
Raw Organic Apricot Kernels - jessaustin
http://earlpostsaboutwhatever.tumblr.com/post/146199902504/scatterdarknessscattersilence-killerville
======
pierrec
Weird. In Ladakh, I ate bags of apricot kernels (which are grown locally and
sold in large quantities without any kind of warning, shelled and ready to
eat. It hasn't caused any mass poisonings AFAIK). Judging roughly from the
picture, I'd sometimes eat at least 1/3 of this bag in one day.

I don't remember experiencing any poisoning symptoms. I love the slightly
bitter taste, though at some point I do get a kind of "too much" feeling and
that's where I stop. Directly comparing the Amygdalin content of the kernels
to the LD50 of raw cyanide is probably an oversimplification (digestion and
metabolism are often a more complex story than a simple transformation). That
being said, I'm not going to advocate that you should go ahead and eat them
like chips as I did.

EDIT: Google turns this up: " _Cyanide poisoning caused by ingestion of
apricot seeds_ ", which covers 13 cases in a region that also cultivates
apricots. I can't access the article so I'm not sure about the quantities
involved.

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20196932](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20196932)

~~~
nikolay
Oversimplification is the root of most medical evils! As commented earlier, I
ate tons of raw kernels as well, my friends did - everybody eats them in much
greater quantities than 8 and we were kids, i.e. much lower body weight. So,
anecdotal evidence of those being safe outweighs the oversimplistic
"scientific" one!

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wdrw
I've eaten apricot kernels as a kid, along with most of my family, certainly
much more than 8 seeds a day, and we never had any issues. I've also seen them
sold in stores in China, cheaply and in bulk. I am guessing that either (a)
they're just trying to be over-cautious to protect themselves from potential
liability, or (b) perhaps some people have a heightened sensitivity to this,
or (c) perhaps it's some special, more poisonous type of apricot - which makes
me question why they wouldn't just pick a less poisonous variety for the
product. EDIT: Researching this more, I'm seeing that the danger is much more
real than I thought. Not sure how to reconcile this with my very vivid
childhood memories of consuming these things in pretty large quantities
(though like the other poster in this thread, we've had to break apricot pits
with a hammer to get at the seeds, we didn't have the seeds conveniently pre-
packaged).

~~~
spraak
I wonder if the raw quality is the important part? Did you eat them raw? I'm
curious if maybe roasting them would make them safe

~~~
nikolay
I ate mine raw as a kid - maybe 25-30 kg of body weight and ate maybe 20-30
kernels at once.

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p4wnc6
Amygdalin, also referred to as "Vitamin" B17 and Laetrile, has been a common
medical con for a long time [0]. As a young teenager, after a relative had
just passed away from cancer, I remember I engaged heavy confirmation bias and
sought out materials that would tell me there were ways to cure cancer.

I came across the book "World Without Cancer" by G. Edward Griffin, who also
has written books and produced documentaries purporting to show conspiracies
in the formation of the Federal Reserve. I'm just very lucky that I was able
to see it for the quackery it was as I got older.

Even now, just look how highly rated the book is on Amazon [1] (yet another
reason why you absolutely cannot trust large numbers of positive reviews on
Amazon as a reflection of underlying quality).

[0] <
[http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Cancer/lae...](http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Cancer/laetrile.html)
>

[1] < [https://www.amazon.com/World-Without-Cancer-Story-
Vitamin/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/World-Without-Cancer-Story-
Vitamin/dp/0912986190) >

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c5karl
Apricots kernels don't cure cancer, and there's no such thing as B17, but if
you've had Lazzaroni Amaretti cookies, you've eaten apricot kernels.

In many cuisines, they're an ingredient in sweet treats. The sugar will
probably kill you faster than the amygdalin.

~~~
etatoby
That's right. Several Italian sweets and liquors contain apricot kernels
and/or bitter almonds as the main flavor. Most have the word "amaretto"
somewhere in their name. (Amaretto is a diminutive of our word for "bitter")

As you said, with most of those recipes you'll be sooner killed by the alcohol
or sugar than by the cyanide.

Moreover, the modern products usually contain benzaldehyde (the actual
substance that tastes like bitter almonds, which is non toxic) instead of
whole bitter almond or apricot kernel oil, which is heavily regulated due to
its unpredictable toxicity.

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jimrandomh
Selling drugs and supplements that're a bad idea to use is fine. As long as
the package is truthful about the product's composition, dosage and purity, I
say people can (and should) do their own research.

But this is a drug mislabeled as a food. It literally says "food" on the
package ("Sunfood Superfoods"). That creates a very large risk that people
will treat it like a food, and try it without reading the wikipedia page
first. That's really not okay.

~~~
splawn
"Do your own research" The classic dunning-kruger trailhead.

~~~
mfringel
I know from dunning-kruger, but can you explain what you mean by that?

~~~
splawn
Not just anyone off the street is qualified to be a pharmacist or a doctor. So
in this context "Doing your own research" means allowing dunning-kruger biases
into your medical decisions.

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Aelinsaar
This is nothing new, the Laetrile crowd has never gone away. A good rule of
thumb is that a good crackpot idea never dies, it just finds fewer adherents
over time.

~~~
niftich
This happens occasionally, like in 1993 [1] and 1998 [2].

The labeling seems off, though. 'Sweet' varieties stonefruits (almonds,
apricots, plums, peaches, etc) are supposed to have small amounts of cyanide,
while 'bitter' varieties are supposed to have unsafe amount amounts. Is the
issue here the volume of an entire bag's worth?

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/1993/03/26/nyregion/imported-
bitter-a...](http://www.nytimes.com/1993/03/26/nyregion/imported-bitter-
apricot-pits-recalled-as-cyanide-hazard.html)

[2]
[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0196064498...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0196064498700770)

~~~
cwingrav
The post covers this and does the math. 'Sweet' varieties do have less, but
still enough that eating the bag would be a lethal dose to the author of the
article.

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soyiuz
I grew up eating these (as a byproduct of being around lots of apricots). The
seed is a huge pain to get into--we would use a hammer and half the time it
would smash the whole thing to bits. We were always told not to eat too many.
I certainly would not recommend getting them in this easy to overdose
packaging.

I am also sometimes worried that legitimate almonds are being contaminated
with apricot seeds. Often when I eat almonds I'll taste that old cyanide
bitterness of apricot seeds. The two nuts look almost identical.

~~~
exDM69
Almonds contain amygdalin as well, quantities depending on the variety. Not a
good idea to eat the bitter varieties in large amounts.

~~~
nikolay
I ate bitter almonds is decent quantities without issues. I always eat and
chew the apple seeds as well.

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nice_byte
I've eaten these as a kid on a regular basis (we had lots of apricots where
I'm from) and distinctly remember my parents not allowing to eat more than 3.

P.S.: Amygdalin being a vitamin is bullshit, but they're pretty tasty
regardless.

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sanj
This is worth it for the tl;dr alone.

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exDM69
Selling these for their positive health effects is terrible but amygdalin is
generally considered to be safe in small quantities.

Cyanides are a common byproduct of many organic chemical reactions and
biological processes. There are quite a few foods that contain trace amounts
of different cyanides. Almonds, cherry seeds, apple seeds, etc contain a
source of cyanide.

Bitter almond extract is used in baking, for example. It comes in a bottle
that has a warning about cyanide poisoning symptoms in it.

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cpdean
What if this product isn't for the benefit of the individual end-user, but for
that of society.

Who hasn't felt looked down upon by a smug health-nut before?

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MrMid
I struggle a bit to find a difference between these and alcohol. It's also
offering the same options - either drink too much and die immediately
(directly or indirectly of intoxication), or kill yourself a bit, day by day.

~~~
throwanem
Well, nobody's claiming that ethanol is a vitamin or that you can drink
yourself free of cancer, for a start.

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csense
Only run an untrusted kernel in a VM.

