December 27, 2010 - 7:47am
Poppy seeds contain opiates
Just a heads up on the opiate content of poppy seeds for those of us whose baked goods might be eaten by someone in the military and other services which do random urine tests.
http://snopes.com/medical/drugs/poppyseed.asp
Just a few years ago, a Navy coworker of my husband's faced immediate dismissal after 19 years and 10 months of military service (2 months before retirement) because he had eaten 2 poppy seed covered bagels in the morning and the ensuring urine test that day revealed ingested opiates. Fortunately, he was able to produce the sales slip of the two bagels and all resolved well for him.
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make that **ensuing urine tests**
Odd though is sounds, poppy seeds we use in baking come from opium poppies (Papaver Somniferum)! Even though they're illegal to grow in the US, one can buy seeds online and probably at your local nursery. I suppose that domestic opium production isn't seen as much of a problem here, otherwise the DEA would be raiding backyard flower gardens and arresting grandmas for growing them.
into a small house in Pacific Grove, CA - the newly installed telephone rang and a very irate voice informed me that my goat was eating her marijuana plant, hehe... Hope her poppy plants were ok ;)
But back to the poppy seeds, the newer trend of teenagers seems to be poppy pod tea - with several resulting deaths already. Quite scary.
Sometimes I wonder if some people will do anything to get high. I hope things don't get out of hand.
My husband and I were buying life insurance and they sent a nurse to our home to do a health screening. This included taking samples of urine and blood. Luckily I thought to ask if they were screening for opiates and they were!
It was during the Jewish holiday of Purim and we had been indulging heavily in poppy seed hamentaschen (special cookies eaten on this holiday). We explained that to the nurse and shared some of our hamentaschen with her.
Must have been enough of an explanation--we got the insurance. But do be aware that ingesting poppy seeds can be an issue when you least expect it.
I know that truck drivers are also subject to frequent random drug tests so they can never indulge in anything with poppy seeds. They never know when they will be told to pull over and get tested.
My brother is a truck driver and I make sure he never gets any of my rye bread sprinkled with poppy seeds, for that reason. He only gets the rye sprinkled with caraway seeds.
Bob
I joined the US Navy in 1974 and retired in 1998. During that time, there were many instances where our little "geedunk" stores served bagels from local vendors, including "everything" bagels and poppy seeded bagels. It never seemed to be an issue and we were tested randomly on a regular basis (is that an oxymoron?). Perhaps the labs the Navy was using back then weren't as sensitive to something like that or they knew what they were looking at, but it seems all this flap about poppy seeds is just that.
One of my favorite recipes in Beth Hensperger's Bread Bible is the Bread Machine Honey Whole Wheat with the seed variation; it includes a tsp of poppy seeds. One of my favorites when I'm feeling lazy about making bread.
Billybob
and the gentleman in question was a Master Chief and a good friend. Apparently, the occasional poppy seed ingestion is only viable for 48 hours and, unfortunately, Master Chief had two bagels that morning. (was in 1994 in Norfolk).
And looking to retire at 20? Sounds kinda fishy to me.
was 29 years and 10 months.
in the early 70's maybe late 60's but think it was in the early part of the 70's a fellow I worked for was arrested by the RCMP for growing poppies, he had rented a house that had been a rental unit for years, and several elderly people from Poland, Hungary and other European countries had lived there over the years, all growing poppies for their baking, and then the Hippie era hit and was in full swing, and he the unfortunate rented the house and the poppies which by this time were totally wild, came up and he was arrested. Talk about totally ignorant, and rather stupid, the police totally ignored the lovely maryjane plant growing in splendor (it somehow got out of control there too) and took him in on the poppies, I happened to go by his house to clarify somehting, and told him he needed to get rid of the plants by the gate, and he asked why as they were so "pretty" I told him that he could probably beat the poppy arrest but the pot plants were something else.
The same year my brother was raided for pot, he had a lovley 7 foot plant groing in a plant pot in his living room, and the police were so well schooled in drug plants they wer taking my sil's canned beet greens as canned pot.
When we moved to Dawson Creek in the early 80's a neighbour was an elderly Checkoslavakian lady who had a row up both sides of her sidewalk of beautiful poppy plants, and no one even thought to arrest her.
Love the Czec lady's walkway !
It was gorgeous, deep red poppies with purple centers, and thick! I asked her where she had gotten the seed, and she said she had brought it with her, in her suitcase when she came, but all I had to do was go down to the store and buy a bottle of poppyseed and plant them as she had lost the seeds once and that was what she had done. At the time they had stopped selling the poppies in seed catalogues.
Which was rather silly, since normal poppies while they do contain the opiate etc, it takes so many to make even a small amount of codiene base, the opium poppies have more sap, and if you've ever seen an opium poppy field its acres and acres to make the rather small amount of base they truly get from a farm. Its just the fact that the poppies are easy to grow and the money they get from them welcome that the stuff is still being farmed.
They are offering wonderful poppies ;)
Daisy said: Norfolk is less hilly.
She was talking about Scotland but Norfolk is less hilly than almost anywhere :-)
That's why it's famous for its skies ...
as well, matter of fact, the only mountain is in the neighboring city of Virginia Beach and man-made with the succinct title of "Mount Trashmore" :)
OK. Enough already!
Very scary, especially a young person who had never heard of this before and could not defend herself. Wonder how they finally got to the fact that it was from a bagel.
I think that positve test result and the implications will be enough to spur one to reason through that issue, (other than the fact they used opiates).
To be honest though, I think these are "one in a million" occurences.
I'm guilty.
I made loaf and was putting in a good amount of seeds and stuff into my weekly rye. Feeling creative and emptying out the cupboard of little bags of this and that and threw in about 100g of poppy seed. Didn't think much about it. That is until a few days later my little dog wanted to do nothing but lay in my lap with her head down. What a cuddly little thing! lethargic too! Now I might not notice anything too unusual except where I was sitting, she never crawls into my lap... next to me lay her nail clippers. But she's a Jack Russel Terrier and there's nothing normal about a mellow sleepy one! (Although she's good in the house.) If I want her to hide, all I do is have to mention cutting her nails, mine or anyones!
To make a long story short, she no longer got any nibbles from this loaf and with a little extra meaty food and a few days, she was back to her old energetic self. Just thought I'd let you in on poppy seed and dogs.
I spend $30 a month to take my dog every 2 weeks to get his nails clipped at the Vet. He absolutely refuses for us to come near him with the clippers and he is good as gold for the girls at the vet clinic. Go figure !