slimvictor
Bluelight Crew
In these early days of the holiday season, as cooks begin sifting through recipes rich in spice and sugar, consider this small warning from toxicologists: Measure your nutmeg carefully.
Very carefully.
Of all the well-loved seasonal spices, nutmeg stands out for its long and slightly twisted history. In the Middle Ages, it was used to end unwanted pregnancies. More recently, desperate prisoners embraced it as a rather miserable drug substitute. So, on occasion, have teenagers, some of whom wound up at poison control centers. A couple of years ago, a man in Sweden claimed that nutmeg had induced him to spit at strangers on the street.
“It’s not that nutmeg cases are that common,” said Leon Gussow, an Illinois toxicologist who publishes a blog for professionals called The Poison Review. “But toxicologists do recognize it as one of the more interesting spices in the kitchen.”
As Dr. Gussow noted recently in Emergency Medicine News, awareness of the spice’s poisonous and exotic side effects has been around for some time. Nutmeg is the seed of an evergreen tree, Myristica fragrans, native to Indonesia although now cultivated widely. The spice mace comes from a thin protective layer that encloses that seed.
The spice trade first brought nutmeg to Europe in the 12th century, where it rapidly gained a reputation as a seed of unusual potency, strong enough to fight infection (including the Black Plague), stimulating enough to bring on menstruation, poisonous enough to induce an abortion. It also earned shady credentials for inducing a kind of hazy, druglike high that could include hallucinations.
The effect was potent enough that nutmeg mythology eventually became part of prison culture, even into modern times. In the 1965 book, “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” the activist describes purchasing it from inmates in prison, concealed in matchboxes, and stirring it into water. “A penny matchbox full of nutmeg had the kick of three or four reefers,” he wrote.
Toxicologists say that description is somewhat misleading, an overly romantic account of nutmeg’s generally unpleasant effects. It takes a fair amount of nutmeg — two tablespoons or more — before people start exhibiting symptoms. These can include an out-of-body sensation, but the most common are intense nausea, dizziness, extreme dry mouth, and a lingering slowdown of normal brain function. Dr. Gussow said nutmeg experimenters have compared it to a two-day hangover.
cont at
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/25/a-warning-on-nutmeg/?_r=0
Very carefully.
Of all the well-loved seasonal spices, nutmeg stands out for its long and slightly twisted history. In the Middle Ages, it was used to end unwanted pregnancies. More recently, desperate prisoners embraced it as a rather miserable drug substitute. So, on occasion, have teenagers, some of whom wound up at poison control centers. A couple of years ago, a man in Sweden claimed that nutmeg had induced him to spit at strangers on the street.
“It’s not that nutmeg cases are that common,” said Leon Gussow, an Illinois toxicologist who publishes a blog for professionals called The Poison Review. “But toxicologists do recognize it as one of the more interesting spices in the kitchen.”
As Dr. Gussow noted recently in Emergency Medicine News, awareness of the spice’s poisonous and exotic side effects has been around for some time. Nutmeg is the seed of an evergreen tree, Myristica fragrans, native to Indonesia although now cultivated widely. The spice mace comes from a thin protective layer that encloses that seed.
The spice trade first brought nutmeg to Europe in the 12th century, where it rapidly gained a reputation as a seed of unusual potency, strong enough to fight infection (including the Black Plague), stimulating enough to bring on menstruation, poisonous enough to induce an abortion. It also earned shady credentials for inducing a kind of hazy, druglike high that could include hallucinations.
The effect was potent enough that nutmeg mythology eventually became part of prison culture, even into modern times. In the 1965 book, “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” the activist describes purchasing it from inmates in prison, concealed in matchboxes, and stirring it into water. “A penny matchbox full of nutmeg had the kick of three or four reefers,” he wrote.
Toxicologists say that description is somewhat misleading, an overly romantic account of nutmeg’s generally unpleasant effects. It takes a fair amount of nutmeg — two tablespoons or more — before people start exhibiting symptoms. These can include an out-of-body sensation, but the most common are intense nausea, dizziness, extreme dry mouth, and a lingering slowdown of normal brain function. Dr. Gussow said nutmeg experimenters have compared it to a two-day hangover.
cont at
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/25/a-warning-on-nutmeg/?_r=0
