The Dark Side of Black Licorice

It's all in the dosage

Wednesday, April 10, 2024

As Swiss physician Paracelsus, father of toxicology, famously proclaimed,
 
“All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison.”
 
That would have been a useful law of nature to have known about a couple of decades ago when I got the bright idea to create a non-sugar-based sweetener. I accomplished this by taking a full box of licorice tea bags and steeping them in a single cup of hot water, producing a highly concentrated and thrillingly successful nectar with which to sweeten smoothies or engineer syrups or re-create whatever else I needed to re-create in a world temporarily restricted from sugar. However, a few weeks into this scheme a general sense of wobbliness overcame me, calling my sugar source into question. I was horrified to discover (through belated research) that large quantities of black licorice are toxic.
 
The toxicity happens because glycyrrhiza (it’s scientific name) mimics the hormone aldosterone which our adrenal glands make when our bodies need to retain sodium and excrete potassium. However, to excrete away your potassium is to mess up the balance of your electrolytes which can raise blood pressure and disturb heart rhythm in addition to causing numbness, muscle breakdown, headaches and swelling.
 
While you may not be inclined to eat a bag and a half of the black licorice that killed the guy who did that for 3 weeks, it is still good to be aware that Good & Plenty and black licorice should be limited to no more than 2 ounces a day for no longer than 2 weeks running AND that glycyrrhiza is used in herbal remedies for heartburn, stomach issues, sore throats and coughs to name a few. It also occasionally makes an appearance in other foods and drinks. Anise, however, which tastes like black licorice, is just fine.
 
The bigger message, though, goes back to Paracelsus: “All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison.”
 
Hmmmm. What are your poisons?
 
Off we go into a brave, new day. Take heart and pick your poisons carefully.
 
E