Learn from my stupid mistake.

[bogfrog]

Well, just a wee reminder from me to never forget our own ignorance when dabbling in nature's pharmacy.

Yesterday I juiced a shitload of elderberries, and a lot of the smaller stems went in with them. I thought, this will be really good for my body, vitamin c etc.. yeah good idea!

I drank this huge glass of elderberry juice, and after a little while started to feel a bit sick.. Then quite sick, then my stomach started to hurt.

I didn't think too much of it, as raw green-juice on an empty stomach can make ya feel a little ill, and I hadn't eaten much so I assumed that it would be fine, maybe it was just a bit too intense to consume that many elderberries on an empty stomach (I juiced about 5-6 large bunches, which made one very full large cup)

Any way as time went on I started to feel worse and worse. I tried to meditate for a while, but the pain and ill feelings became too over-powering. After about 45minutes I realised I had a pretty hot fever and was really red in the face, so I made myself throw up and then afterwards I still felt ill as fuck until I fell asleep. Didn't think much of it.. Apart from that was lame, I won't do that again.. Then today I mentioned it to a friend and she said she had had the exact same experience, so I googled it and found out that:

"The ripe, cooked berries (pulp and skin) of most species of Sambucus are edible. However, most uncooked berries and other parts of plants from this genus are poisonous. Sambucus nigra is the only variety considered to be non-toxic, but it is still recommended that its berries be cooked slightly for culinary purposes. The leaves, twigs, branches, seeds and roots of Sambucus plants can contain a cyanide-inducing glycoside (a glycoside which gives rise to cyanide as the metabolism processes it). Ingesting a sufficient quantity of cyanide-inducing glycosides can cause a toxic build up of cyanide in the body."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambucus

If I hadn't have made myself throw up.. Well I guess I could be pretty fucked or maybe even dead. The scary part was that I was lying for there for ages willing my body to hurry up and process the juice.. Thus metabolising and producing a whole bunch of cynanide in my tum!

So the crux of it is that I didn't respect the power of nature and just about poisoned myself with cyanide.. Dumb eh!?

I guess the Elder Mother had a bone to pick with me.. I'm quite baffled by the scenario to be honest.

Don't be stupid like me. Respect plants and even if you think you know lots already, learn all you can about them before you put them in your body!

There is no emoticon to fulfil the level of stupidity I feel... But yeh. Pretty fuckn stupid and I hope through sharing the story of my stupidity someone else might think twice before doing something similarly stupid.

[Anodyne]

Thanks for sharing, I never knew that about elder. Then again, unless there's proof otherwise I usually just assume that all plants are trying to kill me.

Hope you are feeling better today!

[theuserformallyknownasd00d]

Crazy, glad your ok. I have a bag of dried elderberries here ATM, wonder if the drying process somehow cures the nasty stuff out. Crazy!

[-RC-]

Maybe you did it so you could put this post up and stop others from doing the same? Mysterious ways and all that.

Not stupid, just human.

Glad you're OK though.

[IndianDreaming]

Sounds like a similar composition to apricot kernels, apple seeds etc... The goss is that: In small doses the enzyme Rhodanese can apparently deal with the cyanogenic glycoside so you're not poisoned, but cancers cells eat it up and kick the bucket. It seems the window of active to overdose is small though so less is best. Depends if you're liver is up to it...

Glad to hear you didn't go yellow and kick the bucket Ceres, and on the upside, maybe any lingering unhealthy cells were dispatched in the process!

[waterboy 2.0]

Glad your Ok Ceres Yep elders are a powerful one...wine or cordials the go...foliage is damn right evil

That was a lot of berries, take it easy mate.

You do not cut them down as well...... but that's the stuff of superstition apparently.

EDIT - and not dumb...

[Anodyne]

HCN evaporates at 26C, so it should just gas off on a warm day - dried fruit would usually be exposed to temps like this in the drying process so should be safe.

Hydrogen cyanide (HCN), sometimes called prussic acid, is an inorganic compound[6] with chemical formula HCN. It is a colorless, extremely poisonous liquid that boils slightly above room temperature, at 25.6 °C (78.1 °F).

Abstract Distribution of cyanogenic glucosides contained in elderberry fruit was investigated in the course of technological operations usually utilised for obtaining musts. The degree of glucoside hydrolysis was estimated by the amount of liberated hydrogen cyanide. After fermentation on skins the must contained 2.08 mg litre−1 of hydrogen cyanide. Hydrogen cyanide in the must from depectinised fruit pulp was at a level of 2.31 mg litre−1. After heat treatment the must contained 1.07 mg litre−1 of hydrogen cyanide.

For reference, the lethal dose for an adult is 50mg or so, so that's a lot of elderberry juice. Heating and fermentation (and maybe even just soaking in water to let it leach out?) I think were the main ways to get these types of compounds out of cassava and the like.

[bullit]

and they call it a superfood!! I eat the ripe fruit of the bush I love them!! take it easy

[theuserformallyknownasd00d]

Yeh but your a sick kent mate ;)

[quarterflesh]

At least you didnt blow up like Violet Beauregarde and had to get juiced by oopma loompas

[kapitän kamasutra]

Hi Ceres, sounds familiar to me. Some years ago I learned that lesson the same way you did. Me and my housemate did a big bunch of juice for wine and jam. We drank some fresh juice as well. I just had one glas, gave me the shits and mild flue like symptoms that evening. My housemate drank much more, and he was sick for two days. I have never touched those berries since, the taste is linked to sickness for me.

I still make syrup from elder berry flowers.

[Dreamwalker.]

thats not so stupid............its a common mistake................I had a girl friend a few years back who did exactly the same.....except she just ate the berries straight....................then came home with a big bag full.....................pretty much went through the same drama you did.........she couldn't even look at the bag the next day....insisted I dumped them........I protested...but lost........there's a really yummy traditional Danish sweet soup recipe.....its stunning............basically boil up the fruit.......sieve to remove seeds and large skin bits.....add sugar....mix a little cornflour in to thicken ....serve this amazing crimson /black soup in a white plate with a dollop of cream in the middle...............its extraordinary................ ......its the seeds as you found.................apples peach loads of similar plants protect their seeds.....Almonds we eat...................she had a similar episode with some mushrooms she thought she had id..............(a story she told me)..............she ingested them a few hours before her landlord came to inspect her flat with a prospective couple/buyers.................by the time they arrived she was purking and shiting something bad..................

[Optimystic]

thats ironic lol

I ate some shit this week I shouldn't have eaten, and I threw up too!

not on purpose tho I just puked laff even nastier i was burping and had

terrible gas all fricken day I finailly took it down with some baking soda x alka

seltzer chased with cantaloupe ...I almost bought

some elderberries/plants the other day, and I read something or other

and just moved on to another plant... I was just reading tho and

apparently they can handle our heat and grow wild here so I think im

gonna go look for some wild ones later in the season.... i've got a huge

garden but a small budget this year eh

Elderberry honey is really good its purple so i think its honey mixed with elderberries

anywh0 great advice with any plant... know what you are ingesting... it takes

screwing up once or twice tho at least for us plant l0vers

so don't feel dumb... it's unimaginable how many ppl had to screw up, in order

for us to figure out whats good to eat.. doctors used to treat ppl with mercury and shyte!

FYI there are alot of 'Popular' Fruits and berries

which can be toxic when unripe, so pretty much

anything unripe is worth passing on lol... cept

fried green tomatoes

several plants in the solancae family are this way

at least i've read.. i've read the same about tomatoes

but i've also read that its bunk info... i've eaten a few green

ones and no problems lol frankly theres toxic plants everywhere

no pain no gain i guess

im glad ur okay!

[bogfrog]

Thanks for all your responses.. Feeling pretty headfucked about it today, was fine when I didn't know what I'd done, but now I realise if I'd gone to sleep without spewing like I was trying to I'd prob be a goner.. Can't help but think morbidly about it.. Living alone without any regular visitors I'd have been one of those people who dies in their house and doesn't get found for days

For reference, the lethal dose for an adult is 50mg or so, so that's a lot of elderberry juice.

I had a 250ml glass ...so is that 5x the lethal dose? Urrrrrrrrrgh. So stupid.

You would think I would have learnt this lesson already with the random agave I munched on and then found out some contain a neurotoxin which is used to paralyse fish.. Or eating the miscellaneous kernel I found in the garden which turned out to be a sweet almond, although when I told a mate about it he got super mad at me and told me apricot kernels which look pretty much the same contain cyanide.. Fuck I'm a bit dumb. Sucks cause I was just beginning to have real trust in my intuition and was feeling really in touch with my body, thought I was learning how to meet its needs quite effectively... Big blow to my confidence. But good lesson in caution and a reminder to always research thoroughly.

If we were in a hunter gatherer society I would be the dumb dead monkey that the cave-mothers and cave-fathers would warn their cave-children about before they go foraging:

dont be like Ceres, my little Ofa, she eat wrong berries and her thinker melted in her skull

Lucky kindy gave me a mental health day today. And talkin to my dad helped my mental state a bit.

He said when it comes to close brushes with death/insanity - there's nothing like being half a step or three off the edge and getting back when it comes to adding metal to your wisdom, character and ability to cope.

Cheers sab, be safe x

[bullit]

so whats the best way to have them?? they say the blossoms can be eaten?? hope ya well cerez

[Alice]

I had a 250ml glass ...so is that 5x the lethal dose? Urrrrrrrrrgh. So stupid.

I think he meant 50 mg (of HCN) not 50 mL (of juice).

Glad to hear that you're ok, I also had never heard that parts were poisonous.

[ThunderIdeal]

the last two plants i cautiously had a miniscule taste of before spitting out, instead of doing research first.... caused a considerable local reaction.

if you insist on being stupid, do it the smart way. a tiny taste then spit it out and wait for a reaction. an even smarter way to be stupid is to rub it on your skin first and give that quite a while to check for reactions before having a tiny taste. then, if you simply must uphold your stupidity to it's senseless conclusion (maybe you are starving, or compulsively stupid) swallow only a tiny bit, better yet swallow a tiny bit after some processing like cooking or soaking.

[Dreamwalker.]

the elderberry looks so good and inviting but then so does tutu.......................Māori used to get high on this one.......but just one tiny little seed in you juice.............and your dead.......................even the honey is toxic..................but the pure juice is fine...a little intoxicating, but fine. Although it says below juice from the petals (not berry)?

http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/14118/tutu

Story: Te ngahere – forest lore

All parts of the tutu plant are poisonous except for the petals. Māori crushed and strained the purple petals through toetoe grass, using the juice to sweeten aruhe (fern root).

[quarterflesh]

the snozberries taste like snozberries, also cyanide.

[Anodyne]

I had a 250ml glass ...so is that 5x the lethal dose?

Oh, nonono! Alice is right, I was referring to the analysis which showed around 1-2mg of HCN per litre of juice (it varied according to different processing methods) - so that would be about 30-50 litres of berry juice for a lethal dose, when prepared by the methods mentioned (as commercial juices would be).

I think I have read that the symptoms people suffer may be due to emetic alkaloids and other components of the plant material, rather than (just) cyanide poisoning. This would also help explain why cases of hydrangea/elderflower/etc poisoning (like these ones) don't seem to display straight-up symptoms of cyanide poisoning, i.e. more nausea, less oxygen-deprivation-leading-to-coma.

[bogfrog]

Haha sweet thanks for clearing that up, so it was no where as bad as I had thought. Sorry lol.. Mathematical thinking has never been my strong point.

As per usual (in my case anyway) the source of distress is the mind's reaction to an event rather than the actual event itself.

But hey I learnt some cool things because of my mistake!

- broccoli is good for you because it is slightly poisonous and gets your immune system working

- lots of raw beetroot juice can also poison you

- I went to the healthfood shop and got this detox tea.. there's a bio-feedback system between your liver and your taste buds and if you drink tea containing st Mary's thistle you can determine the health of your own liver by how bitter the tea tastes to you. If its undrinkable your liver is very unhealthy, bitter is not too bad but could be better, and if its not bitter your liver is doing really well. As your liver health improves, so does the taste of the tea! So I could drink a sip of this tea and know my liver isn't horribly ill. All is well!

..that was interesting. I'm surprised its not more commonly known about elderberries, atleast in the process of learning this for myself the hard way I got to spread the word a little bit.

[IndianDreaming]

Echinacea stimulates the immune system in a similar way I think - it irritates your immune system and causes it to get grumpy and it goes on a rampage and kicks everyone out

St Mary's thistle 80% extract is a wonderful liver repairer... tastes like flour to me, so maybe all that liver abuse isn't as bad as I thought! Sweet - lets party

[Torsten]

I've had cyanide poisoning from inhalation, so feel your pain.

Cyanide is easily removed from most foods if they are boiled at below pH4. The low pH means the cyanide is free HCN, which is actually a gas at just above room temp. So boiling it will push it out of the solution and into the air. Keep the lid off and the window open.

[gtarman]

Dang boggo...glad to hear you're okay. Be careful

Also, I doubt it's very relevant to elderberries but there's some really interesting information on cyanide removal/neutralization if you research cassava preparation methods. Sadly in some countries they don't prepare it well enough and over time it leads to a disease caused by chronic cyanide poisoning

[Francois le Danque]

Also remember, unripe mulberries, when eaten to excess, produce "an unpleasant amphetamine like overstimulation". I don't remember where i read that, and don't know if it's actually true.

Personally, I only eat ripe fruits, makes it easier