Bitrex – the brand name of the bitterest substance in the world
bitrex.com
bitrex.com
Denatonium, usually available as denatonium benzoate
(under trade names such as Denatrol, BITTERANT-b,
BITTER+PLUS, Bitrex, Bitrix, and Aversion) and as
denatonium saccharide (BITTERANT-s), is the most
bitter chemical compound known, with bitterness
thresholds of 0.05 ppm for the benzoate and 0.01 ppm
for the saccharide. It was discovered in 1958 during
research on local anesthetics by MacFarlan Smith of
Edinburgh, Scotland, and registered under the
trademark Bitrex.
Dilutions of as little as 10 ppm are unbearably bitter
to most humans. Denatonium salts are usually colorless
and odorless solids, but are often traded as solutions.
They are used as aversive agents (bitterants) to
prevent inappropriate ingestion. Denatonium is used in
denatured alcohol, antifreeze, preventive nail biting
preparations, respirator mask fit-testing, animal
repellents, liquid soaps, shampoos, and Nintendo Switch
game cards to prevent accidental swallowing or choking
by children. It is not known to pose any long-term
health risks.
The name "denatonium" reflects the substance's primary
use as a denaturant [...]I haven't verified this myself, but I do remember the massive flood of youtube videos of people tasting them early on.
It didn't work, or you might say it worked too well. It managed to spread to pretty much every surface in the house. Cable touches floor, floor touches toy, toy touches hand, hand touches food, food is incredibly bitter
I'd expect to lose an order of magnitude of bitterness at each jump, but somehow it took over and lingered for about a year
"the Anti-Saloon League persisted, arguing that legal alcohol had killed many more in its day than denatured alcohol would kill during the transition to a teetotaling world. “The Government is under no obligation to furnish the people with alcohol that is drinkable when the Constitution prohibits it,” said advocate Wayne B. Wheeler. “The person who drinks this industrial alcohol is a deliberate suicide… To root out a bad habit costs many lives and long years of effort…”"
I haven't really kept up on what the opioid epidemic is up to, but I also think it's weird that we cut opioids with acetaminophen. You don't want people to overdose on "the good stuff", so we put something in it that destroys your liver? That seems a little cruel to me. Any cop can reverse an opioid overdose. Nobody can reverse an acetaminophen overdose. You just die. I guess "first, do no harm" is ambiguous and only applies to actual medical doctors, not necessarily bureaucrats?
Public policy can be weird at times. We should, as a society, poison people less.
Well, I say it isn't poisonous, it's alcohol, alcohol is poisonous anyway, for much the reason you identified with paracetamol, the liver can't process more than a tiny amount and is seriously damaged if you use more, but people do.
Anyway, it's a sin tax. We tax things we want the population not to do, to discourage them, and because if they insist on doing them anyway even though they're a bad idea, why not collect money? In my country we tax petrol (gasoline), sugary drinks, booze, cigarettes, all above the normal levels because those things are a bad idea and it'd be better if you stopped.
Good in some situations, inappropriate in an office environment, wear hearing protection.
Reducing salt from your diet is like loudness management.
Lower the noise floor on taste and suddenly all kinds of subtle notes emerge.
I experienced this with the Keto diet, which is low-carb and hence very low on sweeteners like sugar. It was about a year afterwards that I could eat normal chocolate, candy, or cake.
Anyone that cries "I can't drink coffee black, it's too bitter!" they just haven't tried for more than a week, how long it takes to adjust.
Unless you drink instant coffee, which tastes very bitter and like battery acid. I'd rather have water than granulated instant coffee.
Really.
Some salt is absolutely crucial to flavor. A little bit makes almost everything taste better.
I think I've come to associate it with comfort in rough times: it's bad, but we have hot water and instant coffee so the break is great.
Apparently rodents eat some car cables. The cables should be coated in some kind of solidified bitter hot sauce. Bittrex and ghost peppers, perhaps.
For more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemesthesis
I picked up a new case on my way in one day, and probably 20 minutes into using it, someone said "do you taste that?"
We ended up evacuating and later discovered the cause was an undisclosed bitterant added to the product. I sent 3M an invoice for the lab cleaning (they politely declined to pay), but the next time I saw the bottles, they had a big warning on them.
If you take a look again at the diagrams, you’ll notice that it’s almost exactly the same, except one of the N now has a benzene ring attached to it.
I still remember the taste of the nail paint and wondering who decided that this should be a commercial product. Did your bottle have a picture of a traffic light on it?
It didn't work, he just powered on through the taste.
I understand that this is a preventative measure, but from a customer point of view that was just an awful experience. The battery had one job to do, and it failed to do it because of the bitterant coating.
Though mostly now we test via computer and a pump and measure vacuums.
Same with getting an accidental zap by 120VAC. Fuzzies. But no thanks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thioacetone
> In 1889, an attempt to distill the chemical in the German city of Freiburg was followed by cases of vomiting, nausea and unconsciousness in an area with a radius of 0.75 kilometres (0.47 mi) around the laboratory due to the smell.
I think it smells worse with dilution too, as they noted in the video.
It's common to see watch batteries coated with a substance like this to dissuade toddlers from putting the watch battery in their mouth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5ApVlDCEjc
Dissolving tissue sounds worse.
> Denatonium, usually available as denatonium benzoate (under trade names such as Denatrol, BITTERANT-b, BITTER+PLUS, Bitrex, Bitrix, and Aversion) and as denatonium saccharide (BITTERANT-s), is the most bitter chemical compound known, with bitterness thresholds of 0.05 ppm for the benzoate and 0.01 ppm for the saccharide. It was discovered in 1958 during research on local anesthetics by MacFarlan Smith of Edinburgh, Scotland, and registered under the trademark Bitrex.
I am planning a surprise for the remaining moles? voles? in my yard. A portion of it is going into this huge jug of castor oil, which has also had a capsaicin product dubbed "The Toe of Satan" dissolving inside for a while now. I might add some blood meal. It's a shame I can't get some Dippel's Oil.
It should transform their olfactory environment into a hellscape of repulsion, dread, bitterness, and burning.
Head Office, Macfarlan Smith, 10 Wheatfield Road, Edinburgh, EH11 2QA, Scotland, United Kingdom
Well it would be the Scots that sell the bitterest substance in the world...
My dad was an inventor of one of engineering processes for making Denatonium Benzoate, I lived with and around this substance for hmm 23 years :) You get used to bitterness.
I forgot all about that till I tasted a Switch cartridge, and then till I read your comment!
If you've ever tried Vegemite by the spoonful, the vegetable is a whole lot worse still.
Some dishes we often make: bitter gourd slices stir-fried with beef, shrimps, or scrambled egg.
Of course, I suppose Bitrex is a lot bitterer than the bitterest bitter gourd.
To be honest I never saw much effort going into preparing it. It was just sliced, hollowed out, and then fried. I'm not sure if there's a way to tone down the bitterness, but the only justification for its inclusion I got was "it's healthy" or "it's an antioxidant".
The bitterness is the whole point. It’s an acquired tasted, just like beer. Once you get used to it, you understand how it makes your meal as a whole feel less greasy and less cloying.
If your really want, you can tone down the bitterness by lightly dry-frying the bitter gourd slices.
The stir-fry with scrambled eggs is a home classic, Cantonese cooks can usually make it.
Black fermented soybeans is often added to the stir-fry with beef slices.
Bitter gourd can also be used to cook soup, with pork bones and soybeans.
It can also be hollowed out, filled with seasoned minced pork, and then steamed as a type of dim sum.