"david taylor" wrote in message
...
Don't eat the kernels!
I've worked on a sodium cyanide plant and know the smell, toxicity limits
etc of HCN. The kernels of plums ,apricots etc are used for flavouring
jams,
but I read once that some health fiends killed themselves by eating about
40 apple pips(smell the HCN when they are cracked) in a muesli.
The interesting point about cyanide is that if you have a sub-fatal dose
you
recover without permanent ill effect.
I once had a sub lethal dose, which had the effect of disorientation. We
had
rushed off to the golf course after work and the effect was to double
what
was already a poor score for the course.
Regards
David T

Well, I reckon my 4 year old son must eat about 20 apple pips some days, as
the only bit of an apple he doesn't eat is the woody stalk. He doesn't seem
to suffer any ill effects - I'll be asking him in the morning whether he
chews them up.

Duncan