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Comment by gerdesj | Hacker News Reader

Bloody 'eck. This sounds like a chat around the back of the bike sheds off of the '70's onwards.

Yes, apple pips do have a tiny amount of cyanide in them (but why)

This is a from a reasonable source and relates to cherries: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-40738573

I think we can assume that apples and cherries are OK to eat. Apple pips are fine and why on earth would you want to crunch through a cherry stone.

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>I think we can assume that apples and cherries are OK to eat. Apple pips are fine and why on earth would you want to crunch through a cherry stone.

Black cherries (prunus serotina) I ate a whole bunch of during late summer. Much smaller than the Prunus avium (sweet cherry) which ripens around early June here. Allegedly the fruit does contain the cyanide producing compounds but without the enzymes. The catch is if you chew the pits (or eat the leaves/stems) it is poisonous. Poisons a lot of horses and other livestock: https://horsedvm.com/poisonous/black-cherry-trees

There's a long history of cherry stone consumption for some cherry species, they are very nutritious and the cyandide is removed by processing/drying/cooking.

Delicious almond like flavor, have experimented with wild chokecherries (Prunus virginiana).

Interestingly if you get an allergic reaction to apples you get that same reaction to cherries, something I only learned recently.

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