North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Jay Cutts <orders@cuttsreviews.com>]

And of  course some people have claimed that a little bit of cyanide has 
tumor-killing properties, as with Laetril.  Maybe a tiny dose of death 
each day is a good vaccination!

Regards,

Jay

Jay Cutts
Director, Cutts Graduate Reviews
Lead Author, Barron's Test Prep Publications
(800) 353-4898
In New Mexico, (505) 281-0684
10 am to 10 pm Mountain Time, 7 days


On 1/16/2012 9:39 AM, David Consolvo wrote:
> By the way, cyanide, while potentially acutely lethal, has little danger in 
> small
> amounts over the long term.  It is not known to cause cancer like tiny 
> amounts of
> carcinogens can, and it does not accumulate in the body like some toxic 
> metals do.
> There have been health problems found with chronic exposure at industrial jobs
> when breathing cyanide, but that's probably quite a heavy exposure.  And there
> have been chronic health problems found with high cassava diet, theorized to
> possibly to be related the cyanide in cassava, but then people who live on 
> cassava
> tend to have lots of other dietary problems.  But I don't worry about eating 
> small
> amounts of apricot kernels over the long term.
>
> Thanks to Melissa for her internet research, and to Chiranjit for his many
> contributions over the years from a south Asian perspective.  We don't get 
> enough
> info from outside the "N.A." portion of NAFEX.
>
> ~David Consolvo, MD
> Hungrytown, Virginia
>
>
> ---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
> From: Melissa Kacalanos<mijwiz@yahoo.com>
> Reply-To: Melissa Kacalanos<mijwiz@yahoo.com>,nafex mailing list at ibiblio
> <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Date:  Mon, 16 Jan 2012 07:24:20 -0800 (PST)
>
> > Now that I'm googling apricot kernels, I'm finding lots of vendors (including
> Americans) selling ordinary, bitter, poisonous apricot kernels as if they 
> were a
> health food. That may have been the case with these Pakistani imports, with
> someone trying to make money selling what's otherwise a useless agricultural
> waste product. There's much less regulation and enforcement of this sort of 
> thing
> than we think there is.
> > However, there are some cultivars of apricot that do lack the genes that would
> enable them to make cyanide. Kernels from these cultivars are safe and 
> delicious. I
> see 'Harcot' listed as one of these sweet-pit varieties, so they should be 
> safe to eat
> in quantity. I'm having trouble finding a more complete listing of sweet-pit 
> apricot
> cultivars, though. I see mention online that these have sweet pits: 'Chinese,'
> 'Hunza,' 'Robada,' 'Montrose,' 'Canadian White Blenheim'... There must be a 
> list
> online somewhere, but I'm not finding it.
> > Melissa
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: David Consolvo
> > Sent: Monday, January 16, 2012 6:17 AM
> > To: nafex ibiblio mailing list
> > Subject: [nafex ibiblio list] Apricot kernels
> >
> > I find that kernels of the apricot "Harcot" are delicious, very almond-like.
> > I limit
> > myself to five at a time, though, since apricot kernels have cyanide.
> >
> > Wikipedia says that despite being used/eaten in central Asia and around the
> > Mediterranian:
> >
> > "In 1993, the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets tested
> > the
> > cyanide content of two 220 gram (8oz) packages of apricot kernels that were
> > imported from Pakistan which were being sold in health-food stores as a
> > snack.
> > The results showed that each package, if consumed entirely, contained at
> > least
> > double the minimum lethal dosage of cyanide for an adult human. The apricot
> > pits
> > were recalled and removed from stores.[3] In spite of this, there were no
> > USA
> > deaths and only one serious toxicity from apricot kernels reported from 1979
> > to
> > 1998.[4] On average, an apricot kernel contains about 0.5 mg of cyanide."
> >
> > ~David Consolvo
> > Hungrytown, Virginia
> > __________________
> > nafex mailing list
> > nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
> > Subscribe, unsubscribe, change user configuration, list information:
> > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/nafex
> > Google command to search the list message archives, located here:
> > https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/nafex
> > site: lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/nafex [searchstring]
> > nafex list mirror sites:
> > http://nafexlist.blogspot.com/
> > http://groups.google.com/group/nafexlist
> > nafex list website (reference library)
> > https://sites.google.com/site/nafexmailinglist
> > Make a donation toward list maintenance:
> > https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-
> xclick&hosted_button_id=N8YGXK5XLTPAU
>
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________________________________________
> Sent via the WebMail system at mail.firstva.com
>
>
>
>
> __________________
> nafex mailing list
> nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
> Subscribe, unsubscribe, change user configuration, list information:
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/nafex
> Google command to search the list message archives, located here:
> https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/nafex
> site: lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/nafex [searchstring]
> nafex list mirror sites:
> http://nafexlist.blogspot.com/
> http://groups.google.com/group/nafexlist
> nafex list website (reference library)
> https://sites.google.com/site/nafexmailinglist
> Make a donation toward list maintenance:
> https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=N8YGXK5XLTPAU