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10 Everyday Foods That Can Kill You
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5. Wild Almonds (bitter almonds)
If you ever needed a reason to buy almonds from your supermarket and not go picking them yourself in orchards, this is it, friends.
If you weren’t aware of it before, there are two types of almonds. Sweet almonds and bitter almonds. Bitter almonds, when eaten raw, are extremely poisonous. Bitter almonds contain a poison called glycoside amygdalin. After someone consumes bitter almonds, glycoside amygdalin turns into prussic acid, more commonly known as hydrogen cyanide; the same substance used in the Nazi gas chambers. Yeah. This is some serious stuff.
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So if you’re walking out in the woods and see a beautiful almond tree just loaded with some luscious looking nuts, don’t assume that it’s OK to eat them. It actually takes very little of the poison in these nuts to kill you. Depending on your weight, it only takes about 100 to 200mg of cyanide to kill you within 5 to 7 minutes. That means it only takes about 2 handfuls of bitter almonds to make you drop dead.
After processing, bitter almonds can be safely eaten since all hydrogen cyanide is leached out during the heating process. It’s illegal to sell unrefined bitter almonds so if you see some for sale in your supermarket, there’s no need to freak out, they’re safe.
alaskaman
Oct 25, 2014 at 3:52 am
10 everyday foods? Since when is fugu or puffer fish everyday food?