In article ,
Malcolm writes:
|
| Half a cup sounds plausible - 40 pips doesn't. I think that you could
| probably kill yourself by adding plum kernels to muesli, but it would
| make it very bitter.
|
| When I make plum, damson or apricot jam I always add the kernels to it -
| but then, HCN is thermolabile.
|
| Yes. I have never worked out exactly what happens to the cyanide,
| and what forms it comes in (before and after), but I believe that
| cooking is pretty effective at reducing its toxicity.
|
| As every cook since Mrs Beeton, and probably for years before her, has
| been recommending the adding of kernels to plum jam, it can't be that
| toxic!

Her predecessors, and probably her (I should have to check), also
recommended making pickles in untinned copper vessels to produce
a bright green colour. Many of them also recommended sweetening
fermentable preserves with sugar of lead (lead acetate), which
has the advantage that it doesn't ferment.

Cooked plum kernels can't be all that toxic, but uncooked ones
may well be fairly lethal in quantity. As someone pointed out,
cyanide has the property that sub-lethal doses are completely
harmless once the immediate symptoms have passed.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.