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Tonka beans – A delicious flavour with a toxic chemical

bbc.com

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Re: Tonka beans – A delicious flavour with a toxic chemical

#31

Post by tekromancr »

pavement wrote: post #30
rustlerpride wrote: post #24

Although banning might be excessive, products containing coumarin should be labelled appropriately. If what the article says is true, such as that a teaspoon of cassia cinnamon can put you over the safe limits, then consuming coumarin is dangerous for those with liver problems, recovering from mononucleosis, or when consumed in conjunction with other liver-damaging compounds (i.e. alcohol).

Probably also consider caution when taking some analgesics, like acetaminophen/paracetamol.

Yea, but those are already properly labeled. I'm not sure what you are getting at?

Re: Tonka beans – A delicious flavour with a toxic chemical

#35

Post by Mikeb85 »

lightbyte wrote: post #14
pluma wrote: post #8

I 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 nutme…

Nutmeg is still dangerous in non-lethal doses. Eating just a couple nuts will put you in a fairly unpleasant delirious state for up to 2 full days.

And the typical amount used in a dish is 1/100th of a nut or less. Literally a few strokes on a rasp is enough to flavour a dish.

Re: Tonka beans – A delicious flavour with a toxic chemical

#38

Post by Mikeb85 »

undersuit wrote: post #26

>“I was talking to a vanilla purveyor recently and he offered me tonka bean paste,” says Raquel. “I was like ‘If I want to use tonka bean, I’ll use tonka bean.’” One of my biggest issues with mislabeling foods. Sell me vanilla at the market price, sell me tonka at the market price, but don't sell my vanilla that is actually tonka at vanilla market prices. Same with scallops and stingray, crab and surimi, calamari and…

> scallops and stingray

Ray and skate is nothing like scallops.

> calamari and pork

Again, nothing alike.

> chocolate and flavored vegetable oil

Chocolate contains more elements than just cocoa butter, so you can't just replace it with vegetable oil. I'm sure there's some chocolate out there that cuts vegetable oil into the cocoa butter, but I've personally not come across it.

Re: Tonka beans – A delicious flavour with a toxic chemical

#39

Post by lightbyte »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #35
lightbyte wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nutmeg is still dangerous in non-lethal doses. Eating just a couple nuts will put you in a fairly unpleasant delirious state for up to 2 full days.

And the typical amount used in a dish is 1/100th of a nut or less. Literally a few strokes on a rasp is enough to flavour a dish.

Yep, it's a bit surprising at first if you do not cook very often just how little of a spice is required (at least it was for me). Just a tiny bit more than needed generally tastes awful.

Re: Tonka beans – A delicious flavour with a toxic chemical

#40

Post by icebraining »

tekromancr wrote: post #31
pavement wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably also consider caution when taking some analgesics, like acetaminophen/paracetamol.

Yea, but those are already properly labeled. I'm not sure what you are getting at?

I believe pavement means consuming coumarin while taking analgesics.
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