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Comment by autarch | Hacker News Reader

How close or far is half a nutmeg from hallucination and death territory? Seems like an awful lot of nutmeg!

Edit: So I looked into this. A single nutmeg is 5-10 grams. That means the pancakes will have 2.5-5g between all of them. According to a reddit post (https://www.reddit.com/r/nutmeg/comments/nd5d9q/nutmeg_effec...), it seems like 5g of nutmeg could be enough for a trip, but it won't come even close to killing you.

So if you make this recipe and eat _all_ the pancakes yourself, you might go on a trip.

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It may be that myristicin(the active compound in nutmeg) breaks down during cooking. Additionally myristicin is not very well absorbed, and the fact that it's mixed into food would likely reduce its absorption significantly.

Also, I just want to mention that tripping on nutmeg is not something I'd recommend to anyone. It may not kill you outright, but it will make you delirious enough that you're no longer aware of your surroundings, what you're doing, and you may end up harming or even killing yourself. It's a deliriant, not a psychedelic. You're also likely to get intense muscle aches that will make it thoroughly unenjoyable even in sub-hallucinogenic doses.

i know someone who has tried it. you need a large amount of raw, powdered nutmeg, like 1-2g per kg of bodyweight, and that much is hard to get down.

then you don't really trip, you just kinda hallucinate, something closer to extreme sleep deprivation hallucinations than talking to Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

Apparently there have only been two recorded deaths from nutmeg. One was an eight year-old boy who consumed at least two whole nutmegs and the other a college student who consumed 4 tablespoons (28g) of powdered nutmeg.

Although there are cases of much much more nutmeg being consumed that were not lethal. There is one case in historical literature where a pregnant woman consumed 10-12 nutmegs (70-84g) to induce intoxication.

This leads me to hypothesise that perhaps historical nutmegs were smaller, or that they were grown in unoptimal conditions so produced less myristicin.

Also plant breeding may have progressed a lot since Locke's times, making them larger.

Nutmug intoxication?

Transport by ship (probably not in a very good container) could have made a difference, there may also have been changes in the harvesting or drying process in the time since. Storage containers were also likely less well-sealed.

This is a lot of pancakes to eat by yourself. Just eyeballing the recipe it looks like you're looking at the order of about a kilo of pancakes at the end.

If you solo these I think the nutmeg is going to be the least of your worries.

https://www.healthline.com/health/high-on-nutmeg#warnings

LD50 seems to be on the order of grams per kg. Wild that 5g are enough for a psychoactive effect and that this recipe might in some cases be enough.

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