- Stop eating these foods
as they can not only make you sick,
but if not prepared properly, poison you to death.
Stay tuned till the end of this video
to also see what food you're not eating
that you definitely should be.
Appleseeds, no it's not cause an apple a day
keeps the doctor away.
It's because apple seeds contain amygdalin,
a compound that's broken down by your gut into cyanide.
That's why they actually taste bitter.
Cyanide is actually a poison that hurts your blood's ability
to carry oxygen leading to hypoxemia and eventually death.
Good news though,
your body can actually break down small amounts of cyanide
and you'd have to eat hundreds or even thousands of seeds
to be at risk for poisoning.
Fugu or puffer fish.
As seen in movies, puffer fish in the dish prepared
can be extremely poisonous.
The ovaries, intestines and liver of fugu
contain tetrodotoxin, which is a neurotoxin
that's up to 1200 times more deadly than cyanide.
Fugu chefs must undergo years of training
to obtain a proper preparing license.
And despite these precautions,
numerous people still die every year from their fugu
being improperly prepared.
This puffer poisoning
usually results from consumption of incorrectly prepared
puffer soup called fugu chiri,
or occasionally from raw puffer meat
known as sashimi fugu.
If it's not correctly prepared,
fugu can paralyze your nervous system
and shut down your respiratory muscles,
meaning this fish can cause you to drown
when you're not even in the water.
Rhubarb, rhubarb is a plant whose stock
is often used in pies, muffins, cakes.
And although rhubarb is botanically a vegetable,
it's classified as a fruit here in the United States.
Their leaves contain high levels of oxalic acid,
which is a corrosive and acidic substance
that can lead to kidney failure and even death.
And I stress high levels because other healthy vegetables
like broccoli and spinach also have oxalic acid
and they're just fine for us.
Don't use this as an excuse to skip out on your veggies.
It's surely the dose that makes the poison.
Actually a wild story is that during World War I
when vegetable stock was real low,
the leaves were mistakenly recommended as a food source
in Britain, leading to poisonings and even deaths.
Elderberries, I admit elderberries are delicious
and actually not poisonous if cooked and ripe,
but the rest of the tree they grow on
including its twigs, leaves, roots and seeds
contain bitter alkaloids that produce hydrocyanic acid.
If elderberries are fully riped or strain properly
when they're processed,
they can cause nausea, vomiting,
and severe, severe diarrhea.
According to the CDC,
there was actually an instance where eight people
attending a religious ceremony in Monterey County
were airlifted to the hospital
after drinking a special juice that had been made with,
among other things, elderberry leaves and branches.
They all survive,
but not before violently violently vomiting,
just 15 minutes after drinking the juice.
Make sure you know who's making your drinks and with what.
Red kidney beans,
actually a lot of legumes can cause an upset stomach
when under cooked, but red kidney beans
certainly take the cake
and that's because red kidney beans
contain a natural protein called lectin.
Within just a few hours of consuming PHA,
symptoms of nausea, vomiting, diarrhea,
and abdominal pain may appear.
This PHA is the bean's natural defense system
like our immune system, but rest assured,
as PHA is destroyed by proper preparation
and legumes are most definitely a healthy source of protein
if properly prepared,
but it's not just a matter of cooking them.
In fact, according to the FDA,
cooking dried red kidney beans for less
than 10 minutes at any temperature
less than boiling can actually increase
the toxicity five fold making them far more toxic
than if you just ate them raw.
Castor oil seeds or beans.
Castor oil is notoriously known for being used as a laxative
to help you poop, specifically to stimulate laxative,
meaning that increases the movement of the muscles
and the intestines helping out with constipation.
However, if you watch the show Breaking Bad,
or my reaction to the show,
you know that the deadly poison ricin shown on the show
is made by crushing castor seeds.
It is reassuring to know that to make castor oil
from the seeds,
we use heat during the oil extraction process
to actually destroy the toxin.
Lychee, lychee sangria, lychee martini,
lychee ice cream, yum.
Lychees are delicious and are a hydrating fruit
that have many health benefits if eaten correctly
and in moderation.
But if you're eating raw, green, unripened lychees
on an empty stomach,
that can prove to be extremely dangerous to your health.
For 20 years, doctors observed an alarming trend
in the Northern region of India, where every spring,
hundreds of children would randomly have seizures,
slip into comas, dying in 40% of the cases.
Failed test after failed test later,
scientists finally determined that the underfed children
were eating unripened lychees that fell to the ground
and they contain high levels of a naturally occurring
amino acid derivative called hypoglycin.
This caused the children to wake screaming in the night
before suffering convulsions and losing consciousness
as they suffered acute swelling of their brains.
Luckily since this discovery,
incidents from unripened lychees in India
have fallen to under 50 a year.
Nutmeg, get this, the delicious little bit of nutmeg
that you add to your pasta, eggnog and sauces may be yummy,
but over ingesting the spice can actually be fatal.
Nutmeg contains a compound called myristicin,
a psychoactive substance that in larger doses
can actually poison your system and cause organ failure.
Myristicin is actually cytotoxic,
meaning that it instructs your own cells
to destroy themselves.
In fact, just eating two, three teaspoons of nutmeg
can result in seizures,
irregular heartbeat, nausea, dizziness,
dry mouth, pain and hallucinations,
similar to the ones people get when taking peyote.
I still remember my med school toxicology professor
sharing that nutmeg is metabolized into MMDA in the body
to produce hallucinogenic effects
and as a result has romantically and historically
been linked as a potential way to get high.
Trust me though, this is a horrible, horrible idea
as the vomiting and toxicity make it
a terrible recreational drug.
There are also no known current antidotes
for myristicin poisoning and treatment focuses
on symptom management and airway protection only.
Potatoes, potatoes are not poisonous in the way
that we usually consume them so relax,
but if you consume a green potato
or even one with a greenish tint,
it likely means that a glycol alkaloid poison
named solanine is also present.
This is an actual nerve toxin that can result in vomiting,
diarrhea, paralysis, and even death
if ingested in very high amounts.
Also, you know those little sprouts and stems
that we commonly refer to as eyes that grow on potatoes?
As they age, they contain the same glycol alkaloid.
So don't eat the stems, don't eat green potatoes
and remember just because potatoes are technically
a vegetable doesn't mean
they can replace your broccoli at dinner, I'm watching you.
Cashews, did you know that unlike money,
cashews do grow on trees
and you probably have seen me eat raw cashews
on this channel as a snack, but truth be told,
they're not actually wrong.
And thank God for that
as cashews have to be heat-treated to move urushiol,
which is a poisonous chemical.
It's actually the same chemical
that causes a poison ivy rash.
Consuming truly raw cashews straight from the tree
can cause skin rashes and extreme,
sometimes fatal, allergic reactions.
Now for the one that you're supposed to eat, kiwi skin.
Some of you may not like its texture,
but health benefit wise, it's really solid.
The skin contains nutrients like fiber, folate,
vitamin C and E.
Adding the skin of the kiwi
boosts the fruit's fiber content by 50%.
And as someone who's struggling to get my fiber,
the furry skin texture may be worth the trade off.
However, as a little word of warning,
if you have a tendency to develop kidney stones,
you may want to look elsewhere for your antioxidant.
Which is healthier, real meat or fake meat?
Click here to find out and as always,
stay happy and healthy.