Warning about extremely toxic substances when eating bamboo shoots

Cyanide toxins in bamboo shoots, when entering the body, combine with digestive enzymes to turn into extremely toxic hydrocyanic acid, causing headaches, vomiting, difficulty breathing, low blood pressure, coma, convulsions...

Bamboo shoots are a widely used food. However, some types of bamboo shoots, especially fresh bamboo shoots, can cause poisoning and even death.

According to documents from the Food Safety Department, the toxin in bamboo shoots is cyanide. Cyanide is an acid radical (-CN) whose compounds include salts or acids, which are very toxic, the fatal dose through the digestive tract is 1 mg per kg of body weight. Fresh bamboo shoots have a very high cyanide content, about 230 mg per kg of bamboo shoots. When eating bamboo shoots containing a lot of cyanide, under the influence of digestive enzymes, cyanide turns into hydrocyanic acid (HCN), which is an extremely toxic substance to the body.

Poisoning usually occurs after eating bamboo shoots from a few minutes to a few hours depending on the severity. Severe poisoning will have early symptoms such as headache, vomiting, difficulty breathing, confusion, low blood pressure, coma, convulsions and shock. Breath may have an odor. Mild poisoning can occur a few hours after eating. When the above symptoms appear, the patient must be taken immediately to the nearest medical facility for emergency and timely treatment, and the authorities must be notified immediately.

To avoid poisoning when eating bamboo shoots, the Food Safety Department recommends that people soak and boil bamboo shoots many times, change the water after each boil, and remember to open the lid when the water boils. When suspecting that bamboo shoots are poisonous, absolutely do not eat them.

According to VnExpress