across membranes, and they facilitate the transfer 0:12:38.760 --> 0:12:42.640 of sodium ions which has charged particles of sodium. And 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:46.280 so the transfer of these charged particles is important for 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:50.200 communication between the bodies different tissues, allowing the passage of 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:54.920 action potential in cells like neurons. If you introduce a 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:58.679 toxin that binds too receptor sites in these sodium channels, 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:03.480 you can essentially event effective communication between body tissues and 0:13:03.600 --> 0:13:07.280 disrupt the nervous system. Specifically, the researchers think that gray 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:12.200 anna toxins work by preventing the inactivation of the sodium channel. 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:14.480 To use a metaphor, it would be like leaving the 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:18.360 light switch stuck in the on position. You can imagine 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:20.840 how this would have negative systemic effects on the nerve 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:24.160 cells and the body at large. But specifically, the authors 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:28.800 think it probably leads to continuous uninterrupted stimulation of the 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:32.160 vaguel nervous system, the vegas nerve, which of course is 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:35.400 very important in the body. It interfaces between the brain 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:39.120 uh the autonomic nervous system, and many muscles in the body, 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:41.840 from the heart and the lungs to the voice production center. 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:44.240 So this is bad stuff. You know, you don't want 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:47.040 it in your body. It racks the nerves, right. But 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:51.240 grayanatoxin contamination of honey occurs most often just in the 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:55.360 Black Sea region of Turkey, especially from the plant's rhododendron 0:13:55.559 --> 0:14:01.760 Rhododendron ponticum and Rhododendron lutam. But rhododendron isn't the only 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:05.960 plant to produce nectar containing grayannotoxin, which can filter down 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:08.960 into the honey that the bees produced. Of course, honey 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:12.160 containing grayannotoxin has also been found in North America, for 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:15.760 example in North Carolina, where in the nineteen fifties a 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:18.640 sample was found to contain about a hundred parts per 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:22.520 million of granotoxin. And what did that come from? While 0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:25.560 the authors speculated was probably derived from bees that aint 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:30.560 the nectar of the mountain laurel or Kalmia latifolia. So 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:33.280 I know, if you're a honey fan, you're probably worrying like, oh, no, 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:37.760 am I gonna get mad honey? Probably not, probably depending 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:40.160 on where you are and how you get your honey. 0:14:40.520 --> 0:14:43.520 According to a Texas A and M University article citing 0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:48.880 anthropologist Vaughan Bryant, you can find honey in the United States, 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:52.880 but not not so often so, Bryant says, quote, Normally 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:56.000 there are not enough rhododendrons in one area for the 0:14:56.040 --> 0:15:00.120 bees to make concentrated mad honey. However, sometimes there a 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:03.080 late cold snap in the Eastern US that kills a 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:06.760 lot of flowers but doesn't seem to stun the rhododendrons. 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:09.400 Thus they're the only thing blooming, and the bees will 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:13.440 focus all their attention on those flowers and produce concentrated 0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:16.760 mad honey during that period. These flowers are mostly in 0:15:16.800 --> 0:15:21.520 the Appalachian Mountains of the Eastern US. That also goes 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:24.360 with something I've read about this type of poisoning being 0:15:24.400 --> 0:15:27.240 more common in the early spring, when I guess also 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:32.160 some of these granotoxin producing flowers are they're more cold resistant, 0:15:32.280 --> 0:15:37.680 might might bloom earlier where other flowers aren't available. Interesting, 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:40.280 so it would be the it would be these rare 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:44.240 incidences where the poisonous flowers. Toxic flowers are the only 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:47.120 source for the bees, yeah, because the bees don't love 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:50.080 them the most. The bees would rather have another flower. 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:52.560 But if all the other flowers are out of the 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:55.800 game for some reason, they will go to the granotoxin 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:59.320 plants and make their honey from that sweet, sweet nectar 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:03.040 that people also some people have a taste for. Now, 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:05.120 I'm guessing too that this is going to be more 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:09.000 of a situation with your certainly your wild honeys in 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:13.200 these affected areas, and maybe maybe maybe with with some 0:16:13.280 --> 0:16:16.880 like extreme indie honey. I guess you're probably not going 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:20.400 to get this from a mass produced honey because that 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:23.360 that involves. I mean, number one, there's just quality control, 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:26.200 so they tend to know what types of flowers the 0:16:26.320 --> 0:16:29.760 nectar is coming from. But then there is also massive 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:32.360 mixing involved. So when you get mass produced honey, they're 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:35.760 blending together huge batches of honey from different hives, and 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:38.800 even if there were some containing toxin, it would probably 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:41.960 be mixed and thus diluted way down to a level 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:45.720 that's not a threat. Okay, So outside of the Black 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:48.760 Sea region, you would have to you would have to 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:51.000 really have a string of bad luck, I think to 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:54.240 run across this stuff, right probably. I mean you could 0:16:54.280 --> 0:16:57.120 come across if somebody's like a wild honey collector, you know, 0:16:57.280 --> 0:17:00.560 or like you said, extreme indie honey. Uh, and there 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:03.280 are they don't necessarily know what they're doing, or they 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:06.399 have some bad luck with with what flowers there bees 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:08.879 have access to and they don't realize it in time 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:11.520 before they give it to somebody to eat. You could 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:14.639 encounter mad honey in other parts of the world, but 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:17.040 it's gonna definitely going to be most common in the 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:20.440 Black Sea region, especially in Turkey. So if you eat 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:22.920 some mad honey today, what's going to happen to you? Well? 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:26.840 Clinical characteristics gonna list a few. This is also this 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:30.040 is back to Jansen at all. So there's hypotension meaning 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:36.600 low blood pressure, problems with cardiac rhythm, nausea and vomiting, sweating, dizziness, 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:41.960 and quote impaired consciousness. It's kind of a euphemism, right. Uh. 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:46.000 There's also less often but still noted, fainting, blurred vision, 0:17:46.600 --> 0:17:53.199 diplopia or double visions, salivation, convulsions, atrial fibrillation, cardiac arrest, 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:58.120 and myocardial infarction meaning a heart attack. All that really 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:00.320 from a hit of bad honey. Yes, if you get 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:03.160 enough of a concentrated dose you and eat, you eat 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:06.359 enough of it, you can have symptoms like these. I 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:09.560 would have liked to have seen a clinical list of 0:18:09.640 --> 0:18:13.320 symptoms that also included the various injuries that the Persian 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:17.280 military have afflicted on you in ancient times. Side effects 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:23.480 include massacre, yeah, dismemberment, etcetera. But here's one more thing. 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:27.280 Not all known cases of mad honey poisoning or accidental 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:32.600 Sometimes people take granna toxin contaminated honey intentionally as an 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:36.159 aphrodisiac or as an alternative medicine. And I think the 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:39.480 jury is still out as to whether at low doses 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:43.960 granna toxin may actually have some kind of positive effects. 0:18:44.000 --> 0:18:47.119 I think it's not clear yet whether that actually is effective. 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:50.560 But the authors of the study I mentioned speculate that 0:18:50.680 --> 0:18:54.359 regularly taking contaminated honey for these reasons may lead to 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:59.679 a condition called chronic mad honey intoxication syndrome. That sounds 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:01.760 like a syndrome you don't want to have to put 0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:03.520 on your little form you fill out when you get 0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:07.640 a new doctor. That's right, alright. On that note, let's 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:09.680 take a quick breaking. When we come back, we will 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:18.879 discuss the dead man's fingers. Alright, we're back, Robert. You 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:22.000 have piqued my interest dead man's fingers. Are you literally 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:25.320 talking about eating the fingers of a corpse? Um? No, 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:28.399 but in a way it's kind of figurative. So are you? 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:33.320 Are you? Yeah? Digitally if you will. But here's the thing. 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:35.280 Are you a crab band? Do you enjoy eating crab? 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:37.399 I don't eat it that often, but I do like it. 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:40.680 Do you what is the most crab like form of 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:43.680 your crab consumption? So? Do do you? Do you enjoy 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:47.040 soft shell crab on the sandwich, the legs and the 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:49.399 claws sticking out on the sides. It's another thing. I 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:51.520 don't eat that often, but when I've had it, I've 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:53.959 liked it. Okay, it's it's my absolute favorite. I think 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:56.840 it's the It is the best way to eat an 0:19:56.840 --> 0:20:00.440 animal where there's just there's there's less deniable about what 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:03.159 you're doing. You're just you're biting into this crab. The 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:05.840 whole shape is their shape? Is there might as well 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:09.080 eat a cockroach? Yeah? Yeah, And it's it's the meat, 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:12.199 but also all these other substances that are all fried up, 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:14.640 all the other bits of its anatomy. It's I feel 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:19.120 like it's a very honest mode of consumption, even though 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:20.960 it is cooked. So it's not like you're just eating 0:20:21.280 --> 0:20:24.919 the raw living crab. No, I can get with that. Okay, 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:28.480 well this is uh, we're not just talking about crabs 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:30.720 here though, of course, we're talking about about the dead 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:34.600 man's fingers. Which if you've ever actively engaged in the 0:20:34.960 --> 0:20:38.040 cook cooking of crabs, and catching of crabs, then you 0:20:38.320 --> 0:20:40.680 you probably have some degree of familiarity of what I'm 0:20:40.680 --> 0:20:43.560 talking about here. So in our last Dangerous Foods episode, 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:46.600 we discussed the manner by which food goo puffer fish 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:51.399 become edible via the skilled culinary removal of certain tetrodo 0:20:51.480 --> 0:20:54.920 toxin laden inerts. If you it's got certain organs that 0:20:55.040 --> 0:20:58.359 have especially high concentrations of this toxin. Right, so you 0:20:58.440 --> 0:21:01.400 need a skilled chef to cut that little sliver out, 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:03.360 cook it up and it's good to go. Right, Yeah, 0:21:03.440 --> 0:21:05.359 But a good sushi chef will know what they were, 0:21:05.560 --> 0:21:07.879 what they're doing, right, They'll be able to get it 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:09.879 out of there and you shouldn't have to worry about it. 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:13.240 If if you're in good hands exactly. So this is 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:17.879 faintly similar to that. But but this is definitely a 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:20.280 category where we're going to be dispelling a lot of 0:21:20.400 --> 0:21:25.040 ideas about dangerous foods rather than uh, you know, giving 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:28.000 you the science behind why it's actually dangerous. Okay, Well 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:31.159 you've got to tell me where the name comes from. Okay. Uh, 0:21:31.400 --> 0:21:33.200 As far as I can tell that, the name itself 0:21:33.320 --> 0:21:35.560 is just kind of lost to history. You know, we 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:38.640 don't know like where, you know, what region this came from. 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:43.600 But you do find dead man's fingers in edible crabs, 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:46.560 and it's a it's of course, it's it's wonderful fear 0:21:46.680 --> 0:21:49.960 marketing right decided you have this rotting hand of the 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:53.879 drowned dead that's inside your food, and if you eat it, 0:21:54.200 --> 0:21:56.560 according to the you know, the the urban legends, it 0:21:57.320 --> 0:21:59.760 depends what. It depends on the legend. What happens. Maybe 0:21:59.800 --> 0:22:02.600 you're to become violently ill, maybe you're going to contract 0:22:02.680 --> 0:22:05.040 a disease. I found people who said, oh yeah, when 0:22:05.119 --> 0:22:07.480 when we were cleaning crabs as a kid, um, my 0:22:07.640 --> 0:22:09.720 parents are a big brother. You know, it depends who's 0:22:09.920 --> 0:22:12.640 screwing with you, basically, and who's saying, oh, don't eat 0:22:12.640 --> 0:22:14.800 those parts. If you eat the dead man's fingers, you'll die, 0:22:15.160 --> 0:22:19.239 or you'll catch a disease, or or you'll become violently ill. Uh. 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:23.400 The versions are various, but I find the stories particularly 0:22:23.440 --> 0:22:27.200 interesting given our relationship with crabs, creatures that we have 0:22:27.320 --> 0:22:30.480 to keep alive and then cook alive in order to 0:22:30.920 --> 0:22:33.600 to eat them. So it's it's perfectly strange that we 0:22:33.680 --> 0:22:37.359 summon this tiny, rotting humanoid hand inside the body of 0:22:37.400 --> 0:22:40.159 our victim. Yeah, that is a nice metaphor. Is like 0:22:40.320 --> 0:22:43.800 that the hand that places them into the pot boiling 0:22:43.880 --> 0:22:47.520 water comes back from inside the shell. Yeah, so it's 0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:50.239 kind of kind of beautiful in its own way. And uh, 0:22:50.359 --> 0:22:52.119 And in trying to figure this out, because I'm not 0:22:52.119 --> 0:22:53.800 gonna spoil it just yet, if you don't know what 0:22:53.880 --> 0:22:56.240 the dead man's hand is, you might expect it to 0:22:56.280 --> 0:23:00.240 be something related to digestion, right, Yeah, I'm guessing crab 0:23:00.359 --> 0:23:02.840 anus or I don't know. No, as far as I 0:23:02.880 --> 0:23:05.359 know you, you you eat the that portion of the crab, 0:23:05.800 --> 0:23:09.119