Have you recently felt the presence of ghosts, seen giant insects attacking your car or found yourself rolling on the floor without explanation? No? Clearly you haven't been consuming enough of the five foods Bon Appetit says can cause hallucinations — although there is a good chance you had one of them this morning.
Hot chilies, nutmeg, moldy rye bread, sea bream and our old friend coffee are five foods with a history of causing hallucinations. Sea bream is especially potent, and ancient Romans used to eat the fish for its trippy effects. Diners looking for a little fun may want to exercise caution though:
A case report published in Clinical Toxicology describes a "40-year-old executive" vacationing in Cannes who, two hours after eating baked bream, started to feel a little sick. Things got worse overnight, with the expected symptoms of food poisoning, until the next day, when he started seeing hallucinations of "aggressive and screaming animals" and "giant arthropods around his car."
If you're wondering whether or not you should give up your morning coffee habit, rest easy: caffeine is associated with only "light hallucinations." Isn't that reassuring?
→ Read more: Dude, What Was in That Curry? at Bon Appetit
Related: Caffeine-Free Hot Drinks: 5 Alternatives to Coffee and Tea
(Image: andreiuc88/Shutterstock)
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moldy rye bread? i find it funny that enough people have eaten it for it to make a recorded list.
Posts like this annoy me because of lack of specifics...rendering it almost meaningless. So how much does one have to consume? Does it affect everyone in the same way? Etc... Wonder if the Bon Appetite article was more specific, and where did they get their data?
@nionon: Posts like these are intended to point out interesting nuggets of info that have popped up in the food world and spark your interest. We always include a "read more" link at the bottom so that people who are looking for more extensive info can check out the full, original article.
@EdmundD, the mold in question is called "ergot," and is fairly easy to overlook, especially when it's been milled with the rye. It's not common anymore, but the outbreaks in medieval Europe were pretty scary.
Isn't Ergot what they think caused the big witches scare (and all of that burning at the stake and the like) so, it turns out to have been pretty dangerous in the end!
Ergot produces the ergoline alkaloid which is a precursor to lysergic acid, which in turn is used to synthesize LSD. The affects of ergot are called ergotism or "St. Anthony's Fire". Besides hallucinations it can kill you.
Nutmeg contains myristicin, a monoamine oxidase inhibitor and psychoactive substance. It's also toxic in large doses, but not usually fatal.
Sea bream (Sarpa salpa) can caused what's called "hallucinogenic fish poisoning (Ichthyoallyeinotoxism)". It can induce LSD-like hallucinations if it is eaten. It became a recreational drug during the Roman Empire, and was called "the fish that make dreams" in Arabic. The fish either produces the toxin, or from marine algae in their diet. Probably the later.
So there's the missing details in the article. :)
Oh, and very spicy food has been known cause hallucinations, hence the hot chilies. It can also be caused by very spicy curry. Basically, the burning sensation from capsaicin releases endorphins which bind to your opiate receptors which in some cases (or after eating a lot of chiles) will produce a short lasting state of pain relief and euphoria.