They're good on pizza, salads or even breaded and deep fried (but then again isn't everything?), but mushrooms can kill you dead. The ones you get at the grocery store are safe of course. It's the ones on the forest floor that you have to be careful of.
Of the over 38,000 varieties of mushroom worldwide, only about 100 are poisonous to us humans. Most poisonings are accidental, caused when dumbasses go foraging for mushrooms, pick the wrong ones and eat them, either for food, an attempt to get high, or in a misguided attempt at Super Mario cosplay.
Only about 20 varieties of mushrooms are deadly. Symptoms of poisoning can occur anywhere from a few hours to 2 days after eating, and can include blindness, blurred vision, chest pain, coma, convulsions, cramping, delirium, flushing, headaches, pain, trouble breathing, vertigo, vomiting and the greatest of all: diarrhea.
How deadly is it?
While several thousand people are poisoned by mushrooms each year, modern medicine has kept most of them from dying. In the United States in 2007, 7351 people became poisoned by eating mushrooms, of these, 2634 required hospital care and 35 were considered extremely serious, but there were no fatalities. Without care, some varieties of mushroom have a mortality rate between 50-60%.
The ackee is the national fruit of Jamaica. Originally from West Africa, it made it's way to the West Indies thanks to Captain William Bligh (this is the same guy who was mutinied on the Bounty and then made badass history by navigating back to port with nothing but a sextant, a pocket watch and apperantly using his gigantic brass balls as ballast) where it spread out, being cultivated as far north as Florida. It wasn't until 1875 when somebody figured out that the fruit might be the cause of the mysterious "Jamaican vomiting sickness" (which coincidentally is a great name for a band). In 1937, a pair of researchers discovered that the fruit contained toxins, in one of the largest "well duh" moments in botanical history.
The problem is, ackee is actually really good for you, but it's poisonous when it's prepared improperly. The fruit must be fully ripened and allowed to open naturally. The fleshy yellow arils (much like those in a pomegranate) are the only part that can be eaten and must be removed, cleaned, washed, then boiled for at least half an hour, then removed from the water before consuming.
If these steps are done improperly, you can look forward to seizures, intense vomiting, and something called hypoglycemia, which is where your blood sugar drops low enough to put you into a coma or kill you. It's the hypoglycemia part that's deadly.
How deadly is it?
Ackee is pretty deadly. If it's not quite ripe, if it's been opened by hand, or if you're dumb enough to reuse the water you boiled the fruit in, you can put yourself in a lot of danger. Ackee is illegal in the United States, although two cases of ackee poisoning have been discovered there. Most deaths occur in Jamaica. Between 1989 and 1991, 38 cases of poisoning and 6 deaths were reported there. In addition, in late 2000, over 100 cases of serious poisonings and deaths were reported in northern Haiti.
In 1864, a two Frenchmen: Louis Pasteur (who had a most excellent beard) and Claude Bernard (who had an equally awesome set of sideburns) completed their first test to attempt to extend the shelf-life of milk, beer and wine by cooking it slightly. The experiment worked, and as a happy little side-effect, most of the stuff in those drinks that can kill us, were destroyed. By the 1920s, this procedure now known as pasturization (which was slightly more marketable than bernardiation) had become widespread, and was hailed as one of the biggest breakthroughs in public health and food safety.
This is where the retardation comes in.
Somewhere along the line, somebody got it into their heads that milk that wasn't pasturized was somehow better for you. I guess things like diphtheria, salmonella, strepsis, listeriosis, brucellosis and streptococcus aren't actually incredibly deadly, they're just misunderstood.
Whether it's because they say that it tastes better, or whether they have a level of paranoia that rivals the people who think that vaccinations cause autism, a large number of 'raw milk advocates' began to produce and distribute their own, unpasturized milk.
Pay no attention to the fact that he makes good money from selling it.
The problem is, cows are stupid, and suprisingly dirty animals. They can harbor a lot of nasty bugs that can cause us a lot of harm. And even though we have developed a number of techniques and drugs that can help stop those bacteria from getting into the milk in the first place, a study in Wisconsin in 2001 found that 9.5% of tested samples still contained contaminents.
What's more, researchers have consistantly found that raw milk provides no health benefits beyond pasturized milk, despite the claims of its advocates. There's no question that the taste is different, but does that justify putting yourself or a child at risk?
How deadly is it?
Between 1998 and May of 2005, the Center for Disease Control stated that there were a reported 45 outbreaks of illnesses that could be traced back to unpasturized milk. This accounted for 1007 illnesses, 104 hospitalizations and 2 deaths. Another study, this time by the Food and Drug Administration, reported a total of 473 cases of illness between 2000 and 2005, including a total of 7 deaths (of which 3 were infants), compared to 44 cases of illness linked to pasturized milk products.
The danger is that some of the biggest consumers of milk products, young children and pregnant women, are the most susceptable to food-borne pathogens, making this a very real danger, yet incredibly frustrating to solve.
A lot of you might be wondering just what the hell cassava is. Well, the cassava (or yuca) is a root, that is not unlike a yam or sweet potato, and is used as a staple food in South America. It can even be turned into booze! Finally, it's also the basis of tapioca, and one of my favorites: tapioca pudding.
Like apricots and almonds, cassava is a good source of your daily recommended dose of cyanide. Not only that, but like almonds, cassava also come in sweet and bitter varieties, with the bitter version containing as much as 50 times the cyanide as the sweet. Cassava contain so much cyanide in fact that less than 1-1/2 ounces of raw bitter cassava can kill a cow.
You can bet that the indiginous people of South America discovered real damn fast that the root could kill them deader than disco and how by cooking or preparing it properly, they could remove the poison and make it safe to eat, at least with some of the sweet varieties.
How deadly is it?
In the southern Phillipines on March 9th, 2005, children at an elementary school were poisoned by deep-fried casava they had bought from a street vendor during recess. The vendor had unwittingly harvested bitter casava to make the dish. As a result, 100 children were hospitalized and another 27 died. It's a tragedy that could have easily been avoided.
Admit it. Just about everybody who's reading this has been waiting for this. Pufferfish, or fugu might be the deadliest thing we stuff into our gaping maws. And now, so we can get this out of the way, here's the obligatory Simpsons reference.
Fugu, or river pigs (a name which sounds pretty unappetizing for some strange reason), have a chemical throughout their bodies called tetrodotoxin. When ingested, it paralyzes all the muscles of the body, and the victim dies of asphixiation, all while remaining fully conscious and aware.
So, why in the hell would people risk what could possibly be one of the scariest ways to die? Well, apperantly fugu is pretty damned tasty. What's more, some people say that the liver, which contains the most poison is the tastiest part. Well, so much for priorities.
Thankfully, some stand in the way of suicidal foodies. In Japan, where the dish is the most popular, chefs must take part in a 2-3 year apprenticeship, pass several tests, and then in a very "are you feeling lucky punk?" moment, they must prepare and eat fugu themselves. Those who succeed are licenced to prepare the fish. Those who fail, may not get resussitated.
In addition, the Japanese government has banned the sale of whole fugu to the general public, as well as the preparation and sale of the ever-deadly, yet incredibly tempting liver.
How deadly is it?
Between 1996 and 2006 the Tokyo Bureau of Social Welfare and Public Health reported between 20 and 44 incidents of fugu poisoning each year. These led to between 34 and 64 hospitilizations and up to 6 deaths per year. Of these incidents, only 1 took place in a restaurant, a testiment to the success of the safety course required of chefs. The rest of the incidents were linked to fishermen eating fugu that they had caught, and about half could be linked to the victim eating the liver of the fish.
The incidents aren't restricted to Japan either. In 2007, a doctor in Thailand linked 15 deaths over a period of 3 years to fugu sold in fish markets as salmon. In the Phillipenes, five people died to fugu poisoning between 2007 and 2008.
Fugu poisonings in the United States are very rare. Restaurants must be first licenced to sell the fish, and the chefs are also trained to the same standards as those in Japan. The fish however has most of its poisonous parts removed in Japan before being frozen and shipped to the US.
So, there you have it. Ten foods that could kill you. But what is life without uncertainty, or adventure. The next hamburger you eat might be part of the E-coli outbreak that gets reported in next week's news. You're going to die eventually, you might as well enjoy the ride.
