>>11325757Cyanogenic glycosides are bad. They break down to sugars, benzaldehyde, and hydrogen cyanide. Yes, most of why you get nauseous/puke from seeds is from acute cyanide poisoning. Especially with Hawaiian Baby Woodrose, they contain greater amounts of CG, the effects are much more pronounced and align with that of medium cyanide poisoning. Another reason why it's CG: SWIM tried 2 Sprite extracts of 250 seeds each. 1 was dosed and produced severe nausea and stomach cramps. The other was dosed with a pinch of garlic and had 0 nausea. Why? Thiosulfate sulfurtransferase are enzymes in the body that convert cyanide to less toxic thiocyanate if enough sulfur is present in the body. Obviously there are limits to this, I wouldn't trust a pinch of garlic to neutralize an entire ounce of seed extract from soda. Another study on rats given increasing amounts of cyanide up to LD50 found rats with higher amounts of garlic in the diet fed to them lowered their mortality rate. CG are non-polar soluble, I believe this is due to the sugar groups stuck to fats in the seeds. So, typically people wash the seeds with volatile non-polar solvents to "defat" the seeds first. Then after evap to dryness, they extract with high proof ethanol/water depending on where they want to go with the extraction. Some people choose to extract the seeds directly with just cold distilled water in the fridge overnight, but they will get a small amount of nausea if they do this. Why? Water is slightly acidic, less so when cold. When acids/enzymes are present, fats and sugars start breaking down and liberate Mandelonitrile which further breaks down to benzaldehyde and HCN. HCN is polar soluble. To remedy this, people usually add a bit of garlic and the problem is fixed. I find the NP wash in the standard extract to be problematic, a little potency seems to be lost using naptha. Why? IDK. Maybe alkaloids are sparingly soluble somehow or trace impurities/polar molecules are in the naptha. Continued...
