Nutmeg

Despite all the hype, nutmeg isn't actually all that good; the negative side-effects far shadow the possible desirable effects.

Early this year I experimented with nutmeg for the first time; I shared a cake with one of my housemates, in which we put a 35 gram pack of nutmeg. The cake tasted very strong, but it wasn't unpleasant at all. It took over five hours for any affect at all; then I spent the next three days recovering.
So, if you are mad enough to try nutmeg then make sure you have a few days free to recover afterwards.

Possible desirable effects

Undesirable effects

Dosage

Nutmeg has been known to kill in doses as low as 30 grams (less than the contents of a small packet). Nutmeg is a MAO inhibitor so shouldn't be mixed with other MAO inhibitors (just like you shouldn't mix alcohol and painkillers, both of which are MAO inhibitors).
A high dose causes critically high blood pressure; this in turn causes heart failure.
Warning: do not follow any recipes for "get f**ked coffee" that you may find on the Internet, these recommend quantities of 50 grams, combined with the effects of the other ingredients, you are unlikely to survive one of these potions.

The story continues...

On July 18th, I wrote to several UK supermarkets to complain about the lack of warning on their nutmeg packaging. Their replies are shown below my original letter. I made sure that I failed to mention that the real reason for eating the cake was to get high.

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to you to raise major concerns that I have over the labelling of one of your products. Your own-brand nutmeg does not mention anywhere on the packaging that this product gives you critically high blood pressure that causes heart failure in quantities as low as 30 grams (this is less than the contents of one of your small refill packets)

I really like the taste of nutmeg, recently I made a cake that contained a whole packet of nutmeg and shared it with a friend, several hours later we both felt completely disorientated and began to hallucinate. These affects lasted several days. I later found out, after seeking medical advice that nutmeg is a known hallucinogen and is fatal in large quantities.

I know that nutmeg is implicitly intended to be used in small quantities however a warning should be given, especially since other dangerous products, such as cleaning products give safety warnings. Also, if you go to the trouble of labelling products that contain GM ingredients or nut traces with warnings, why can the same not apply for nutmeg, the affects of which are far more serious, and potentially fatal.

Yours faithfully

Replies

I mistakenly deleted some of the replies, but I still have two left, one from Sainsburys...

Thank you for your e-mail. I'm sorry to have taken a while to get back to you, but I have been waiting to hear from our Food Technologists about it.

They confirm that you correct; nutmeg can cause hallucinations when eaten in large quantities. However, these quantities are far, far in excess of what would be used for normal culinary purposes.

Any recipes including nutmeg will stipulate only a small quantity, and none that they know of would ever advocate the use of such large quantities as you used. We sell ground nutmeg in jars of 35g, or 30g for whole nutmegs (4 nutmegs). The most we can find in a recipe is 2 teaspoons (about10g) in a recipe for a spicy fruit cake that serves 6-8 people. There is no legal requirement to put any warning labelling on nutmeg.

Many of the active chemicals in many herbs and spices are potentially dangerous if consumed in large quantities, but by their very nature they are only ever used in small quantities for flavouring purposes.

I hope this helps

... and one from the Co-op

Thank you for your recent e mail regarding the above product.

I have passed your comments on to our Quality Assurance Department for their comments and they advise me that; It has always been known that ingestion of large quantities of nutmeg (Meristica fragrans) causes hallucination, narcosis , delerium and can result in death.

We have looked at the safety data sheets on the internet and there is again no information on the critical levels. When the product review for this range of products takes place, your comments will be taken into consideration. Thank you once again for your comments.