posted
You heard it here first. Or maybe not. Judging from the large number of sites I came across while checking this out, it's a fairly well known fact. One which I was blissfully (and almost fatally) unaware of.
I've been eating a lot of apples lately. They're low cal, and some of them are pretty tasty. Personally, I've been snarfing Braeburns, both because they're yummy, and because they have very little core.
See, I'm a lazy eater. Back before I kept kosher, I'd eat the tails of shrimp. I eat peanuts in the shell (as long as the shell is salted as well -- if it's not, I'll pass entirely and wait for shelled ones). I won't even bother with oranges unless I know they're seedless. Or mostly seedless.
So when it comes to apples, I pretty much do the whole Mr. Ed thing, and eat them, core and all. If you have an apple with a lot of core, or with a really fibrous core, you can't really do it, but Braeburns are easy.
At first, I was eating everything but the seeds and the stem. But then I got tired of worrying about the seeds. And then I started getting headaches from the apples.
The first one, I thought it was a migraine coming on. It was pretty nasty, and started immediately after eating an apple. Not that I thought there was any connection. Until the next day, when I ate an apple, and immediately got a return of the pre-migraine feeling.
So I did a websearch. And found out that I'd been dosing myself with cyanide. Which, in retrospect, isn't the brightest thing I've ever done. To make things worse, I sometimes bit the seeds while eating, which broke through the protective coating and really let the poison into my system.
But I can definitely say that cyanide poisoning hurts. A lot. Which isn't a piece of information I ever expected to possess.
How long before someone decides apples need warning labels?
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posted
I know a few people who eat the whole apple and have never complained about anything like that.
Posts: 2867 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
I am one of those apple eaters. I didn't realize that they were destroying my life until it was too late. Now I'm campaigning for better laws, but you can read my whole story in my latest book. Get it for only 9.99$ + shipping!
Posts: 3060 | Registered: Nov 2003
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posted
My dog always spits apple pips out. I always wondered why she bothered to do that when she's not usually exactly discerning about what she eats.
And now maybe I know! It's probably a good survival trait.
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posted
I've known about the cyanide thing for years (since I worked at my aunt and uncle's apple orchard as a kid) but I was always under the impression that the amount of cyanide in them was very low (i.e. you'd have to chug a large glass of just apple seeds in order to die of cyanide poisoning, but you'd probably die of a bowel obstruction or the like first)
but I'll admit that I never did research into the real numbers, and your experience seems to show that there may be at least some effect (though I don't know that I'd difinitively blame the cyanide yet, even if it is a likely suspect)
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posted
Generally, the outer shell of the seed keeps the cyanide from getting into your digestive system. So swallowing them shouldn't be a problem. Unless, as you say, you swallow a ton of them. The problem was, I was eating an apple's worth of seeds every day, and generally chewing at least some of them in the process.
It's funny, because when I realized it might be the apple, I did a seach on "apple seeds poisonous". Thinking that I probably wouldn't find anything. But wow, did I find stuff.
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posted
You generally need to actually chew them up for there to be any kind of problem. I'm not exactly sure how soluble cyanide is in saliva, which is mostly water. Presumably, one cup of apple seeds has enough cyanide to kill an adult human, but even then it would be pretty hard to eat and chew that many.
Someone above was right about peach and apricot pits as well. It is a character of many plants in this plant family.
Posts: 514 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
I guess this doesn't necessarily disprove my "cup" generalization either (since it doesn't appear that you were in any danger of serious physical harm) it just means that a smaller amount of cyanide may have a still noticable and unpleasant effect. either way I'll have to add that to my informativeness in future conversations regarding the danger of eating appleseeds.
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posted
Bernie just ate HALF AN APPLE! He probably ate the seeds too! He's driving me completely insane!
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It was a key point in a murder mystery I read years and years back. Also, some people are far more sensitive than others. And as was mentioned, if you don't chew them, they will likely pass through your system intact.
The rabbit is probably fine. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
This strikes me as a horrible way to kill someone: Bet them $20 that they can't eat and chew three cups of apple seeds...
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quote: About the only way you can actually ruin into a problem with the toxicity of apple seeds is if you save the seeds from about a bushel of apples and eat them all at once.
Richard E. Barrans Jr., Ph.D. Assistant Director PG Research Foundation, Darien, Illinois
posted
Okay, those of you who eat the core: why? The core is fibrous, bitter, and generally icky, and it takes less total energy to throw it away than to try to ingest it. Why WOULD you eat the core?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Perplexity'sDaughter: Come on. Shrimp tails? Yucky.
Nah, just crunchy. And since I generally had fried shrimp... well, you can eat just about anything fried. I eat the spines of fried chicken, I mean. Chew up right up.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Okay, those of you who eat the core: why? The core is fibrous, bitter, and generally icky, and it takes less total energy to throw it away than to try to ingest it. Why WOULD you eat the core?
There is actually quite a lot of apple in the core. Also I like not having to hold a sticky apple core when I'm in a situation where I can't dispose of it.
Posts: 527 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
I had no idea that apple seeds were poisonous. When I was a boy I used to gorge myself on apples every night, I'd eat one-two and I am sure I ate most of the seeds though I usually did not eat the cores. I'd sneak them into bed in the middle of the night thinking my mom was oblivious, though I left the cores under my bed, in reality my mom was secretly pleased I was sneaking fresh fruit rather then candy to bed and just let it slide.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Okay, those of you who eat the core: why? The core is fibrous, bitter, and generally icky, and it takes less total energy to throw it away than to try to ingest it. Why WOULD you eat the core?
There is actually quite a lot of apple in the core. Also I like not having to hold a sticky apple core when I'm in a situation where I can't dispose of it.
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: You swallow your gum, too, don't you?
Always have. Most of the time, anyway. Not that I've chewed gum for probably years, but when I did, sure.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Fruiting plants have sort of made this deal with animal species, see, they give us (collectively) pollen, pretty flowers (generally), and some tasty fruits (the durian notwithstanding), and in return, we poop out their seeds and give the species a chance to colonize new neighborhoods.
Since seeds are nutritious also (sometimes more nutritious than the actual fruit), some plants have had to come up with ways to ensure that the seed survives its journey through the animal kingdom intact. Cyanide, cardiac glycosides, and various other plant "secondary compounds" are part of that defense.
Swallowing the seeds whole (generally) is what nature intended. Crushing (and thus killing the seed) or digesting the seed, is not.
It's kind of a pain for modern industrialized societies. We have to commit to a lot of wastage in things like apple juice and sauce processes just to be sure that the machines aren't nicking seeds open and pushing them through the strainers. Imagine the embarrassment to, say, Gerber baby foods if their product was found to contain cyanide!!!
So, they have to core apples with a lot of waste.
Anyway, eating seeds whole is not generally going to be a problem unless you eat way too many or have a particularly aggressive digestive tract.
I still wouldn't do it, but, for the most part, it's not going to be a problem.
IIRC, pear seeds are even higher in cyanide. I could be wrong. I'm betting that the amount of cyanide varies dramatically among the different apple varieties. Ones with a soft core might actually be expected to have more, rather than less, poison in them.
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I love apples, and all my life I've eaten everything except the stem and the seeds. Well, sometimes I'll nibble a seed. They have a almond flavor. That's probably the cyanide.
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posted
btw, while we're on the subject of apples: Can I have some moral support that Red Delicious are in fact amongst the worst varieties of apples on the planet for pretty much any purpose?
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Nah. They make good applesauce. And they work fine for cooking. And my kids like to eat them, although I don't know why.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
It is not the red delicious, but the golden delicious that is most appropriate for applesauce. The red delicious is a poor eating and cooking apple. Too bitter, too dry, skin too thick.
posted
I always hated Red Delicious apples as a kid, and I loathed the fact that they were ALWAYS the apples provided with school lunches, snacks, etc.
Haven't eaten one in over a decade.
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quote:Originally posted by Tante Shvester: It is not the red delicious, but the golden delicious that is most appropriate for applesauce. The red delicious is a poor eating and cooking apple. Too bitter, too dry, skin too thick.
The ones I get here (from Washington State, I think) are neither dry nor thick-skinned. Not bitter either, although they're pretty bland.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I've known about apple seeds being poisonous since an episode of GI Joe had them defeating a huge, genetically engineered blob thingie by luring it into an apple grove.
posted
I've eaten apple seeds and the nuts out of peach pits many times.
My grandmother (who also did) said the cyanide in peach pits is locked in a chemical bond (I don't remember with what) and that the cyanide never actually gets absorbed into our system when we eat them. We ate them because of other, HELPFUL, properties they released, not the cyanide.
quote: And it turns out that peach seeds actually contain Cyanide, in the form of Amygdalin.
They’re not talking about pure cyanide, but about the Amygdalin. The thing is used in some anti-cancer medications in higher amounts, and studies found no side-effects in taking 500mg three times a day. Which would be about 1.7Kg of just the peach’s seeds per day. Not realistic.
“One hundred grams of moist peach seed contains 88 mg of cyanide, while an equivalent amount of apricot seed holds 217 mg.”
A single peach fruit of course doesn’t have nearly as much as a hundred grams of seed. But how dangerous is that amount, as a high level reference? Research shows 10.8mg per Kg of body weight per day is NOAEL (i.e. known to be safe). So for a petite person weighing 50Kg this would be about 610g of peach seeds, per day. And that’s before any adverse effects of long-time usage appear, and still very far from chocking and instant death.
People rarely eat a peach seed by mistake, usually the pit/stone is too tough to open and expose the seeds.
Compared with the massive amount of seeds a person will have to eat to get to the critical level, I’d say it’s not that big a concern. Heck, eating 600g of whole peaches a day would be a hard task. So that amount of just the seeds? The boredom and frustration, not to mention the horrible taste, will kill a person first.
posted
I forgot to correct that. I got my apples mixed up with butterflies. I also like Fuji applies too. or are they Fiji? Who can keep things straight?
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I'm allergic to raw apples. But every couple of years I'll take an antihistamine and eat a couple of pieces of a Macintosh because I love them. Yes, I am aware that this is not wise.
Why couldn't I be allergic to chocolate, which is addictive and makes me fat? No, my body chooses to reject delicious, wholesome fresh fruit. Posts: 3149 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Farmgirl: My grandmother (who also did) said the cyanide in peach pits is locked in a chemical bond (I don't remember with what) and that the cyanide never actually gets absorbed into our system when we eat them.
This is false. But it would still take a LOT of fruit pits to make it to a harmful dosage. But headaches like Lisa's are believable if you ate quite a few in one day. And large numbers of pits on a frequent basis could cause serious problems.
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: You swallow your gum, too, don't you?
I very rarely ever chew gum but when I do there is always a place to dispose of it. (If you know what I mean?)
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