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How toxic is tobacco seeds

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Hasse SWE

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One of my friends have eating some seed from a N.Rustica, I don't know what to say about it but he say they are good tasting, but after he started to become worried. I am more worried before, I mean how did he think? Ain't sound like a dinner for a man (if I say so). But have any one seen studies of tobacco seed?
 

squeezyjohn

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I don't know the exact answer - but your friend didn't follow the best advice ... if you don't know whether something is toxic or not ... don't eat it!

I don't think there's a huge amount of nicotine contained in the seeds ... but even if there is it shouldn't be a problem because studies of smokeless tobacco show that if tobacco is accidentally swallowed then the acid in the stomach binds up all the nicotine in a form that cannot be absorbed (remember that snus is made by making the tobacco more alkaline so that it the nicotine can be absorbed more) ... while you may suffer an upset stomach from eating tobacco - you will not die of nicotine poisoning!

Whether the seeds contain some other toxic substance that I don't know about is another thing though.
 

deluxestogie

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Tobacco seed, prior to germination, contains no nicotine ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC540826/pdf/plntphys00377-0021.pdf ). Ingestion of tobacco leaf is usually not lethal (despite ingestion of a lethal dose of nicotine), because it induces vomiting. Children under 1 y/o frequently eat cigarettes or cigarette butts, and only occasionally display symptoms.

Pediatric Emergency Care. Feb 1995 said:
significant toxicity from the ingestion of cigarette products in children is rare. Vomiting within 20 minutes is the most common symptom. Its absence predicts a favorable outcome, even when large amounts are suspected to have been ingested.

http://journals.lww.com/pec-online/...year_review_of_cigarette_ingestions_in.4.aspx

It is possible to ingest a large enough quantity to cause lethal absorption prior to vomiting, if there are underlying medical conditions or concomitant use of certain medications or drugs. For nearly a century, the lethal dose of nicotine was stated in medical literature to be ~60 mg for an adult. A corona-size cigar contains about twice that amount, though only a fraction of that is absorbed by cigar smoking. Some very recent studies (circa 2013) suggest that a more accurate lethal dose is closer to 2000 mg for an adult. [http://search.proquest.com/openview/f076fb3678c0849f1da508eab834d0fd/1?pq-origsite=gscholar]

So, the seeds are probably safe to consume. Eating tobacco will make you puke, cause an array of distressing symptoms, and likely cause you to wish you hadn't done that.

Bob
 

Hasse SWE

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Thanks Bob and Squeezyjhon.
I didn't think it was any nicotine in the seed, and that was what I told him but I also told him that I wasn't shore about it and if it also means that "in" also includes the "Seed coat"..

I was close to tell that I have some herbs that actually are more poison (but didn't). But I asked him half disrespectful if he is a "Rodent" (a supporter club in Stockholm) and his answer was "yes I couldn't be something else"..
 

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You know those really good poppy seed rolls? Tell your friend to sub the tobacco seed, might be really good.cf5ab0a03193a658bb08cbc369e8a09d.jpg
Is your mouth watering yet?
 

SmokesAhoy

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Actually this reminds me of some guys at some facility that were looking to breed a food tobacco, with none of the alkaloids, wonder how that is going. They were interested because the explosive growth, super hardiness and the amount of food you could conceivably get off a plant.

I'd grow it, would just have to be crazy vigilant to make sure it didn't contaminate the real tobacco.
 

Hasse SWE

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You know those really good poppy seed rolls? Tell your friend to sub the tobacco seed, might be really good.View attachment 18590
Is your mouth watering yet?
Yes that looking more like my style "SmokesAhoy" than eating tobacco seed's.. But also I do alot of stupid things myself (so maybe I should be nice to people that got that idea).

But it's interesting, people think that tobacco is one of the most dangerous things they can grow, they want to know everything about it (even me), but they know nothing about the other things they grow and eating..
 
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