Ten deadly foods in your kitchen

Humans are stubborn and drawn to danger, never to be cowed by odds for danger or death. It’s the reason why people will eat stale food to save money. Nailantei Norari compiles a list of potentially harmful or poisonous foods that you may have in your pantry in a bid to save you from the ten-day washroom stay.

Fruit seeds

Like apples, cherry pits contain a type of hydrogen cyanide called prussic acid. In the olden days, people would collect apple seeds over time then eat them at one go in order to commit suicide.

Rhubarb

Rhubarb leaves, a locally available vegetalbe contains oxalic acid, which causes kidney stones. It will take 4.98 kilogrammes of leaves to be fatal, but much less to make you seriously ill.

NutmeG

Nutmeg is a hallucinogenic, who knew? You can trip on it, while eating just 0.0056kgs. of it could lead to convulsions, and just 0.0085 kilogrammes could lead to seizures.

Eating 0.02835 kg will lead to a type of ‘nutmeg psychosis’, which includes a sense of impending doom, they say!

Potatoes

Glycoalkaloids, also found in nightshade, can be found in the leaves, stems, and sprouts of potatoes. It can also build up in the potato if it’s left too long, especially in the light.

Eating glycoalkaloids will lead to cramping, diarrhoea, confused headaches, or even coma and death. Just three to six milligramme per kilogramme of body weight could be fatal. Please avoid potatoes with a greenish tinge.

Tomatoes

The stems and leaves of tomatoes contain alkali poisons that can cause stomach agitation.

Unripe green tomatoes have been said to have the same effect. You would need to consume vast quantities for it to be fatal. 

Raw Honey

Because it doesn’t go through the pasteurisation process in which harmful toxins are killed, unpasteurised honey often contains grayanotoxin.

Ingestion of a tablespoon of the compound can lead to dizziness, weakness, excessive sweating, nausea, and vomiting that last for 24 hours. 

Almonds

There are sweet almonds and bitter almonds. The bitter ones supposedly contain relatively large amounts of hydrogen cyanide.

It’s said that even eating just seven to 10 raw bitter almonds can cause problems in adults, and could be fatal for children.

Tuna

The danger in tuna is the mercury that the fish absorbs. Once in your body, mercury will either pass through your kidneys, or travel to your brain and supposedly drive you insane.

Children and pregnant women should, therefore, not consume tuna at all. But it is important to monitor your weekly intake. 

Cassava

The leaves and roots of cassava are surprisingly rich in cyanide. While it is very popular in Africa, if one cooks the leaves or the tuber without removing the ‘root’ in the middle, it could lead to diarrhea, indigestion and at times even death.

Cashews

Raw cashews found in supermarket shelves are not actually raw, as they’ve been steamed to remove urushiol, a chemical also found in poison ivy.

This chemical can cause the same effect as poison ivy or poison oak. High levels of urushiol can prove fatal. People allergic to poison ivy are likely to have a fatal allergic reaction to eating actual raw cashews.