Halloween Scaremongering
Death by Chocolate
Posted by Ross Pomeroy at Thu, 31 Oct 2013 01:13:47, RealClearScience.com
Posted by Ross Pomeroy at Thu, 31 Oct 2013 01:13:47, RealClearScience.com
Today is Halloween! And what's Halloween without a little festive scaremongering?
This evening, city blocks across the country will be packed with people masquerading as ghouls, goblins, specters, and (God forbid) twerking Miley Cyruses, all tricking, treating, and occasionally extorting their ways to a bounty of delectable candy. When bags are teeming and parents are seething, that's when the wanton gluttony can finally begin.
Now would be a good time to warn about the dangers of eating poisoned or booby-trapped candy. Except such fears are totally unfounded. So instead, I'd like to present something else for you to fear: death by chocolate poisoning. Yes, it's possible!
The key to chocolate's deadliness is a bitter-tasting chemical called theobromine. Like nicotine, cocaine, and morphine, theobromine is an alkaloid, defined chiefly by the presence of at least one nitrogen compound in a heterocyclic ring. Cacao beans, from which chocolate is derived, naturally contain approximately 1.2% of the compound by weight, and since all chocolate has some amount of cacao, the popular sweet also has a little theobromine.
(More here.)
This evening, city blocks across the country will be packed with people masquerading as ghouls, goblins, specters, and (God forbid) twerking Miley Cyruses, all tricking, treating, and occasionally extorting their ways to a bounty of delectable candy. When bags are teeming and parents are seething, that's when the wanton gluttony can finally begin.
Now would be a good time to warn about the dangers of eating poisoned or booby-trapped candy. Except such fears are totally unfounded. So instead, I'd like to present something else for you to fear: death by chocolate poisoning. Yes, it's possible!
The key to chocolate's deadliness is a bitter-tasting chemical called theobromine. Like nicotine, cocaine, and morphine, theobromine is an alkaloid, defined chiefly by the presence of at least one nitrogen compound in a heterocyclic ring. Cacao beans, from which chocolate is derived, naturally contain approximately 1.2% of the compound by weight, and since all chocolate has some amount of cacao, the popular sweet also has a little theobromine.
(More here.)
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