Doctor reveals 10 common foods that can actually kill you and they might surprise you
Topics: Food and Drink, Health, News, YouTube, Science
Maxine Harrison
Featured Image Credit: Getty Images
Topics: Food and Drink, Health, News, YouTube, Science
We all have heard of the saying, you are what you eat, right?
But we rarely think of healthy foods that could be dangerous for our health which is why this list of 10 foods may surprise you.
We know that it’s important to be careful of what we choose to eat. However, this is usually directed towards foods that we may think are unhealthy and overtly bad for us.
But you may be surprised to learn that even 'healthier' foods have the potential to kill, if not incorporated the right way into your diet.
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Doctor Mike is a board-certified family medicine physician and YouTuber who shares medical information on his channel with over 14.5M subscribers. So, what foods made the list?
Whilst apples are great to consume, you should avoid eating the seeds as they contain amygdalin, which is a compound that is broken down by your stomach during digestion into cyanide. Cyanide is a type of poison that makes it harder for your blood to carry oxygen which can lead to death. However, the human body can handle breaking down small amounts of cynaide. So, it would take eating hundreds of appleseeds for you to risk being poisoned by one.
Sometimes referred to as fugu, puffer fish is a spiky fish that can be very poisonous. It’s particularly the ovaries, liver and intestines of this fish that contain tetrodotoxin, which is 1200 times more deadly than cyanide.
If the fish is not prepared properly, it can paralyze your nervous system, shut down your respiratory muscles and cause your insides to drown. Sounds gruesome, right?
If you love a bit of rhubarb crumble, this one may surprise you. Botanically it’s a vegetables but in the US it is classified as a vegetable. However, rhubarb leaves have high levels of oxalid acid - a corrosive and acidic substance ,which can lead to kidney failure and death if consumed in high amounts. So, try not to go too overboard with the rhubarb cakes, for your own good!
This one is a little tricky. Whilst ripe elderberries themselves are safe to eat at your own leisure, it’s the tree that they grow on that poses a threat. It’s twigs, leaves, roots and seeds create alkaloids that make hydrocyanic acid. So, if elderbrries are not ripe or strained correctly prior to you consuming, it can cause nausea, vomiting and extreme diarrhea.
There is a natural protein in red kidney beans called lectin that if you consume it you may experience symptoms of abdominal pain, diarrhea etc. could arise. However, if your red kidney beans are properly prepared you won’t have to worry about lectin as it disappears with proper preparation.
Castor oil seeds or beans are often used as a laxative, but there is a deadly poison called ricin in these seeds. However, this toxin is destroyed when using heat to create castor oil.
A tasty hydrating fruit, lychee is a popular choice for many drinks and deserts. But if you eat this fruit raw, green and on empty stomach, it can pose a danger to your health. This is due to the high amongst of hypoglycin. If consumed in this way, lychee can cause swelling of the brain.
Overeating nutmeg can be fatal due to it containing myristicin which in larger substances can poison your system and cause organ failure.
The way we usually eat potatoes is fine. However, there are some tell tell signs you should be wary of when getting yours at the supermarket. For example, if the potatoes are green or even has a tint of it, this could indicate that it contains solanine, which can cause several health symptoms and even death if consumed in very high dosages. The sprouts that also grow on potatoes also contain solanine - so avoid eating those stems too!
Raw cashew nuts contain a poisonous chemical called urushiol, which can cause skin rashes and extreme cases fatal allergic reactions.