Tonka beans – A delicious flavour with a toxic chemical
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Re: Tonka beans – A delicious flavour with a toxic chemical
#2I am somewhat appalled but not at all surprised to see click bait headlines leaking into the BBC's vernacular.
Re: Tonka beans – A delicious flavour with a toxic chemical
#3Tonka beans are quite popular in Europe and there are a lot of deserts or even jam using them. The thing though is that it tastes awful in large dose, so you're unlikely to encounter a large dose of it...
It's a bit like nutmeg which is also quite toxic in large doses but is not banned in the US (which shows that sometimes those decisions are rather arbitrary)
Re: Tonka beans – A delicious flavour with a toxic chemical
#4Can someone who's a better cook than this author tell us their opinion of the taste?
Re: Tonka beans – A delicious flavour with a toxic chemical
#5I am somewhat appalled but not at all surprised to see click bait headlines leaking into the BBC's vernacular.
The use of BOLD TEXT is also a bit annoying.
I wonder if it has to to with the fact that this is the BBC Future section.
Re: Tonka beans – A delicious flavour with a toxic chemical
#6I am somewhat appalled but not at all surprised to see click bait headlines leaking into the BBC's vernacular.
It could be worse, I seen far more clickbaity articles about this topic
>This flavour is so good its illegal
>If your food tastes this good it could kill you
>This flavour caused a drug raid
Re: Tonka beans – A delicious flavour with a toxic chemical
#7TL;DR with the important stuff bumped (I hate, hate, hate clickbait and burying the lede):
Tonka beans, containing the toxic-to-the-liver chemical Coumarin, are banned for use in food in the US but still used in some high-end restaurants and bakeries, leading to occasional FDA raids. The beans impart flavors akin to vanilla, lavender, cherries, and grass, due to their sharing some chemical components. They're probably safe in small amounts, making the ban controversial. If you have certain rare enzyme disorders or (obviously) existing liver damage, however, the risk of harm is higher. The chemical is present in smaller but still-large amounts in certain other foods and spices, notably common cassia "cinnamon"—the less-common true cinnamon contains only trace amounts. The use of Tonka/Coumarin in non-food products is unregulated, and it is in fact used in cigarettes, e-cigs, and cosmetics. It can be absorbed through the lungs and skin.
Tonka bean: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dipteryx_odorata
Re: Tonka beans – A delicious flavour with a toxic chemical
#8I was surprised the article didn't mention nutmeg, which is widely used despite its toxicity, so I tried to figure out how their LD50 compares (i.e. how much tonka nut you need to eat to have a 50% chance of death, and how nutmeg stacks up).
I couldn't find any clear answers for tonka beans and the exact dose of course depends on body weight but the lethal doses for nutmeg were an order of magnitude higher: for nutmeg the doses are given in thousands of milligrammes per kg body weight, for tonka beans they're in the hundreds.
So I guess it could be said that tonka beans are 10 times as deadly as nutmeg.
EDIT: g -> mg, sorry about mixing up the units
Re: Tonka beans – A delicious flavour with a toxic chemical
#9https://www.amazon.com/Tonka-Beans-Wishes-Ravenz-Special/dp/...
But it's illegal?
Re: Tonka beans – A delicious flavour with a toxic chemical
#10I am somewhat appalled but not at all surprised to see click bait headlines leaking into the BBC's vernacular.
The use of BOLD TEXT is also a bit annoying. I wonder if it has to to with the fact that this is the BBC Future section.
The bold text is for links. Confused me at first, too. Really poor choice.