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Strong black licorice, "lakrids," abounds in Denmark. My brother visited me when I was living there and ate a pound or so of little, tobacco-pipe shaped licoric
by Wistar 6y ago
Strong black licorice, "lakrids," abounds in Denmark. My brother visited me when I was living there and ate a pound or so of little, tobacco-pipe shaped licorice in an afternoon. He got profoundly ill with a racing heartbeat, lightheaded, dizzy and nauseous. I almost took him to the hospital but he refused. It took a couple of days before he felt good enough to get out of the apartment.
Sometime after, I mentioned this to a Danish friend and he said, "Oh, yeah, you never want to eat much of that. People have damaged their eyesight from eating too much."
- umvi 6y agoYou'd think the package would have a warning on it?
- Wistar 6y agoIt usually is sold loose, by the gram, in DK.
- ponker 6y agoDutch people don’t need a warning to stop them from eating a pound of licorice in a sitting. Wanton excess as a way of life is culturally American.
- umvi 6y ago...so just let tourists and foreigners in your country fend for themselves and hope the internet warns them before they eat too much unlabeled poison?
- rabboRubble 6y agolet's hope those tourists and foreigners read Dutch if and when labels are added to packaging!
- ben_w 6y agoI use Google Translate when I browse food somewhere I can’t read the language.
- dang 6y agoThis comment and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24581592 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24581592 are obviously not cool. If you keep posting flamewar comments we're going to have to ban you again. I don't want to do that, so can you please fix this? Did you not see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23255339 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23255339 or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23469154 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23469154?
- ponker 6y agoWhat is your claim here? That Americans do not consume in absurd quantities as a way of life? Meat, sugar, oil, land, etc.? Is this even a matter of serious debate?
- samatman 6y agoThe Netherlands has a 20% obesity rate. Granted that this isn't the 36% in the United States. But it doesn't justify your confident claim that Nederlanders never engage in 'wanton consumption'; clearly a fifth of your compatriots take a third stroopwafel when a single serving would suffice.
- mr_toad 6y agoWhere do you draw the line? People have died from drinking too much water, probably more than have been killed by liquorice.
- umvi 6y agoMy body naturally tells me when I'm not thirsty anymore. I'm not sure my body would tell me when I'm reaching toxic levels of glycyrrhizic acid if I'm snacking on licorice all day. Just a label like "Licorice contains glycyrrhizic acid. Do not consume more than 10 mg glycyrrhizic acid per day." Or even just "Licorice contains glycyrrhizic acid." would be enough for people to google it.
- guenthert 6y agoYou can't make it fool-proof.
- userbinator 6y agoWARNING: Consuming this product can expose you to chemicals known to the state of California to cause death.
- icedistilled 6y agoAh Then purpose of the salty licorice with ammonium chloride must be to prevent people from consuming too much in one sitting. Usually I can only make it 2/3rd through a single piece before the ammonia flavor is too over powering.
- Wistar 6y agoThe licorice pipes were not the super-strong shiny black variety but the somewhat sweet, softer black licorice that, when torn, is a dark brown inside.
- djxfade 6y agoIt's so strange to me as a Scandinavian to read this. We love that stuff
- MisterBastahrd 6y agoCan't imagine why someone from the land of fermented shark flesh would like the flavor of ammonia.
- Dahoon 6y agoScandinavia isn't a country.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- pfundstein 6y agoTBF ammonium chloride tastes as much like ammonia as sodium chloride tastes like chlorine.
- simongray 6y agoIn Denmark we mixed in some pepper with the salt, making salty licorice with pepper inside (Tyrkisk Peber). People love that stuff.
- sfjailbird 6y agoI went to the doctor with acute high blood pressure that appeared out of nowhere. Symptoms were an untreatable headache and swelling in the facial region, lasting for a few days. In the end, I figured out that the cause was eating a big package of the same soft sweet black licorice. I even kept eating it during symptoms, making the condition worse. My main reaction, after learning that the licorice could cause this, was how the hell is there not a huge warning on the packaging? I can only imagine how bad it could get if I had been already suffering from hypertension when eating it.
- oxymoran 6y agoI had a similar issue with the acute HBP out of nowhere and constant headaches. My liver levels were also all out of whack. I never figure out what caused it but it did resolve after several weeks. My BP and liver are completely normal now. The best I could do was narrow it down to recently starting to drink a ton of green tea or some supplements that I had started taking. I just cut it all out and it went away.
- vmception 6y agoOn a similar note, I used to not smoke anything but gladly partake in a hookah pipe while out, I liked the different flavors and assumed the “fog” was benign. I stopped AS SOON AS I heard about how much worse hookah was. I had no clue and am completely appalled at the lack of warnings. I’ve met many other people that say the same thing. I still don't smoke anything, and also cut hookah out.
- Dahoon 6y agoJust want to point out that your post make it sound like the tobacco-pibe shaped licorice is strong licorice. It is actually some of the mildest you can possibly make.
- Wistar 6y agoI've not ever made licorice so I will have to defer to your experience.
- slowwriter 6y agoAs many other Danes, I have a total weakness for licorice. But I believe it’s common knowledge that you’re not supposed to eat a lot of it at once. Certain types do have warnings printed on them like “For adults, not for kids” but most do not. The sneaky part that the article also describes is that you don’t really feel any symptoms until it’s too late. So once in a while when I buy a pack I spread it out over several days, preferably with space in between just to be sure. Also, my mom ate a bunch of one of those ‘not for kids’ types of licorice when she was pregnant with me which is kind of concerning. I don’t know exactly how much though, hopefully not dangerous amounts. At least I don’t know that I have suffered any direct consequences of that habit.
- moksly 6y agoWhat? I’m Danish and I’ve eaten 45 of those (lakridspiber), and felt nothing but shame. Were they the yellow or pink ones? I generally don’t eat a lot of candy, but maybe once a year in a while I’ll eat quite a lot of whatever crave springs up. Sometimes that is lakrids. Maybe I should be more careful?
- wingerlang 6y agoYeah it’s odd, one pack is usually 16-20 and one pack is around a pound if my calculations aren’t way off. One packs is nearing the limit for a session but I can’t ever remember having any headaches or anything from them.
- larrywright 6y agoI love black licorice, and would like to try some of this. Is there a brand or variety you’d recommend?
- Wistar 6y agoPerhaps try this place: https://www.licoriceinternational.com/licorice/pc/Danish-Licorice-c22.htm https://www.licoriceinternational.com/licorice/pc/Danish-Lic...