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Dangerous Foods


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Draggingtree

April 19, 2013

Dangerous Foods

By Stephanie Butler

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kitkana/iStockphoto.com

These days, barely a week goes by without some new food-related horror story popping up in the media. Horsemeat in your taco? Check. E. coli in your hamburger? Got it. From mercury in fish to salmonella in chicken, it can seem like we’re living in a golden age for unsafe foods. But what about foods that are naturally dangerous? Between maggot-infested cheese and the exotic puffer fish, adventurous eaters have their pick of risky delicacies.

 

Let’s start with perhaps the most well-known danger food: Japan’s puffer fish, or fugu. Fugu contains a deadly dose of the poison tetrodotoxin in all its organs, the liver being the most toxic. Tetrodotoxin kills by paralyzing victims’ muscles and asphyxiating them—all while they remain fully conscious. There is no known antidote.

 

Scissors-32x32.png And Koreans enjoy eating nakji, a small octopus whose tentacles are served still raw and gently wriggling. It’s not poisonous, but about six South Koreans a year choke to death when the suction cups stick on their cheeks or inside their throats. Nakji experts recommend chewing the tentacles thoroughly and drinking lots of liquids to make sure they go down quickly. Scissors-32x32.pnghttp://www.history.com/news/hungry-history/dangerous-foods

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