- These bill berries are often used in jams , jelly, Their leaves, twigs and seeds contain cyanide-producing glycoside. Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and coma are the symptoms to look forward to. Suffice it to say, hope your herbal tea was prepared correctly, and that whoever made your jam or wine strained the fruit. Also, never eat them unripe.
BULLFROG
- This giant African bullfrog is considered a delicacy in Namibia, but contains a poison known as Oshiketakata, which can cause kidney failure and death. cook it in a pot with dry wood, which supposedly neutralizes the poison.
ACKEE FRUIT
Turning our attention to the Caribbean , we find the delicious but dangerous fruit . Although rich in vitamins and protein, if the fruit is eaten before it is fully ripe, it prevents glucose from being released from the liver, quickly lowering one’s blood sugar and ensuring violent illness or death. Many have called the symptoms following ingestion of the unripe fruit Jamaican vomiting sickness .
STAR FRUIT
- Just 100 ml of this fruit’s juice is poisonous for people with bad kidneys — it contains neurotoxins that affect the brain and nerves. If you have healthy kidneys , have no fear. Your body will be able to filter out the neurotoxins
- PANGIUM EDULE; Pangium edule, the fruit from a tree native to Southeast Asia, is poisonous to humans due to the hydrogen cyanide it contains. (It’s known as “the fruit that nauseates.”) The seeds are eaten after either being boiled without their shells and soaked in water, or after boiling and burying them in banana leaves and ash for a month or two to release the cyanide.
- SILVER STRIPE BLAASOP fish ; Although delicacy in some ports of the Indian Ocean, the liver , skin, and reproductive organs of the Silver Stripe Blaasop supposedly contain a poisonous substance that can cause fatal muscle paralysis and breathing and circulation problems if eaten by humans.
FUGU
- Fugu also known as puffer fish , is a fish whose liver and internal organs contain deadly 7 amounts of the poison tetrodotoxin, for which there is no known antidote. It might surprise many to know, however, that any fugu chef worth his weight in Japan will attempt to leave just the right amount of poison for a tingling sensation to pass through the diner’s tongue, leaving him satisfied with the taste and experience.
If you are in the mood to “risk your life,” be sure to travel to the city of Shimonoseki in western Japan where no fugu-related deaths have ever been reported. In addition, you have the choice of raw fugu sashimi , fried fugu (tastes like chicken), boiled fugu, fugu with miso, and fugu sake.
HÁKARL
Greenland shark is used to make this Icelandic delicacy, which is translated as fermented shark This species of shark has no urinary tract , meaning the meat is full of toxic urine substances like trimethylamine oxide. To remove the toxins, the sharks are buried in a sand and gravel pit to remove moisture, then fermented, and cut into strips before being hung to dry. The process takes about six months — and the end product smells like it. If you try it, you better multitask — fork in one hand, nose plugged with the other.
Castor oil beans ;the bane of many of our childhoods, is regularly added to candies, chocolate, and other foods. Furthermore, many people still consume a small amount daily or force it on their unwilling children. Fortunately the castor oil we buy is carefully prepared, because the castor bean is so deadly, that it takes just one bean to kill a human, and four to kill a horse. The poison is ricin, which is so toxic that workers who collect the seeds have strict safety guidelines to prevent accidental death. Despite this, many people working in the fields gathering the seeds suffer terrible side-effects.
Almonds; are one of the most useful and wonderful of seeds (it is not a nut as many people would have you believe). It has a unique taste and its excellent suitability for use in cooking have made it one of the most popular ingredients in pastry kitchens for centuries. The most flavorsome almonds are bitter almonds (as opposed to “sweet” almonds). They have the strongest scent and are the most popular in many countries. But there is one problem: they are full of cyanide. Before consumption, bitter almonds must be processed to remove the poison. Despite this requirement, some countries make the sale of bitter almonds illegal (New Zealand regretfully is one of them). As an alternative, you can use the pip from an apricot stone which has a similar flavor and poison content. Heating destroys the poison. In fact, you may not know that it is now illegal in the USA to sell raw almonds – all almonds sold are now heat-treated to remove traces of poison and bacteria.
Cherries ; are a very popular fruit – used in cooking, liqueur production, or eaten raw. They are from the same family as plums, apricots, and peaches. All of the previously mentioned fruits contain highly poisonous compounds in their leaves and seeds. Almonds are also a member of this family but they are the only fruit which is harvested especially for its seeds. When the seeds of cherries are crushed, chewed, or even slightly injured, they produce prussic acid (hydrogen cyanide). Next time you are eating cherries, remember not to suck on or chew the pip.
Apple seeds ; contain cyanide – JUST LIKE THE peach , chari and apricot seeds. but obviously in much smaller doses. Apple seeds are very often eaten accidentally but you would need to chew and consume a fairly high number to get sick. There are not enough seeds in one apple to kill, but it is absolutely possible to eat enough to die. I recommend avoiding apple eating competitions! Incidentally, if you want to eat an apple and find a worm in it (and hopefully not half a worm), you can drop it in a bowl of salt water which will kill the worm.
Green Tomatos ; First off, a little interesting trivia: in the US, thanks to a US Supreme Court decision in 1893, tomatoes are vegetables. In the rest of the world they are considered to be fruit (or more accurately, a berry). The reason for this decision was a tax on vegetables but not fruit. You may also be interested to know that technically, a tomato is an ovary. The leaves and stems of the tomato plant contain a chemical called “Glycoalkaloid” which causes extreme nervousness and stomach upsets. Despite this, they can be used in cooking to enhance flavor, but they must be removed before eating. Cooking in this way does not allow enough poison to seep out but can make a huge difference in taste. Finally, to enhance the flavor of tomatoes, sprinkle a little sugar on them. Now we just need to work out whether they are “toe-mah-toes” or “toe-may-toes”.
Green Potatoes ; have appeared in our history books since their introduction to Europe in the 16th century. Unfortunately they appear largely due to crop failure and severe famine, but they will be forever the central vegetable of most western families daily diet. Potatoes (like tomatoes) contain poison in the stems and leaves – and even in the potato itself if left to turn green (the green is due to a high concentration of the glycoalkaloid poison). Potato poisoning is rare, but it does happen from time to time. Death normally comes after a period of weakness and confusion, followed by a coma. The majority of cases of death by potato in the last fifty years in the USA have been the result of eating green potatoes or drinking potato leaf tea.
Thanks for reading. Be careful what you eat