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."