[HN Gopher] Backyard Cyanide
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Backyard Cyanide
Author : tancik
Score : 85 points
Date : 2025-03-11 17:46 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (suziepetryk.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (suziepetryk.com)
| jonah wrote:
| Stonefruit pits contain cyanide. (Including almonds.) I made
| apricot preserves one time and the recipe called for slivered
| pits to add a bit of flavor. Research it, it appears that you'd
| need to eat several hands full to poison yourself. And since it
| doesn't bioaccumulate, eating tiny bits is probably okay.
| (YMMV/not a doctor/don't rely on this/etc.)
| stvltvs wrote:
| "The dose makes the poison" but I'm not in a hurry to make
| myself a test case for no good reason. Tastier preserves might
| be a good enough reason.
| supernewton wrote:
| Your body actually produces a small amount of cyanide
| endogenously, if it makes you feel any better. It has some
| role in cell signalling.
| nartho wrote:
| This is not the case, however, for bitter almonds.
| riffraff wrote:
| even with bitter almonds a grown up needs to eat quite a bit,
| many old recipes ask for a few bitter almonds in a
| preparation.
|
| A child could die with 5-6 whole bitter almonds, but they are
| really, really bitter so it's not that easy to accidentally
| do that.
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| My grandmother introduced us to a world of old-school
| delicacies, including Jordan almonds, candy-coated in a thick
| hard shell, and in pastel colors.
|
| On more than one occasion, I ate a box or two of those, so
| many that I had painful bellyaches and worse. It may not have
| been cyanide, but it was an instructive childhood lesson in
| "too much of a good thing".
|
| It's scary to think how much knowledge of poisons was in our
| home with my father's profession, and mother's hobby of
| murder mysteries. When the 1982 adulteration scandal hit the
| news, I honestly had mixed feelings about the message it sent
| to consumers.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Tylenol_murders
| euroderf wrote:
| It's interesting to think that we didn't use to have those
| peel-away inner caps on all sorts of products.
| kens wrote:
| Does anyone else still worry about cyanide when finding a
| grape with a puncture?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Chilean_grape_scare
| progmetaldev wrote:
| Like you, I more than once ate a large amount of Jordan
| almonds, both times after grabbing bags left on tables
| after a wedding. I'm 45, but the Tylenol tampering was
| still alive and well in my conscious even as a teenager,
| and to this day. I still check the safety seal and will
| bring anything back to the store if it's more than a few
| dollars, if the seal looks broken.
| sitkack wrote:
| It is trivial to both procure the machines as well as
| hone the technique to reseal those packages. Safety seals
| are largely security theater.
| carlob wrote:
| Bitter almonds contain amygdalin which is cyanogenic. You can't
| make a number of preparations without them (some types of
| marzipan or almond pastries and Disaronno come to mind).
| stronglikedan wrote:
| I think apple seeds are the most common (non-stone-fruit
| anyway) example of this.
| criddell wrote:
| I was surprised to find Amazon promoting customer reviews
| suggesting bitter apricot seeds can heal cancer.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Apricot-California-Pesticide-Herbicid...
|
| The AI-generated summary of reviews ends with:
|
| > The seeds are also mentioned as having cancer-healing
| properties.
|
| Click on the "Health benefits" link to get many more
| suggestions of their cancer curing properties. One person was
| consuming them every hour and started to have difficulty
| breathing. IMHO, Amazon probably shouldn't be helping to spread
| this kind of misinformation.
| felipemesquita wrote:
| In NileRed's video "Does cyanide actually smell like
| almonds?"[0] he purchases some bitter almonds to measure the
| amount of cyanide in them. He is also worried about the
| baseless health benefits claims.
|
| [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYagO-nup6c
| progmetaldev wrote:
| I love that channel. Especially turning (I believe) nitrile
| gloves into hot sauce. Some of the chemistry he performs, I
| would never think of even existing. It's like people that
| say margarine is one molecule away from plastic, without
| understanding that all of chemistry works like that.
| sitkack wrote:
| Wait, can we just recycle plastic into margarine? Bubble
| wrap marmalade?
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| Cigarettes contain a decent quantity of cyanide
| stronglikedan wrote:
| that's just so they can claim to be somewhat healthy /s
| cwmoore wrote:
| so the tar perfectly mediates the balance of polonium and
| cyanide
| didgeoridoo wrote:
| "Much literature has historically claimed that hydrogen cyanide
| smells of almonds or bitter almonds. However, there has been
| considerable confusion and disagreement over this, because the
| smell of household almond essence is due to benzaldehyde, which
| is released along with hydrogen cyanide from the breakdown of
| amygdalin present in some plant seeds, and thus is often mistaken
| for it.[12][13] In an experiment to test what hydrogen cyanide
| smells like, the chemistry Youtuber NileRed described the smell
| as "not at all like an almond" but like "weak bleach or chlorine"
| or "swimming pools".[14]"
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_cyanide
| chneu wrote:
| Shout-out to NileRed.
|
| Nigel has a whole series of edible chem runs. The pop rocks one
| is pretty good. His schtick is that he orders ridiculous
| equipment for all his videos.
|
| He's worth a watch.
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| It's common to say that sulfur/natural gas smells "like rotten
| eggs" but I've probably not smelled a rotten egg in isolation
| for 40 years. But since I'm familiar with sulfur-type smells I
| could probably figure it out. I expect a future of bad and
| rotten eggs in our supermarkets...
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| I'm familiar with the smells of sulfur (at least memories
| from decades ago), natural gas additives (mercaptan) and
| having chickens that like to lay in random hidden places,
| rotten eggs.
|
| I don't think that there's much overlap in the scent
| profiles. Maybe a diluted rotten egg is similar to that smell
| of making black powder as a child, but not much.
| eszed wrote:
| > making black powder as a child
|
| Storytime, please?
| memhole wrote:
| Hope the author picks up their blog again. I enjoyed the chickens
| article too.
| neuroelectron wrote:
| An interesting article, but tell me, is it prounounced cherry
| laurel or cherry yanny?
| yard2010 wrote:
| Interesting topic indeed but I have to say - the writing style
| completely nailed it! I love the humor and the figurative
| language. Great delivery.
| declan_roberts wrote:
| I live in a rural area and I'm surprised at how well grazing
| animals intuitively avoid these poisonous plants.
|
| I see goats grazing in fields with hemlock. They'll give the
| hemlock a sniff and then avoid it while greedily eating
| everything else around it.
| m463 wrote:
| Growing up, I remember throwing my dog food. It was just
| amazing, the food would arch up, intersect with his mouth, and
| just... disappear.
|
| except grapes. They would arch up, intersect with his mouth,
| and... hit a tongue and roll off onto the floor.
|
| turns out grapes (and raisins) are toxic to dogs. How they
| figure that out during the millisecond encounter with the
| tongue is mind-boggling.
|
| oh, another one: one time when young I gave my dog a corncob to
| chew on, my theory being it would be like gnawing on a bone.
| and it he just ate it. it disappeared. we monitored him, he was
| fine, but scared me to death.
| lisabdunlap wrote:
| phenomenal writing style, cant wait for the next one to drop.
| What's the natural next topic after chickens and cyanide
| A_D_E_P_T wrote:
| Good post. I'm reminded of this blog, which was really
| interesting while it lasted: https://naturespoisons.com/
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