Really Dangerous Foods

Everyone knows that too many cheeseburgers can lead you to a slow and jiggly death, but if you’re looking for escape through food, there are faster ways to go. Any one of these deadly foods could take you out in a fraction of the time, but that doesn’t stop people from eating them.

• Hot Peppers – You’re going to have to work pretty hard if you want to kill yourself with hot peppers, but technically speaking, it can be done. Capsaicin, the ingredient that gives peppers their hotness, can lead to blue skin, breathing problems, and convulsions, when taken in extremely large amounts. Fortunately, only the very hottest exotic peppers could even come close (in normal consumption quantities).

  Fun Pepper Fact: Birds are not affected by capsaicin, which makes them excellent pepper farmers. They eat the seeds, fly around a bit, and drop them off when they’ve worn out their welcome. Yummy.


• The Hooded Pitohui – Despite the ominous-sounding name, the Pitohui is a tiny, adorable red and black bird that is native to New Guinea. It’s also the only bird known to have poison-coated feathers. Natives have long avoided the poisonous parts, but it couldn’t have been fun figuring out which parts those were, exactly.

  From the moment it enters the body its poison, homobatrachotoxin, causes burning and numbness, followed by uncontrollable muscle contractions, paralysis, and eventually, death.



• Mushrooms – Mushrooms can kill you, and not just the hallucinogenic ones. Even the Morel, a commonly hunted forest mushroom, has a look-a-like relative that can kill you. In most cases, you’d have to eat a handful for consumption to be lethal, but it’s always best to avoid questionable mushrooms. There are no proven antidotes for any major variety of mushroom poisoning.
  

• Pufferfish – No list of dangerous foods is complete without a nod to this fetching fish. In Japan, chefs are required to undergo several years of careful training to be allowed to prepare pufferfish, as the toxin it contains is roughly 1200 times more lethal than cyanide. Outlawed for centuries, it’s hard to believe that anyone would voluntarily consume it, much less pay hundreds of dollars for the privilege.