We are mere mortals. Which means that someday, something will get us one way or the other. No matter how hard we try, it is the inevitable.
But oh, how we try.
Well. Today, I learned of some pitfalls we might not have been aware of.
There are some everyday things that can prove to be quite deadly.
Like this.
Eating too much black licorice can lead to fatal Pseudohyperaldosteronism. If you don’t know what Pseudohyperaldosteronism is, neither do I. It is true. The FDA has warned that consuming too much genuine black licorice can have fatal consequences.
Here is what happened. On September 23, 2020, a Massachusetts man had eaten a bag and a half of the candy every day for three weeks. Well, the poor guy perished from a licorice overdose. Similar cases in medical journals reported that too much of the candy caused muscle breakdown, hypertension, and death.
If you wonder why, me too. The candy contains glycyrrhizin, a sweetener extracted from the licorice plant. The chemical mimics a hormone produced by the adrenal glands. This can cause an imbalance in electrolytes that subsequently raises a person’s blood pressure.
Eating a little bit of this chemical won’t cause much harm. But. People over 40 who consume 2 ounces a day over a few weeks can end up in the hospital.
Thankfully, for me, I don’t like black licorice one little bit. Blech. But if you do? Take ‘er easy there, Twizzler.
Okay. Here is some more weird eating advice.
If you eat a slug, it can infect you with a brain-destroying parasite.
Now, I’m not sure why anyone would ever want to. But here is what happened to prompt this story coming to light.
A kid, or should I say, a 19-year-old named Sam Ballard, ate one. Apparently, his friends dared him to eat the slug. After that, he became infected with a rare form of meningitis that put him in a coma for over a year. The unfortunate experience left the young man paralyzed from the neck down with severe brain injuries, ultimately leading to his death eight years later. The culprit was rat lungworm, an infection caused by parasites burrowing into the brain.
The infection is most common in rodents, but humans can contract the parasite by consuming undercooked or raw snails who ate rat feces before they became food themselves. While most consumers recover with little to no symptoms, sometimes eosinophilic meningitis breaks out. Ballard wasn’t the only fatal victim suffering from the rare disease – other cases have been reported worldwide.
One more piece of eating advice today. Don’t eat essential oils.
Because ingesting them can be fatal.
Here is what is going on.
People in Boston seem to be tossing them down the old hatch. Recently, the Boston Regional Poison Control Center confirmed that hundreds of new essential oil exposure cases had been reported at the Center of Poison Control and Prevention over two years.
They added that using essential oils in diffusers is relatively safe. However, they cautioned oil enthusiasts about ingesting them or using them topically on the skin.
In some cases, a teaspoon of clove oil or penny royal oil can be equivalent to taking 100 aspirin. Of course, that would be harmful to an adult, but it would likely cause a fatal episode for a child. Other potentially toxic oils include wintergreen oil, sage oil, cinnamon oil, eucalyptus oil, tea tree oil, juniper oil, nutmeg oil, cedar leaf oil, and wormwood oil.
Basically, they said to smell them all you want. Just don’t use them on or in your body.
So there it is.
Listen. I don’t make the rules. I just report them. So, if you have an affinity for lavender oil sprinkled on your “Slug and Black Licorice Casseroles,” don’t blame me for the bad news here.
But I’m sticking with cheeseburgers and tater tots.
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“Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.” – Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
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“First we eat, then we do everything else.” – M.F.K. Fisher
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“Food is not rational. Food is culture, habit, craving, and identity.” – Jonathan Safran Foer
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Eat this. Not that. Really. Not that.
