Feb 15, 2025 17:00:00

What are the world's most poisonous foods? A poison expert explains

Eating is essential to life, but sometimes the things we eat contain deadly poisons. Justin Brower, a forensic scientist who runs the poison blog

Nature's Poisons , explains the foods that can be fatal even in small amounts in three categories: plants, animals, and fungi.

What is the world's deadliest food? | Live Science
https://www.livescience.com/health/what-is-the-worlds-deadliest-food

Cassava is one of the plant foods known to be dangerous when consumed in its natural state.

The starch extracted from the cassava rhizome is known to be the raw material for tapioca, but its roots and leaves contain a toxin called cyanogenic glycoside, which is broken down by intestinal bacteria and enzymes into hydrogen cyanide, or hydrocyanic acid, making it extremely dangerous to eat it raw.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), cassava poisoning kills more than 200 people a year and leaves thousands with permanent cognitive impairment. To make cassava edible, it must be peeled and soaked in water or boiled and dried in the sun.

The most well-known animal food containing poison is the

pufferfish , which is familiar to Japanese people, and contains a toxin called tetrodotoxin. Tetrodotoxin is a neurotoxin that blocks neurotransmission through sodium ion channels, causing breathing difficulties and muscle paralysis.

Tetrodotoxin is extremely heat-resistant and does not break down even when heated to over 300°C. Ingestion of just 1 to 2 mg can be fatal, so it is said to be several hundred times more toxic than hydrocyanic acid.

In most parts of the world, eating fugu is prohibited, but in Japan, if you pass the '

Fugu Chef License ' set by the prefecture, you can cook and serve fugu. Different parts of fugu contain poison, so you need to have the right knowledge and know how to tell them apart. In addition to just being able to fillet the fugu, you also need tools to properly dispose of the liver, ovaries, and other parts that must be disposed of after filleting the fish.

According to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Bureau of Public Health and Medical Care , there are about 10 to 30 cases of fugu poisoning each year, but only one or two deaths, making the fatality rate for the past 10 years 2.1%. Because fugu cooking is strictly controlled, poisoning accidents are unlikely to occur despite its high toxicity, but poisoning accidents still occur every year due to amateur cooking.

And the most dangerous fungal foods are, of course, poisonous mushrooms, of which Brouwer points out Amanita phalloides, a species native to Europe that has spread around the world as an invasive species.

Amanita phalloides contains a cyclic peptide toxin called amatoxin. Amatoxins inhibit the synthesis of mRNA, which is necessary for protein synthesis, and are toxic to cell tissues, causing diarrhea and vomiting within 6 to 12 hours after eating. Depending on the amount eaten, it can cause liver or kidney failure within a few days and even death.

The most effective treatment is to have the stomach lavaged immediately after eating, but since there are no symptoms for some time after eating, people rarely realize that they have eaten Amanita phalloides.

Brower says one of the reasons for the high number of poisonings is that the toxins in Amanita phalloides are heat stable, meaning they aren't destroyed by cooking. Also, because Amanita phalloides resembles edible

mushrooms , which are non-toxic, many people mistakenly eat them and end up poisoned.

In addition, a study published in 2023 (PDF file) has announced that certain fluorescent dyes may be used as an antidote to Amanita phalloides.