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Tonka beans – A delicious flavour with a toxic chemical
- avs733 9y agoI am somewhat appalled but not at all surprised to see click bait headlines leaking into the BBC's vernacular.
- vanderZwan 9y agoThe use of BOLD TEXT is also a bit annoying. I wonder if it has to to with the fact that this is the BBC Future section.
- ashark 9y agoThe bold text is for links. Confused me at first, too. Really poor choice.
- trendia 9y agoI can mentally ignore links, but I don't mentally ignore bold. I assume that if an author is using bold, then they're trying to tell me something really important. But, if bolding hyperlinks becomes the "new style" of online writing, then I guess I'll have to slowly learn to desensitize myself to bolded text as well.
- vanderZwan 9y agoThat's ridiculous, there's no advantage over underlining text, and everybody recognises the latter as a standard. And like trendia said, BOLD TEXT already has the semantic meaning of shouting. It's very aggressive and in-your-face to read
- SurrealSoul 9y agoIt could be worse, I seen far more clickbaity articles about this topic >This flavour is so good its illegal >If your food tastes this good it could kill you >This flavour caused a drug raid
- avs733 9y agoOh it totally could be worse in an absolute sense. But for the BBC...this seems quite bad. Its one thing to get that language from an ad or distractify. Quite another from the Beeb
- Dylan16807 9y agoWhat makes you file it as click bait, exactly? I thought the headline gave me a very clear idea of what the article's contents would be. How would you improve it? Edit: Wait, the actual article says secret and on HN it says chemical. Hmm.
- mrob 9y agoIt's click bait because the most important information is missing from the title. It could be improved by changing it to "Tonka beans: delicious and toxic".
- Dylan16807 9y agoMissing? I'm confused. All of those words are in the title.
- mrob 9y agoOnly in HN's edited title, not the original BBC title.
- Dylan16807 9y agoI think I've been misreading the BBC title the whole time as also saying "Tonka beans". Oops. It's in the subtitle but not the real title.
- sersi 9y agoTonka beans are quite popular in Europe and there are a lot of deserts or even jam using them. The thing though is that it tastes awful in large dose, so you're unlikely to encounter a large dose of it... It's a bit like nutmeg which is also quite toxic in large doses but is not banned in the US (which shows that sometimes those decisions are rather arbitrary)
- Sir_Cmpwn 9y agoCan someone who's a better cook than this author tell us their opinion of the taste?
- wazoox 9y agoIt's a delicious, sweet, nutty aroma that marries extremely well with chocolate. The Swiss chocolate manufacturer Villars makes a delicious "Praliné fève Tonka" that I can't recommend enough :)
- sersi 9y agoYes, that part about his cooking experiment was rather ridiculous. It marries very well with vanilla and chocolate. By itself it has a bit of a sweet nutty flavor that is rather complex. To be slighlty flippant, it's kind of the shitake (or msg) of desert, it enhances the rest of the flavors.
- magic_beans 9y agoThe writer is a woman.
- goldenkey 9y agoYou are a ...pedant!
- luckman212 9y agoshiitake dessert
- Ended 9y agoIt tastes delicious and has a fantastic aroma. It's quite complex. I'd put it somewhere between vanilla, marzipan and cinnamon. I've tried it with chocolate, almond, vanilla, fruit, cream, custard with good results. It also apparently goes well with fish (haven't tried it yet).
- chewxy 9y ago
- ashark 9y agoTL;DR with the important stuff bumped (I hate, hate, hate clickbait and burying the lede): Tonka beans, containing the toxic-to-the-liver chemical Coumarin, are banned for use in food in the US but still used in some high-end restaurants and bakeries, leading to occasional FDA raids. The beans impart flavors akin to vanilla, lavender, cherries, and grass, due to their sharing some chemical components. They're probably safe in small amounts, making the ban controversial. If you have certain rare enzyme disorders or (obviously) existing liver damage, however, the risk of harm is higher. The chemical is present in smaller but still-large amounts in certain other foods and spices, notably common cassia "cinnamon"—the less-common true cinnamon contains only trace amounts. The use of Tonka/Coumarin in non-food products is unregulated, and it is in fact used in cigarettes, e-cigs, and cosmetics. It can be absorbed through the lungs and skin. Tonka bean: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dipteryx_odorata https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dipteryx_odorata https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinnamomum_cassia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinnamomum_cassia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinnamomum_verum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinnamomum_verum
- ianai 9y agoThank you for summarizing it succinctly.
- Dylan16807 9y ago"Tonka beans have an intense flavour that chefs and food manufacturers have enthusiastically embraced. There’s just one problem – it contains a chemical that could, in large enough doses, kill you." This is the first thing in the article. How is the lede buried?
- ashark 9y agoAh, yeah, I looked past the subtitle and started reading the article itself, which is definitely not ideal inverted-pyramid reporting, as it starts with: "It’s led to raids by law enforcement agencies and mass deaths in animals; in the United States, chefs have ‘dealers’ who smuggle it into the country." So: lede's not buried, but the rest of the article's garbage. I'm fine with nonstandard, creative news writing, gonzo, whatever, when it's justified and done well, but this article's just a rambling eyeball trap.
- pluma 9y agoI was surprised the article didn't mention nutmeg, which is widely used despite its toxicity, so I tried to figure out how their LD50 compares (i.e. how much tonka nut you need to eat to have a 50% chance of death, and how nutmeg stacks up). I couldn't find any clear answers for tonka beans and the exact dose of course depends on body weight but the lethal doses for nutmeg were an order of magnitude higher: for nutmeg the doses are given in thousands of milligrammes per kg body weight, for tonka beans they're in the hundreds. So I guess it could be said that tonka beans are 10 times as deadly as nutmeg. EDIT: g -> mg, sorry about mixing up the units
- smeyer 9y ago> for nutmeg the doses are given in thousands of grammes per kg body weight Is it really fair to call something toxic if the LD50 is more than your bodyweight? I suspect you might have your LD50 value off.
- lightbyte 9y agoNutmeg is still dangerous in non-lethal doses. Eating just a couple nuts will put you in a fairly unpleasant delirious state for up to 2 full days.
- macawfish 9y agoI've heard it's much better fresh than dried
- 9y ago
- SurrealSoul 9y agohttps://www.amazon.com/Tonka-Beans-Wishes-Ravenz-Special/dp/B00JV3G64Q https://www.amazon.com/Tonka-Beans-Wishes-Ravenz-Special/dp/... But it's illegal?
- 0xffff2 9y agoThe article says it's illegal to sell the bean to eat.
- scoates 9y agoI had the pleasure of tasting a Tonka Bean IPA I brought back from Brazil a couple years ago. Immediately ordered some of the beans (thanks to my freedom as a Canadian (-: ). They're really great in crème brûlée.
- woodrowbarlow 9y agodo you just dust the top of the creme brulee with tonka shavings?
- rustlerpride 9y agoAlthough banning might be excessive, products containing coumarin should be labelled appropriately. If what the article says is true, such as that a teaspoon of cassia cinnamon can put you over the safe limits, then consuming coumarin is dangerous for those with liver problems, recovering from mononucleosis, or when consumed in conjunction with other liver-damaging compounds (i.e. alcohol).
- pavement 9y agoProbably also consider caution when taking some analgesics, like acetaminophen/paracetamol.
- tekromancr 9y agoYea, but those are already properly labeled. I'm not sure what you are getting at?
- icebraining 9y agoI believe pavement means consuming coumarin while taking analgesics.
- pavement 9y agoIndeed, I was thinking that it's probably one more detail a person could neglect, unwittingly nickel-and-diming their way to further liver damage. For a perfect storm, add them altogether on top of a case of undiagnosed hepatitis.
- undersuit 9y ago>“I was talking to a vanilla purveyor recently and he offered me tonka bean paste,” says Raquel. “I was like ‘If I want to use tonka bean, I’ll use tonka bean.’” One of my biggest issues with mislabeling foods. Sell me vanilla at the market price, sell me tonka at the market price, but don't sell my vanilla that is actually tonka at vanilla market prices. Same with scallops and stingray, crab and surimi, calamari and pork, chocolate and flavored vegetable oil.
- have_faith 9y ago>calamari and pork I think that's an urban legend
- drspacemonkey 9y agoIt is an urban legend. It takes FAR too much effort to mask the flavour to make it a cost-effective substitute. It's like the "McDonald's hamburger is really red meal worm" or "KFC is really genetically engineered boneless chicken monsters" myths.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- nyolfen 9y agoThis American Life undertook a relatively serious investigation of this question (calamari 'rings' as pork rectum) and they basically came away with "inconclusive": https://m.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/484/doppelgangers https://m.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/484/do...
- drspacemonkey 9y agoI can't listen to it right now (I will later, because TAL is great), but did they do a blind taste test? I wish I could remember where I found it, but some curious foodies tried it and the pork rectum had a... let's call it "distinct" flavour that was unpleasant and difficult to mask.
- torrent-of-ions 9y agoBitter almonds contain cyanide and are used in loads of traditional desserts.
- panzer_wyrm 9y agoIt gets deactivated by the heat
- jeltz 9y agoYes, but you do not heat it in all desserts.
- jedanbik 9y agoTonka (Tonquin) beans traditionally were stored with [nasal] snuff tobacco as a flavor agent. See page 42: http://www.top25snuff.com/images/dokumenty/snuff-yesterday-and-today,-c.w.-shepherd,-1963.pdf http://www.top25snuff.com/images/dokumenty/snuff-yesterday-a...
- pruett 9y agoI adopted a pitbull whose shelter name was "Beans". Immediately upon adopting, I dropped the name "Beans" and gave him the moniker Tatanka. My wife occasionally calls him Tonka Beans for short... He's my best friend.
- jjtheblunt 9y agotatanka like buffalo from dancing with wolves? we use that reference for the thundering footsteps of our hairy family members wrestling, playing tag, playing...
- pruett 9y agoexactly...we were watching dances with wolves the night before we got him :)
- nielsbot 9y agoTangential, but I like it. Have an upvote.
- danielam 9y agoAnother food also banned from the US because of its coumarin content is the herb Hierochloe odorata, also known as bison grass or sweet grass. It's an important ingredient in Żubrówka vodka. For this reason, the Żubrówka you can purchase in the US is essentially fake, containing ingredients meant to simulate or approximate coumarin.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]