Posted on 07/20/2010 10:18:54 AM PDT by Willie Green
Why do many food plants contain cyanide?
In murder mysteries, the detective usually diagnoses cyanide poisoning by the scent of bitter almonds wafting from the corpse. The detective knows what many of us might find surprising — that the deadly poison cyanide is naturally present in bitter almonds and many other plants used as food, including apples, peaches, apricots, lima beans, barley, sorghum, flaxseed and bamboo shoots.
There's a reason that cyanide exists in all these plants, and it is — to paraphrase Sherlock Holmes — evolutionary, suggests Kenneth M. Olsen, PhD, an assistant professor of biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.
Olsen, who studies white clover, cassava and other plants that produce cyanide, says the plants have an ingenious poison delivery system, one that evolution has designed to discourage herbivores from feasting on them.
Due to proper food processing techniques and strict regulations, cyanide-wielding plants pose little threat to the American food supply. But, in Africa, where cassava root has become a major part of subsistence diets, many poor people suffer from a chronic form of cyanide poisoning known as konzo.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.wustl.edu ...
I’m shocked, shocked, that almonds, apples, peaches, apricots, lima beans, barley, sorghum, flaxseed and bamboo shoots are legal. They need to be seized, burned and banned immediately, and all homes need to be searched for any stores of this dangerous material. In addition, schools and doctors need to question students and patients about their knowledge of the growing or storing of any of it.
It’s the only way to be safe. No amount is a safe amount. Safety is the only thing that matters. Children need to be safe. Without safety, freedom is useless. Only when all things are restricted, will we be safe. True safety os obedience. Resistence is unsafe.
Be safe.
Or else.
Yes. When I was a child, many kids had almonds, apples, peaches, apricots, lima beans, barley, sorghum, flaxseed and bamboo shoots included in their lunch boxes. But now it seems that every third kid suddenly has an allergy to cyanide, and those wholesome foods cannot be taken to school any more.
I was at my mother’s house a few months ago and she had a jar of what looked like small almonds. She said they were apricot seeds and a good source of cancer killing vitamin B17.
Anyway, I at a handfull of the suckers and they tasted exactly like “imitation” almond extract but very bitter. I loved ‘em. I eat ten or twenty every time I’m there. I remember thinking, “I thought these had cyanide in them.”
Oh well. I’m alive and feeling fine...
“I’m shocked, shocked, that almonds, apples, peaches, apricots, lima beans, barley, sorghum, flaxseed and bamboo shoots are legal. They need to be seized, burned and banned immediately, and all homes need to be searched for any stores of this dangerous material.”
You may jest but “Vitamin B17” found in aprocot kernels are BANNED for sale in the United States.
http://www.worldwithoutcancer.com/
and here i thought B17 was just a war-winning airplane...
and here i thought B17 was just a war-winning airplane...
“I was at my mother’s house a few months ago and she had a jar of what looked like small almonds. She said they were apricot seeds and a good source of cancer killing vitamin B17.”
A few years ago a read a book,”World Without Cancer” that advocated eating apricot kernels for its “Vitamin B17”.:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4312930190281243507#
I don’t get it... what does this have to do with billion-dollar mass-transit boondoggles? Do autos create almond pollution? (*tweak* *grin*)
Thought this might interest you.
That, too, can be hazardous to your health.
Kudos for an interesting thread.
You just cited the mandatory Obamacare diet.
So. Nature evolved the binary weapon eons before the Bigeye bomb.
Seven day waiting period.
Oh, but I do not jest. I laugh, to keep from going mad, but I do not jest.
As Raymond Chandler called it, “Nevada Gas”
Thaks, Gene Eric. I have an apricot tree just beginning to bear fruit, the pits are supposed to be edible (Sweet Pit Apricot) and are supposed to taste like almonds. I haven’t tried any yet...
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