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It’s interesting to think that work is a necessity in life and it’s all kinds of annoying and dreadful. Now, food, on the other hand, is also a necessity, but definitely in the top 5 of the best things that life has to offer. Until either reality or the internet hits.
Yes, Reddit has recently been ruining food (but only a little bit) with folks sharing how much of something consumed is lethal. We’re talking about actual foods that, if consumed in excess, would be a lethal dose. Some of these are physically impossible to achieve (no, don’t accept this challenge), but others—let’s just say it’s good to know these things if you really like eating.
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#1
I find it mind blowing that one grape can be enough to kill a dog. What kind of animal can eat s**t but not grapes
#2
When you drive on a highway and there's oncoming trafic in the other lane, you're always just one tiny hand motion (yours or the other driver) away from death.
When you think about it, it's insane that we trust each other to drive fast in opposite directions separated by just a few feet.
#3
A few years back a person got hospitalized because they ate 412 chicken nuggets in one sitting, and of course the top comments were all to the effect of "so 411 is the limit"
So, Redditors have recently been weighing in with their favorite “this much of this will kill you” facts in a now viral AskReddit thread. Folks were listing mostly edible things and very ordinary foods, but there was the occasional activity of sorts, like sleeping, driving and even breathing.
Anywho, the post garnered 6,200 upvotes and generated a discussion that included 3,600 comments.
#4
To overdose on Weed you'd have to smoke a telephone pole sized joint in 45 minutes
#5
Not kill you but if you eat too many bananas (like 40) you won’t be able to come to my place of work because you will set off the radiation monitors.
TheBlueBitterfly 8 months ago
I also wouldn't be able to come to your place if work because I would be busy puking 40 bananas.
#6
Alcohol.
In 5 seconds, if you're standing or walking or driving in the wrong place and someone else is driving after drinking, you can die.
In 5 hours, if you drink too much, you can die.
In 5 years, if you binge drink, you can die.
Or you can drink for five decades and watch every relationship in your life wither until the only one left is with the alcohol.
Headless Horseman 8 months ago
I have seen the unwritten ending of that last one. It was ugly, to say the least. Alcohol is not your friend.
So, throughout your lifetime, you will consume a lot of things. And that’s not just eating—it’s also things like breathing and absorbing (say, via the skin), among other things. There’s multiple ways things enter your body, is what I’m saying.
And there are a lot of different faculties in your body to process all of it—the good, the bad and the ugly. While you might think eating a banana is healthy and great, it does include a certain amount of toxins that the body should be able to take on as well.
#8
Oleander plant is just poisonous all the way through. A single leaf will kill a human adult. Very pretty though!
JayWantsACat 8 months ago
I still remember all these years later being warned about oleander from Boy Scouts. It was prevalent where I grew up and where we went camping. And since the stems/branches grow nice and straight it's tempting to use them to cook hot dogs and whatnot. You can't even use them for firewood.
#9
6 liters of water within in 3 hours will kill you. That's why the kid who could suck up a water bottle in an instant said he could only do it 2 or 3 times a day.
StrangeOne 8 months ago
At my office job, the air was so dry I drank water like I had never had water before. I felt water logged and woozy, but I didn't feel anymore hydrated and my throat was still dry. I was literally rinsing away my saliva.
So, the traditional and most known detoxifying faculties in the body are the kidneys and liver, which filter out toxins from the blood and direct into your bladder to be expelled (the kidneys) and change the chemical nature of toxins altogether (the liver).
But there’s also the lesser known detox centers like the lungs, which have a capacity to remove certain gasses, the skin, which keeps water-borne nonsense at bay, and the digestive system, which is capable of eliminating toxic foods through vomit and the runs.
#10
Two things you learn quickly in electrical engineering related to death and one not related to Human death.
The first is the right hand rule. When we you are touching electronic components that may be charged use your right hand as it is further from your heart vs the left so it’s less likely to kill you if something were to go wrong. The Human body is more or less a giant bag of salt water after all.
The Second is to always touch with the back of your hand first. If you use your palm/fingers you risk the current causing your muscles to tense and then grab and hold the circuit and you’ll be unable to let go until long after you’re dead or someone breaks you off the circuit.
Finally, if you release the magic smoke the electronics are dead completely and totally. While refill kits exist they are hard to find and ever harder to use and capturing magic smoke is incredibly difficult.
Brian Beduhn 8 months ago
Working in several skilled trades, I work with high voltage/3 phase stuff (but <600vac) this is very true. All of it. Always treat, even LOTO'd s**t, as if it were live until you test it! Still waiting for 'Smoke Restore' kit to arrive though................
#11
An ounce of polar bear liver contains enough Vitamin A to kill you.
Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 8 months ago
An ounce of polar bear will definitely kill you, if the ounce is attached to its paws or jaws.
#12
Nutmeg in large-but-not-nearly-as-large-as-you-might-think doses is a potent psychoactive that will basically make you go insane. Infamous addict William S. Burroughs wrote that the only people he ever met whom he thought were truly beyond redemption were the nutmeg addicts.
JayWantsACat 8 months ago
Imagine going to jail and explain you were arrested for being high on nutmeg. lmao
If not for these faculties, we’d all be sick all the time. But they are no superheroes either. There is a certain limit of toxicity that they can manage and any more than that could lead to a slew of problems depending on the circumstances. And even if you’re not consuming any toxins since you live in a clean environment, your body could be creating its own toxins—after all, it’s all a game of breaking down chemical compounds, and sometimes they can break down into toxins, despite not being such in the first place. And toxins in excess essentially weaken the body, and thus cause things like illness and speed up aging.
#13
Botulism (cause by exposure to botulinum toxins) is super lethal. It takes about 1 billionth of a gram per pound of body weight to kill a person. So if you weigh 200 pounds, just 0.00000002th of a gram can kill you.
#14
Dread Pirate Roberts: "What you do not smell is called Iocane powder. It is odorless, tasteless, dissolves instantly in liquid, and is among the more deadly poisons known to man."
#15
Death is quite lethal. Just a single dose is enough to kill a person.
And if we’re not putting toxins into our body, we’re maybe simply overeating—and that’s just as bad.
The obvious effect of overeating is gaining excess weight in the form of fat. Whenever you overeat, the body converts those extra calories into fat for later use. And if you like hoarding fat and never really using it, then obesity will be right around the corner, and that will put a strain on your body (e.g. the cardiovascular system).
#16
You would die from smoke inhalation before you could overdose on THC from smoking pot.
StrangeOne 8 months ago (edited)
Smoking anything is super harmful. Our lungs are not meant to breath in high concentration of smoke of any substance.
#17
One of my favorite trombone fun facts is that within a human lifetime, you’ll eat about a trombone’s worth of Zinc and Copper (the metals that make brass). I had a kid once ask me “so if I eat a trombone right now, will I never have to eat zinc or copper again?” And the answer was yes, because you would die. Edit: okay I checked a source for how many minerals we actually need in a human lifetime, and turns out my original source was way wrong. We apparently eat 950 lbs of copper and 502 lbs of zinc in a lifetime, so considering that a large trombone of 6 lbs provides roughly 4 lbs of copper and 2 lbs of zinc, that works out to around 250 large trombones or 500 small trombones eaten in a human lifetime. But you would still die if you ate an entire trombone in one sitting.
#18
Salt. Two tablespoons full of salt will kill. There was a case some years ago where a kid mixed up salt and sugar in a desert and the mother made them eat the whole thing as punishment. The kid died, mum got off easy because the judge believed her that she really didn't know.
Thiago Gonsalves 8 months ago
That kind of mother, omg... Can't imagine doing such a thing to my kids.
Overeating might also disrupt the way hunger is regulated in your body. Long story short, constant overeating might cause a chain of events that would eventually lead to training your body to give you dopamine to encourage you to overeat. This in turn creates a vicious cycle when hunger is no longer in the equation. But portioning your food more reasonably might help avoid this.
#19
Ointments with methyl salicylate like IcyHot and Tiger Balm can harm you if you use it over 40% of your body.
A teen died some years back after using a few types of muscle balms and adhesive pads at the same time.
majandess 8 months ago
Wintergreen! Methyl salicylate is an ester of salicylic acid (aspirin). Five drops is equivalent to a 300mg tablet of aspirin, and methyl salicylate is easily absorbed through the skin (which is why the patches work). I keep a stash of wintergreen mints in my medical supplies for sore throats.
#20
Brazil nuts and selenium poisoning, don't eat em every day, or in consistent large quantities.
StrangeOne 8 months ago
“You can add just one Brazil nut a day to your diet with a meal of your choice, but it would be recommended to not exceed more than three in a day. Selenium intake should be limited to 400 mcg per day, with each Brazil nut containing between 70 to 100 mcg.” - health.com (LOL someone commented on Reddit "I just googled this to find out how many I can eat, and Google gave me a "there is help" 800 number as though I wanted to harm myself." XD)
#21
I remember a news story a couple of years ago where some guy died because he would eat 2 bags of black licorice every day.
JayWantsACat 8 months ago
Looked it up since I was curious: It contains glycyrrhizic acid, which can cause swelling and high blood pressure and deplete potassium and other electrolytes that may cause a cardiac arrhythmia or arrest. Glycyrrhizic acid can be found in other foods, such as jelly beans and beverages for flavor. Consuming more than 57 grams (2 ounces) of black licorice per day for at least two weeks may lead to serious health problems.
The two other direct implications of overeating are nausea and indigestion as well as excessive gas and bloating.
In the first case, your stomach is put under pressure to process a huge amount of food, and so it might have to eject some of it or to rush through digesting something just to get sweet relief. With the latter, there are certain foods that are more prone to be broken down into gasses. And so if you eat more of it, hence there will be more gasses to expel. Nobody wants that. Not you, not those around you.
#22
You can go and buy a bottle of Tylenol at damn-near any grocery store, gas station, or pharmacy with 500mg capsules/tablets.
It is entirely possible to irreparably damage your liver and kidneys with as little as 7500mg... so 15 pills in a single day. Sure, this number generally requires other comorbidities to be present - chronic alcoholism, poor nutrition, etc - but losing track of how many you've taken is reasonably common (all things considered, especially for individuals in mental decline), making acute acetaminophen poisoning one of the leading causes of acute liver failure leading to death.
It is really not a fun way to go, either...
StrangeOne 8 months ago
You're not supposed to exceed 2 - 4 tablets a day of acetaminophen. If you require something stronger you need something prescribed.
#23
Consuming just six teaspoons of cinnamon powder in one sitting can potentially lead to death by cinnamon challenge gone horribly wrong
#24
It only takes 7mL of hydrofluoric acid to absorb all the free calcium in the body of an adult human.
Source - I work with HF and we have very extensive safety training and routine tabletop drills to cover what to do in case of an exposure. Calcium gluconate can save lives.
Sky Render 8 months ago
Far worse is fluorine gas. It got the nickname "gas of Lucifer"' for good reason! Time was that there was a comprehensive list kept of every chemist who was poisoned or blown up by it. Luckily fluorine gas is not common!
One of the lesser known facts is that overeating might hinder brain functionality. Studies have determined that overweight people are more inclined to develop memory problems compared to those within the weight norm. Now, considering that the brain is mostly fat, eating healthy fats, like avocados, fish, and nut butters might help with that.
#25
Milk contain small amounts of alcohol. If you quickly drink 13 litres, you can blow positive in a breathalyser test (about 0.1 promille). You will have burst your stomach before that though, and probably drowned your brain.
#26
Amanita phalloides, also known as the Death Cap mushroom. 0.1mg/kg of body weight of it's toxins is all it takes to be lethal. One mushroom typically contains about 15mg. The biggest danger is these look like mushrooms that are also perfectly edible.
Another set of lookalike mushrooms are Galerina marginata and Pholiotina rugosa which are often mistaken for "magic mushrooms" (Psilocybe)
The Darkest Timeline 8 months ago
And this is why you don’t eat wild mushrooms unless you know exactly what you’re doing
Lastly, you might have noticed this one, but overeating might cause you to become suddenly sleepy.
It’s speculated that once a bigger meal is consumed, blood sugar might drop shortly and that would ultimately lead to sleepiness, sluggishness, headaches and the like. There’s also excess insulin production. And while that sounds like not a big deal, remember, that puts pressure on your body and if you’re, say, driving, drowsiness doesn’t help navigate roads.
#28
There used to be a website where you enter your height and weight, and it would tell you how many cans of Mountain Dew it would take to kill you. I don't think that site is still around.
#29
If you drink two liters of soy sauce you will die.
#30
Potassium chloride, the stuff they use to stop your heart during an execution, is also the same stuff they use as salt-substitute in low sodium salt products. Too much of that salt substitute can definitely kill you and there's even a tiny warning on the label if you look for it. If you search you can find several cases of death attributed specifically to this product.
StrangeOne 8 months ago (edited)
The source they used is not the best. Potassium chloride can be risky to people with diabetes and kidney failure. It's still better to eat whole foods with salt. But potassium chloride is not really that harmful to healthy people. Moderation is key to everything. It's in potato chips, chocolate bars, soups.
So, what are your thoughts on all of this? Have any other consumable dangers in mind that are worth sharing? Spill the beans in the comment section below! Or check out some of the other dangers that seem perfectly fine.
#31
A poison dart frog's skin is so poisonous that it can kill 20 men from simply touching the frog. This has to do with what wild frogs eat
#32
You can die from alcohol poisoning by drinking vanilla extract.
Gustav Gallifrey 8 months ago
In Australia, shearers' cooks (who cooked, not surprisingly, for teams of shearers engaged on sheep stations) were, and are, engaged on separate contracts. It used to be a truism to watch out for cooks who went through a lot of vanilla extract, as they were probably people with a drink problem.
#33
Because bananas are ever so slightly radioactive, if you eat 50,000 of them in a short time frame you'll die from radiation.
The downside is your stomach would explode and kill you long before you got anywhere close to 50,000.
Trash Panda 🦝 8 months ago
I'm pretty sure if you eat 50,000 of anything in a short time, you're gonna die. Almost positive.
#34
Just a couple bottle of blue juice valve oil for brass instruments can easily kill you. I learned this in drum corps after my buddy went to the ER because it slowly worked its way out of his valves and up his lead pipe and back out his mouthpiece.
#35
Carfentanil is 100 times more potent than fentanyl. The amount it takes to kill a grown man is the size of a grain of salt.
Display Name 8 months ago
they have nalaxone resistant carfentanil too, that's scary scary stuff
#36
breathing in a 100% oxygenated atmosphere can and will cause more damage than good
The air you normally breathe consists of 80% nitrogen and 20% oxygen
You can breathe comfortably with 20%
Nitrogen acts as a noble gas atleast if you only consider noble gasses as gasses that you can breathe without too much risk
Oxygen on the other hand is pretty volatile and can actually literally kill you if you breathe it in too much
If you have 100% oxygen it means you can literally poison yourself with the thing you need to live with which lowers your life expectancy
Breathing in pure oxygen is not a bad thing as long as you don't do it 24/7 unless you have to (mechanical ventilators LTIC dont actually give you pure oxygen it just makes you breathe if you cant control your diaphragm)
#37
Not kill you, but it would take 40 Nonalcoholic Beers to get the average person drunk.
Lily Kramer 8 months ago
That'd be way too many trips to the bathroom to pee before even getting buzzed.
#38
Neutrinos are subatomic particles that barely interact with normal matter, and yet [if you were close enough to a supernova] and somehow survived everything else, there would be *so many* neutrinos that you would nonetheless receive a lethal radiation dose.
#39
A cigar is supposed to have enough nicotine for up to 8 fatal doses. You would probably have to extract the nicotine and administer it orally for this because smoking destroys a lot of it.
iseefractals 8 months ago
The LD50 of nicotine for adults is 0.5 - 1mg per Kg of body weight, 30-60mg. For children however, it's only 0.1mg per kg of body weight. A 10ml bottle of flavored vape liquid can have as much as 200mg of nicotine, while the unflavored ones used for mixing your own flavors can contain as much as 1000mg.
#40
You can technically slap a human into being cooked alive, if slapped enough times, or slapped hard enough.
The Darkest Timeline 8 months ago
“Imma slap you so hard you gonna be done medium rare!” IDK, needs some work.
What do you think ?
Flora Porter 8 months ago
Some of these are interesting and deliver on the headline but it quickly descended into 'anything can kill you'.
Tristan J 8 months ago
Not to mention some ludicrous entries, such as suggesting we eat 950lbs of copper in a lifetime, when even 1g of copper in a day would likely kill you.
Load More Replies... 
censorshipsucks 8 months ago
I thought it was about edible/ingested lethal things, they should remove the irrelevant obvious stuff like driving. Otherwise we may as well add sharks and tornados and so on.
Flora Porter 8 months ago
Some of these are interesting and deliver on the headline but it quickly descended into 'anything can kill you'.
Tristan J 8 months ago
Not to mention some ludicrous entries, such as suggesting we eat 950lbs of copper in a lifetime, when even 1g of copper in a day would likely kill you.
Load More Replies... censorshipsucks 8 months ago
I thought it was about edible/ingested lethal things, they should remove the irrelevant obvious stuff like driving. Otherwise we may as well add sharks and tornados and so on.
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