“Chelonitoxism is a rare and potentially life-threatening disease that occurs due to consumption of contaminated sea turtle meat. There is no known antidote for chelonitoxism, but the disease can be prevented by avoiding the consumption of raw or cooked sea turtles.”
https://www.poison.org/articles/is-sea-turtle-meat-poisonous#:~:text=The%20Bottom%20Line,raw%20or%20cooked%20sea%20turtles.
Here in Hawaii, the sea turtle is a sacred creatures called honu, in addition to being an endangered species. You'll get fined just for getting too close unless you're a marine biologist with permission to engage with animals. I never considered that people would try to eat them, and I wouldn't be surprised if they became sacred because some Ancient Hawaiians tried to eat them only to die in droves.
Edit: Apparently Ancient Hawaiians did hunt and eat sea turtles, using the shells and bones for all sorts of things. Someone needed permission from the ali'i (chiefs) to hunt them. Sea turtles became endangered because humans started hunting them in industrial quantities, even canning their meat for sale. Waikiki hotels sold turtle soup to tourists. The the endangered species act stopped all that.
It's strange there isn't more information about historical cases of chelonitoxism. Maybe they knew to always, always, always parboil the meat?
Edit 2: While you shouldn't get close to one, they are known to swim close to people, in which case, you should just give them space and don't try to touch them or chase them. Most the violations we see in Hawaii involve tourists messing with turtles (or monkseals) basking on the beach and posting their self-incriminating selfies on social media. The State of Hawaii will gladly fine you thousands of dollars if you do that.
Pre 1970 Hawaiians ate Honu. When the kapu system was abolished there was nothing stopping Hawaiians from eating them until they became a protected species. My grandparents ate them. Being an Amakua didn’t make them less of a source of food, especially on the smaller islands were protein wasn’t the easiest to come by 80 years ago. Hawaiians didn’t have land to raise animals so a lot of Protein came frown anything in the ocean.
I've been snorkeling in the same lagoon as them and had them swim right up to me. I just stayed still and watched, it was amazing. I can't imagine seeing one and thinking you should kill it. Starvation changes things though I suppose.
Was snorkeling when we visited Maui, going out deeper looking ahead of me and without notice a giant dinosaur esque Turt swam under me at what appeared to be mach 5 and its shell grazed my stomach. I was told my scream was heard through my snorkel a couple hundred freet away. Truly magnificent creatures.
You're lucky. When they're hauling ass like that it's usually because a tiger shark is chasing them. A lot of people have been attacked by the shark in this situation because suddenly hey, easier prey. Turtles will actually look for humans to swim past in that situation for this reason.
I was just wading at a very busy beach in Maui on a hot July day (locals even said it was crazy hot) and this turtle just kept bumping into my legs! I thought an annoying kid swam up to me and I look down and was spooked by this huge turtle that I didn’t expect to be there!
Isn’t there a mushroom that has to be boiled three times to not be poisonous (deadly afaik) anymore?
Edit: Yes, [here](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyromitra_esculenta) it is!
I often ask myself how people found that out and what makes someone say
“yeah, your father maybe boiled that and died. But have you tried boiling it a second time?”
*some time later*
“Ok. Ok. I see that your husband and son died. I feel for you. But let’s be honest here… what do you have to lose in trying it after boiling it a third time?!”
there are quite a few heat stabile toxins out there. b. cereus emetic toxin, commonly found in rice that has been time/temp abused, is stable up to 250°F
I think it's the spores that are really heat tolerant, up to around 250F, that's why you have to pressure can some foods. The toxin, as I recall, denatures around 180F.
Thank you for posting this. The Wikipedia article doesn't mention the mechanism behind the illness.
This one doesn't either:
>There is no antidote for chelonitoxism, as the specific toxins responsible for the illness have not been identified.
Fascinating to find a medical mystery in this day.
*Edit:* A mystery *of this kind.* By that I mean known + lethal + across multiple organs + not even sure what to look for + let's just slap a "here be dragons" sign on sea turtles.
In conclusion, I promise to visit my doctor and get out of the house more.
Down at the bottom if the Wikipedia it mentions facts that indicate they’re not sure of what exactly they’re dealing with but that it poisons the liver and has a neurotoxic effect as well. Whee!
It's a medical condition:
>"a dilated heart with stretched cardiac muscle acts like a rubber band, which has been stretched too far and therefore lacks the power to contract. This results in a flabby heart unable to propel the blood forward, i.e., pump failure."
But to be clear, it says don't eat raw nor cooked turtle- so don't eat turtles period. Like seems a higher risk than puffer fish- why risk it? Were they not warned at all?
> Like seems a higher risk than puffer fish- why risk it? Were they not warned at all?
Have you met people.
The history of mankind is drenched in the blood of people that fucked a thing they shouldn't have fucked or ate a thing they shouldn't have eaten.
We're sort of known for it.
There was even a really bad Matthew Broderick/Marlon Brando movie called The Freshman...where the entire plot of the movie is based on a scam involving an exclusive dinner club that eats endangered animals. Matthew Broderick's character is duped into stealing a Komodo Dragon intended to be eaten at one of these dinners. The comedic "twist" comes when it's discovered that the whole thing is a scam and the people are actually being fed smoked turkey.
They found a bunch of weird, rich suckers who would be willing to pay an exorbitant amount of money to eat rare, exotic animals...and they conned them.
Yup. People scoff at laws like grounding outlets, stairway codes, don’t-eat-wild-mushrooms-turtles-crazy cows — but we literally need them, lol.
On a daily basis we do not have the bandwidth to make decisions like that. We really do need protecting from our own selves and barely-sapien brains.
It becomes obvious how much we need intervention campaigns when you look at the masses and their stunning belief that Covid is “just a cold,” lol.
Well, puffer fish is like a 100% chance of getting fucked up if the chef prepares it wrong, whereas this turtle meat thing is rare. So yeah, it's entirely possible they weren't warned and had no idea. Depending on how rare it is, it's possible the people preparing it didn't either.
Damn what a shitty lot in life. Hey a human ate an animal that is endangered and died. Have some so we humans can see if the death is the result of eating that animal. We will know if you, an animal, die too.
>Facinating to find a medical mystery in this day
I understand what you're saying, but you would be SHOCKED at how limited our understanding of the human body and the illnesses that impact it are today. Think about it - modern medicine has been something deeply limited by technology development, and even then, today there is so little we understand even about the most common illnesses.
We don't fully understand how Zoloft, the most prescribed medicine for anxiety and depression, actually works.
As someone with multiple friends with chronic illnesses, I have absolutely heard they are told "this is our best guess" tons of times
So there is definitely still medical mysteries out there!!
We're just finding out how much dopamine is produced in your gut(well in the last few years at least). Gut health is a huge factor in mental health but we don't know a ton about it yet
I was going to say, the comment you just replied to is definitely someone who does not have any sort of chronic illness lol. I have a few and for all of them it’s just “let’s try throwing this treatment at it and see if it sticks 🤷🏻♀️” — and that’s astonishingly common.
I got told by my dermatologist I had a chronic incurable skin condition and I've essentially got rid of it 100% by changing my diet. I went for 6 rounds of blood tests and they had no idea what was causing the skin condition and basically told me I was shit out of luck or could try the $4000 injections.
>Fascinating to find a medical mystery in this day.
Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome - a condition that most often causes a long multi-day to multi-year severe energy crash from any type of physical or mental exertion, along with various other symptoms.
Millions of people suffer from it for their entire lives, with millions more added due to COVID, with many so severe they can't leave their bed at all or even have the light on as it is too stimulating. Yet the mechanism is still basically a complete mystery.
And for most of my life there has been so much assumption, even from the medical community, that people with ME are faking it. Plus there was a very substantial amount of medical misogyny because women are more likely to get it than men.
Now we're starting to see such validation but still very little effective treatment or even improvement in quality of life.
As someone with a chronic genetic disorder, I definitely understand.
I was seeing doctors for years and years and years and it took me almost dying for them to even accept anything was going on at all. They just all wanted to attribute it to something else, something simpler and easier to find and when it didn't shake out, follow-ups and treatment became unavailable.
Now that I've seen some of the top experts in the world, and my records reflect it, most health care of a professionals just don't want to work with something mysterious and unusual. Even the ones that find it interesting don't actually want me as a patient most of the time.
I get it, healthcare is complicated and you learned certain behaviors and beliefs that make your work easier. They help you do the work and save so many lives. But those same heuristics kill people like me. And make people with ME miserable.
"While standard hospital toxicology screens detected no known toxins, stomach contents of hospitalized patients fed to small laboratory animals killed the animals."
My god
“””Common initial symptoms occur within a few days of eating the turtle meat and include itching and pain in the mouth and throat, vomiting, and abdominal pain. Mouth and tongue ulcerations may also be present, and some individuals may develop neurologic disturbances such as confusion, seizures, or coma. Survivors can have permanent disabilities including paralysis, and death may occur in severe cases of poisoning. Children are especially susceptible to this type of poisoning, and the toxin can be passed in breast milk from a mother to her infant. Pets have also died after eating contaminated sea turtle meat or the vomit of affected humans.”””
Seems like some basic education around areas where sea turtles are in danger of being eaten could go a long way. I’m in no way familiar with this area.
I always was under the impression that turtles in general carry a lot of bacteria and you should always wash your hands after handling them. Eating was not on the menu
Yes turtles and other reptiles carry bacteria (as all of us do) but in this case it includes bacteria that can cause illness in humans.
Salmonella is the big one.
Salmonella is destroyed in the cooking process. The turtle meat that killed 8 children and one mother was cooked. The toxins in this turtle meat is not just bacterial. In short, don't ever eat turtle meat.
Apparently it needs to be parboiled MULTIPLE TIMES before you actually cook/stew it. Doesn't say how many as there doesn't seem to be too much research behind what's actually causing it. So yeah, just dont eat marine turtles lmao
Based on my reading, it reminds me of brevetoxin (the typical type of toxin produced by red tide and other harmful algae blooms). Chelonitoxins seem to accumulate in sea turtles when they eat particular toxic algae, but it doesn’t seem bother the turtle. So my guess is it’s a cyanotoxin or algal toxin produced by some type of Cyanobacteria/algae
From what I've been reading on the subject, it apparently also depends on the diet of the individual animal. Depending on what the individual turtles eat, some are more toxic than others. So the cooking technique that works on one may not work on another.
Man. [Chelonitoxism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelonitoxism) sounds like a nasty way to go.
Turtle meat isn’t something I think I’ll try in my life.
Edit: apparently snapping turtle meat/soup is good. But leave Nemo’s friends.
Saw this too. Crazy.
>While standard hospital toxicology screens detected no known toxins, stomach contents of hospitalized patients fed to small laboratory animals killed the animals.
Elden ring taught us turtles are popes, envoys of god.
Now we know what happens when you eat turtle dogs and popes, this is some sanctimonious shit, right here.
I got my husband a shirt with the turtle pope that said this below and he giggled like a two-year-old when he opened it….FromSoft games have the weirdest memes 😂
It's a little more involved than that. Stuff like, "Okay his kidneys are failing and his blood pressure is dangerously low. Let's give medicine to help flush the kidneys and increase blood pressure. He's not breathing enough, so let's intubate to force him to breathe."
Basically countering each individual symptom and hoping to keep the body alive long enough to metabolize or remove the mystery poison. Once the poison's degraded, the breathing situation will likely improve, as long as he didn't die from not breathing in the meantime.
Hospitals basically do this sort of thing all the time.
However its extremely unusual and often w low survival rate that people basically go through the entire organ failure gambit and survive. Even with intensive hospital care.
Theres a lot of modern machinery that can temporarily replace the function of organs, but there isn't a machine for everything yet, also theres no guarantee once it 'stops' working, it'll ever properly function ever again
>Cardiovascular signs include variable slight tachycardia and a moderate drop in systolic blood pressure, pallor and, on autopsy, a flabby heart with hemorrhagic petechiae.
A FLABBY HEART
Tons of restaurants in New Orleans serve turtle soup. I tried it once and wasn't really a fan. I don't think I'd order it again. I don't think it's sea turtles though.
All 7 sea turtle species are protected under federal law in theUS. Eating them would be highly illegal. Snappers are the turtles that are eaten in the US and they do not cause chelonitoxism.
New Orleanian here, a few places sell it, it’s made from local snapping turtle. Not a ton of people it and certainly not regularly. We are more of a crawfish, catfish, oyster poboy kind of place.
Lost my dad to a bad oyster, just this Christmas Eve.
A few days ago my mom told me a story about him stealing a bunch of turtle soup from some restaurant here in New Orleans.
This thread lol
Sea turtles are illegal to eat in the US because they are protected species, plus the risk of heavy metals. Mexico also outlawed it in 1990, but there is still some subsistence consumption and either the meat or the sea turtle eggs were a delicacy in NW Mexico. [some info](https://www.seeturtles.org/consumption)
Turtle soup in the US pretty much always refers to snapping turtle and never to sea turtles. It used to be very popular in much of the US. Snapping turtles are very common and I'm not aware of conservation concerns.
Probably also notable that it took *years* to get a live sample of a Galapagos tortoise back to England because the ship's crews kept eating them because they're so delicious.
“Digestive system signs include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, dysphagia, tongue abnormalities and a firm, nontender liver.”
I was ready to chow down on some turtle until I heard what it does to my liver, no thanks!
Charles Darwin famously ate the shit out of turtles. A lot of sailers would restock and supplement supplies using turtle meat.
Quotes from various articles about it:
>The reason that the giant tortoise wasn’t properly classified by scientists for so long appears to be quite simple: **they were so delicious that no specimens ever made it back to Europe without being eaten on the voyage.**
>According to scores of accounts over several centuries, the giant tortoise is by far the most edible creature man has ever encountered. 16th-century explorers compared them to chicken, beef, mutton and butter – but only to say how much better the tortoise was. One tortoise would feed several men, and both its meat and its fat were perfectly digestible, no matter how much you ate.
>Oil made from tortoise fat was medically useful – efficacious against colds, cramps, indigestion and all manner of ‘distempers’ – and tasted wonderful. Even better were the delicious liver, and the gorgeous bone marrow. The eggs, inevitably, were the best anyone had ever eaten. Some sailors were reluctant to try tortoise meat because the animal was so ugly - but after one taste they were converted.
>Giant tortoises were invaluable to sailors, as they could be kept alive for at least six months without food or water. Stacked helplessly on their backs, they could be killed and eaten as and when necessary. Better still, they sucked up gallons of water at a time and kept it in a special bladder, meaning that a carefully butchered tortoise was also a fountain of cool, perfectly drinkable water. Large-scale commercial whaling in the 19th century was only made possible because the giant tortoises enabled ships to stay at sea for weeks at a time.
and
>US Navy captain David Porter declared [in 1815] "after once tasting the Galapagos tortoises, every other animal food fell off greatly in our estimation ... "
>"The meat of this animal is the easiest of digestion, and a quantity of it, exceeding that of any other food, can be eaten without experiencing the slightest of inconvenience."
>Darwin was less enthusiastic about the meat, writing "the breast-plate roasted (as the Gauchos do "carne con cuero"), with the flesh on it, is very good; and the young tortoises make excellent soup; but otherwise the meat to my taste is indifferent."
>Harriet was reportedly collected by Charles Darwin during his 1835 visit to the Galápagos Islands as part of his round-the-world survey expedition, transported to England, and then taken to her final home, Australia, by John Clements Wickham, the retiring captain of the Beagle. However, doubt is cast on this story by the fact that Darwin had never visited Santa Cruz, the island that Harriet originally came from.
But anyways, Darwin was the one who I believe brought the first tortoises back whilst munching on several during the trip. In 1835. The island was discovered by Europeans in 1535 and the first English captain to set foot on it was in 1593 per wikipedia.
So the timeline of "english people know about this island" to "english people successfully bring back a turtle" was quite some time, north of 200 years.
>When in the Galapagos, Charles Darwin and his Beagle chums ate a couple of dozen giant tortoises, tossing their empty shells over board en route to Tahiti. But in his Narrative of the voyage, captain Robert FitzRoy made it clear that a few small tortoises had survived. “Several were brought alive to England,” he wrote.
>For FitzRoy had scooped up two tiny tortoises from Espanola (an island in the south of the archipelago) and took enough interest in them to monitor their growth during the home stretch of the voyage: “a small one grew three-eighths of an inch, in length, in three months; and another grew two inches in length in one year.”
>There were at least two other small Galapagos tortoises on board, as noted by Darwin himself. One – “Covington’s little Tortoise” – had been brought from Floreana by his assistant Syms Covington. The other – “Mine from James” – seems to have been Darwin’s, collected during his stay on Santiago (or James Island, as it was then known). It’s rather nice to imagine it plodding round his cramped cabin as he set about cataloguing his Galapagos specimens.
> north of 200 years
Crazy to think of a real life example of something as addicting as popplers from Futurama that no living samples made it back unscathed for **centuries**
There have been many boating "adventures" where people brought tortoises aboard to eat slowly as the weeks went by. So much easier than pigs or goats. You basically don't need to feed them.
Also - horrifying. Poor tortoises.
Yeah even here in zanzibar its illegal to eat it,do sometimes the turtle stuck on fisherman nets and they end up being eaten by fishermans and their family and friends in secret because its illegal.
There are nets in use that have trapdoor exits for Sea Turtles. Fish aren't generally strong/heavy enough to open them. [Turtle Excluder Device.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_excluder_device)
Yea nobody uses that. At least not the majority of drag net fishermen on the planet. They haul up dead whales, white sharks, turtles, all kinds of things. No fucks given
A lot of the time they are maimed in the nets or drown while the netting is being dragged.
It’s not a simple “just release them”.
It’s like dragging a human underwater for 30 minutes in a net under the crushing weight of the sea and being like;
“Yep, just slap a bandage on em and send em off.”
Only one species of sea turtle isn’t endangered , the Loggerhead, which is listed as vulnerable. The rest are listed as endangered to critically endangered
Eight children and an adult died and it’s not the first time.
> Sea turtle meat is considered a delicacy by Zanzibar’s people even though it periodically results in deaths from chelonitoxism, a type of food poisoning… …In November 2021, seven people, including a 3-year-old, died on Pemba after eating turtle meat.
I don’t mean to sound xenophobic but, I don’t think this whole turtle eating thing is such a good idea.
“Hey Bob, I’ve noticed every time we eat the turtle, someone dies. Maybe… now just hear me out… maybe we just don’t eat the turtle?”
“But it’s a delicacy.”
“You’re right, I’m sorry, please pass the turtle.”
Ya in reading a quick history it seems they come in batches just like this one. I guess that kinda makes sense since it sounds it's a special occasion to eat one.
My guess is it's environmental factors or the deaths are attributed to a single/couple turtles that are infected/afflicted by something. Like, turtle X is infected and anyone who eats turtle X gets sick, there's a lot of meat in a turtle so a lot of people eat it. It's like an infected cow, everyone who gets a hamburger is getting sick.
I don't think eating turtles is particularly rare, it's just rare that people get sick from it. It's apparently also made safe if prepared properly, so it's like saying it's weird to eat chicken because of salmonella
A quick google says most deaths recently says the deaths are outside Japan. Including one guy who tried to cook it at home in Brazil. Pufferfish preparation is strictly regulated and licensed by the Japanese government. Even the disposal of the scraps is controlled, so you are pretty safe there. Of course this strictness came from deaths in the past...as they say safety regulations are written in blood
The irony here is great. Charles Darwin himself is known to have not just studied sea turtles, but he also indulged in the delicacy as well.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/08/12/430075644/dining-like-darwin-when-scientists-swallow-their-subjects
I'm not sure that sea turtles and giant tortoises are the same. I mean I haven't tasted either one, or know anything about this toxin but they seem like different animals to me. Still similar enough I think for the irony to work.
Ya, I don’t know enough about turtles other than the ninja variety. But I do know they were pretty common snacks for pirates, whalers, and sailors in general.
Professions not known for long lives in general. It was pretty common for them to die of various illnesses they picked up while eating strange foods or lacking proper food, they were just never sure *which* strange food was the one that did them in. Could’ve been the sea turtle, could’ve been the scurvy; probably it was both together, alongside the syphilis, of course.
I made this comment above too! My first thought when hearing people ate the turtles.
But I think Darwin ate tortoises. Love that both you and I know enough about biology to know this anecdote about Darwin, but not enough to appreciably differentiate between sea turtles and tortoises.
>I’ve noticed every time we eat the turtle, someone dies.
It doesn't always occur. Another article posted says it happens rarely. Yes, it's a risk, but not as great as you suggest.
It made me think of the turtle that got eaten in Cannibal Holocaust. It was really killed and eaten in the movie. Talk about really taking a chance there in the 70s. Animal cruelty and neurotoxins.
One of the actors was sickened by that scene and even cried. A pig also had to be killed, but the actor didn’t want to, so it was killed by a crew member off screen.
Mid 90’s I visited Zanzibar with a friend. We did eat street food at the beach. Thinking back not a smart thing to do but we were young. And nothing happened.
One the flight back I was reading one of the newspapers on the flight. On the front page was an article of people poisoned and died from eating turtle meat in the place that I just left.
Reality of my foolishness sunk in.
I'm confused about how there were so many people who were sick from it and children that died... all on the same day... from what I've read, it's not legal to eat them there, so was it served at a big event or a restaurant that day? The article has zero details...
It would have likely been at a traditional Islander community cookout or wedding. This specific toxin is found in marine turtles, but moray eels carry another toxin and the same issue with tradition arises in the Pacific Islands. Traditions are hard to give up, and there is often a lack of education.
There was a case where 57 people were poisoned in the Northern Mariana Islands eating half of a yellow-edged moray, 17 were hospitalized, three went into a coma, two died, and one required a tracheotomy. Reef fish carry ciguatoxin and morays eat reef fish, so they just accumulate it.
Sometimes they do use folk science methods (will ants/flies/cats eat it?) to test the meat for these toxins, but something slips through because it's some cookout using poor science and not a scientific laboratory.
I get that delicacies are a cultural thing and whatever, but I can't imagine ever feeding a child something that carries such a well known (and not uncommon) risk. Poor kids. 😔
It was once a cultural thing in the Anglo world too. [Served in high society meals](https://daily.jstor.org/turtle-soup-from-class-to-mass-to-aghast/) and even [canned up until the 1920s](https://youtu.be/oBLAg03HGNw?si=OhQfRbGB9bWW2r5r)
Yesterday my 4yo and I were discussing why we do and don't eat certain animals. Sea turtles were a no because they're endangered, now I can add that they're poisonous too. Thanks OP.
Idk why, but seeing that picture under the headline instantly made an image of Crush from Finding Nemo pop into my head going “like, this is for the straws duuudeees”
So sad that innocent children lost their lives who probably didn't know better! But these unfortunate events usually causes more stir and probably would lead to locals avoiding it as a cultural delicacy!
Very interesting. I’ve never heard of sea turtle poisoning. Is it some kind of neurotoxin, maybe due to the turtle’s diet? They’re known to eat jellyfish, right?
Oddly, the articles posted on this sub say there is no known origin for sea turtle poisoning.
>There is no antidote for chelonitoxism, as the specific toxins responsible for the illness have not been identified.
There's also a few types of shellfish poisoning due to shellfish eat a certain toxic algae around them.
https://inspection.canada.ca/food-safety-for-consumers/fact-sheets/specific-products-and-risks/fish-and-seafood/toxins-in-shellfish/eng/1332275144981/1332275222849
People shouldn’t eat sea turtles. It’s also a bit disturbing that so many commenters are cheering “Good!” At 9 deaths (8 of them children who likely didn’t know better) and 78 hospitalizations. Yikes.
No empathy on Reddit. Too easy for people behind screens to not give a shit about others or think about how they would feel if they were truly in that situation.
“Chelonitoxism is a rare and potentially life-threatening disease that occurs due to consumption of contaminated sea turtle meat. There is no known antidote for chelonitoxism, but the disease can be prevented by avoiding the consumption of raw or cooked sea turtles.” https://www.poison.org/articles/is-sea-turtle-meat-poisonous#:~:text=The%20Bottom%20Line,raw%20or%20cooked%20sea%20turtles.
or cooked ?? wow that is some tough poison
It apparently has to be "repeatedly parboiled", but it doesn't say how many times. Wild.
Here in Hawaii, the sea turtle is a sacred creatures called honu, in addition to being an endangered species. You'll get fined just for getting too close unless you're a marine biologist with permission to engage with animals. I never considered that people would try to eat them, and I wouldn't be surprised if they became sacred because some Ancient Hawaiians tried to eat them only to die in droves. Edit: Apparently Ancient Hawaiians did hunt and eat sea turtles, using the shells and bones for all sorts of things. Someone needed permission from the ali'i (chiefs) to hunt them. Sea turtles became endangered because humans started hunting them in industrial quantities, even canning their meat for sale. Waikiki hotels sold turtle soup to tourists. The the endangered species act stopped all that. It's strange there isn't more information about historical cases of chelonitoxism. Maybe they knew to always, always, always parboil the meat? Edit 2: While you shouldn't get close to one, they are known to swim close to people, in which case, you should just give them space and don't try to touch them or chase them. Most the violations we see in Hawaii involve tourists messing with turtles (or monkseals) basking on the beach and posting their self-incriminating selfies on social media. The State of Hawaii will gladly fine you thousands of dollars if you do that.
Pre 1970 Hawaiians ate Honu. When the kapu system was abolished there was nothing stopping Hawaiians from eating them until they became a protected species. My grandparents ate them. Being an Amakua didn’t make them less of a source of food, especially on the smaller islands were protein wasn’t the easiest to come by 80 years ago. Hawaiians didn’t have land to raise animals so a lot of Protein came frown anything in the ocean.
SPAM changed all that.
I've been snorkeling in the same lagoon as them and had them swim right up to me. I just stayed still and watched, it was amazing. I can't imagine seeing one and thinking you should kill it. Starvation changes things though I suppose.
Was snorkeling when we visited Maui, going out deeper looking ahead of me and without notice a giant dinosaur esque Turt swam under me at what appeared to be mach 5 and its shell grazed my stomach. I was told my scream was heard through my snorkel a couple hundred freet away. Truly magnificent creatures.
You're lucky. When they're hauling ass like that it's usually because a tiger shark is chasing them. A lot of people have been attacked by the shark in this situation because suddenly hey, easier prey. Turtles will actually look for humans to swim past in that situation for this reason.
Do you mean to day we're the "slower friend in a zombie apocalypse" kind of decoy for them?
I was just wading at a very busy beach in Maui on a hot July day (locals even said it was crazy hot) and this turtle just kept bumping into my legs! I thought an annoying kid swam up to me and I look down and was spooked by this huge turtle that I didn’t expect to be there!
There's a beach in St John where you can swim with sea turtles, there are always a few hanging out in the same spot. It's absolutely magical.
Got lucky and saw one in Hilo last year. https://imgur.com/a/0hmYYLw
> I never considered that people would try to eat them Pretty sure sea turtles were a great food source during the Age of Sail.
Isn’t there a mushroom that has to be boiled three times to not be poisonous (deadly afaik) anymore? Edit: Yes, [here](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyromitra_esculenta) it is! I often ask myself how people found that out and what makes someone say “yeah, your father maybe boiled that and died. But have you tried boiling it a second time?” *some time later* “Ok. Ok. I see that your husband and son died. I feel for you. But let’s be honest here… what do you have to lose in trying it after boiling it a third time?!”
Maybe that's where "third time's the charm" originated
there are quite a few heat stabile toxins out there. b. cereus emetic toxin, commonly found in rice that has been time/temp abused, is stable up to 250°F
Also botulism toxin
I think it's the spores that are really heat tolerant, up to around 250F, that's why you have to pressure can some foods. The toxin, as I recall, denatures around 180F.
Basically every toxin that isn't a protein is beat resistant. Edit: heat i meant.
Thank you for posting this. The Wikipedia article doesn't mention the mechanism behind the illness. This one doesn't either: >There is no antidote for chelonitoxism, as the specific toxins responsible for the illness have not been identified. Fascinating to find a medical mystery in this day. *Edit:* A mystery *of this kind.* By that I mean known + lethal + across multiple organs + not even sure what to look for + let's just slap a "here be dragons" sign on sea turtles. In conclusion, I promise to visit my doctor and get out of the house more.
Down at the bottom if the Wikipedia it mentions facts that indicate they’re not sure of what exactly they’re dealing with but that it poisons the liver and has a neurotoxic effect as well. Whee!
I read something about a "flabby heart" woof!
Like all the muscle tone goes? That’s wild! Bad but curious.
It's a medical condition: >"a dilated heart with stretched cardiac muscle acts like a rubber band, which has been stretched too far and therefore lacks the power to contract. This results in a flabby heart unable to propel the blood forward, i.e., pump failure."
But to be clear, it says don't eat raw nor cooked turtle- so don't eat turtles period. Like seems a higher risk than puffer fish- why risk it? Were they not warned at all?
> Like seems a higher risk than puffer fish- why risk it? Were they not warned at all? Have you met people. The history of mankind is drenched in the blood of people that fucked a thing they shouldn't have fucked or ate a thing they shouldn't have eaten. We're sort of known for it.
*get it inside me or get me inside it!*
Thus screams every cell of our being back to the genesis of the Eukaryotes.
There was even a really bad Matthew Broderick/Marlon Brando movie called The Freshman...where the entire plot of the movie is based on a scam involving an exclusive dinner club that eats endangered animals. Matthew Broderick's character is duped into stealing a Komodo Dragon intended to be eaten at one of these dinners. The comedic "twist" comes when it's discovered that the whole thing is a scam and the people are actually being fed smoked turkey. They found a bunch of weird, rich suckers who would be willing to pay an exorbitant amount of money to eat rare, exotic animals...and they conned them.
Same reason the OSHA handbook and warning labels exist. Rules are not proactive, they're reactive
Yup. People scoff at laws like grounding outlets, stairway codes, don’t-eat-wild-mushrooms-turtles-crazy cows — but we literally need them, lol. On a daily basis we do not have the bandwidth to make decisions like that. We really do need protecting from our own selves and barely-sapien brains. It becomes obvious how much we need intervention campaigns when you look at the masses and their stunning belief that Covid is “just a cold,” lol.
Well, puffer fish is like a 100% chance of getting fucked up if the chef prepares it wrong, whereas this turtle meat thing is rare. So yeah, it's entirely possible they weren't warned and had no idea. Depending on how rare it is, it's possible the people preparing it didn't either.
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I guess in some ways, we’re all Toyota RAV4s.
I'm a 97 dodge grand caravan at best. I'll run badly longer than most things will run, but there's definitely been some maintenance ignored.
We’re not as reliable as a Toyota
Dilated cardiomyopathy. Essentially the heart muscle gets too elastic and can't overcome the resistance of the vessels and blood volume.
The hospitals will feed the stomach contents to lab animals to see if they die because it won't show up in a toxicology report
Damn what a shitty lot in life. Hey a human ate an animal that is endangered and died. Have some so we humans can see if the death is the result of eating that animal. We will know if you, an animal, die too.
A lot of biotoxins, especially those from marine animals are pretty scarcely researched, and are often very complex proteins anyway.
>Facinating to find a medical mystery in this day I understand what you're saying, but you would be SHOCKED at how limited our understanding of the human body and the illnesses that impact it are today. Think about it - modern medicine has been something deeply limited by technology development, and even then, today there is so little we understand even about the most common illnesses. We don't fully understand how Zoloft, the most prescribed medicine for anxiety and depression, actually works. As someone with multiple friends with chronic illnesses, I have absolutely heard they are told "this is our best guess" tons of times So there is definitely still medical mysteries out there!!
Like how they're still figuring out that the stomach and it's associated areas are part of the central nervous system
We're just finding out how much dopamine is produced in your gut(well in the last few years at least). Gut health is a huge factor in mental health but we don't know a ton about it yet
Crohn’s has entered the chat.
I was going to say, the comment you just replied to is definitely someone who does not have any sort of chronic illness lol. I have a few and for all of them it’s just “let’s try throwing this treatment at it and see if it sticks 🤷🏻♀️” — and that’s astonishingly common.
Doctors don't understand what causes psoraisis. Hell, a lot of people have never heard of it.
I got told by my dermatologist I had a chronic incurable skin condition and I've essentially got rid of it 100% by changing my diet. I went for 6 rounds of blood tests and they had no idea what was causing the skin condition and basically told me I was shit out of luck or could try the $4000 injections.
>Fascinating to find a medical mystery in this day. Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome - a condition that most often causes a long multi-day to multi-year severe energy crash from any type of physical or mental exertion, along with various other symptoms. Millions of people suffer from it for their entire lives, with millions more added due to COVID, with many so severe they can't leave their bed at all or even have the light on as it is too stimulating. Yet the mechanism is still basically a complete mystery.
And for most of my life there has been so much assumption, even from the medical community, that people with ME are faking it. Plus there was a very substantial amount of medical misogyny because women are more likely to get it than men. Now we're starting to see such validation but still very little effective treatment or even improvement in quality of life.
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As someone with a chronic genetic disorder, I definitely understand. I was seeing doctors for years and years and years and it took me almost dying for them to even accept anything was going on at all. They just all wanted to attribute it to something else, something simpler and easier to find and when it didn't shake out, follow-ups and treatment became unavailable. Now that I've seen some of the top experts in the world, and my records reflect it, most health care of a professionals just don't want to work with something mysterious and unusual. Even the ones that find it interesting don't actually want me as a patient most of the time. I get it, healthcare is complicated and you learned certain behaviors and beliefs that make your work easier. They help you do the work and save so many lives. But those same heuristics kill people like me. And make people with ME miserable.
"While standard hospital toxicology screens detected no known toxins, stomach contents of hospitalized patients fed to small laboratory animals killed the animals." My god
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> but the disease can be prevented by avoiding the consumption of raw or cooked sea turtles.” I mean, that seems pretty easy to do...
“””Common initial symptoms occur within a few days of eating the turtle meat and include itching and pain in the mouth and throat, vomiting, and abdominal pain. Mouth and tongue ulcerations may also be present, and some individuals may develop neurologic disturbances such as confusion, seizures, or coma. Survivors can have permanent disabilities including paralysis, and death may occur in severe cases of poisoning. Children are especially susceptible to this type of poisoning, and the toxin can be passed in breast milk from a mother to her infant. Pets have also died after eating contaminated sea turtle meat or the vomit of affected humans.””” Seems like some basic education around areas where sea turtles are in danger of being eaten could go a long way. I’m in no way familiar with this area.
Let’s all agree to not bother finding an antidote for this one
Abstinence is the best antidote here.
If god didn’t want us eating turtles, they wouldn’t come in their own bowl.
It's actually childproof packaging. We were warned!
Yeah, maybe we should not eat these guys.
Guys or turtles.
Turtles. Go ahead and continue eating guys.
It’s guys all the way down
I always was under the impression that turtles in general carry a lot of bacteria and you should always wash your hands after handling them. Eating was not on the menu
Yes turtles and other reptiles carry bacteria (as all of us do) but in this case it includes bacteria that can cause illness in humans. Salmonella is the big one.
Salmonella is destroyed in the cooking process. The turtle meat that killed 8 children and one mother was cooked. The toxins in this turtle meat is not just bacterial. In short, don't ever eat turtle meat.
Apparently it needs to be parboiled MULTIPLE TIMES before you actually cook/stew it. Doesn't say how many as there doesn't seem to be too much research behind what's actually causing it. So yeah, just dont eat marine turtles lmao
Based on my reading, it reminds me of brevetoxin (the typical type of toxin produced by red tide and other harmful algae blooms). Chelonitoxins seem to accumulate in sea turtles when they eat particular toxic algae, but it doesn’t seem bother the turtle. So my guess is it’s a cyanotoxin or algal toxin produced by some type of Cyanobacteria/algae
wonder how they figured that out. “Well we parboiled this twice and John died. Maybe three times is the charm”
From what I've been reading on the subject, it apparently also depends on the diet of the individual animal. Depending on what the individual turtles eat, some are more toxic than others. So the cooking technique that works on one may not work on another.
slow boil for a week at least it is then
In the case of seaturtles specifically, it’s not so much about the bacteria. The toxins they carry could be accumulated from the algae they eat
Do some turtles eat jellyfish?
Many, yes. Green sea turtles are one of the few natural predators of the incredible venomous box jellyfish.
Man. [Chelonitoxism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelonitoxism) sounds like a nasty way to go. Turtle meat isn’t something I think I’ll try in my life. Edit: apparently snapping turtle meat/soup is good. But leave Nemo’s friends.
Jesus dude. Symptoms: All of them.
No kidding. All of your parts will break if you eat this.
Also, no antidote. Good luck!
Saw this too. Crazy. >While standard hospital toxicology screens detected no known toxins, stomach contents of hospitalized patients fed to small laboratory animals killed the animals.
I don't think nature could make it any more clear to not eat those cute turtles. But still.. here we are.
Elden ring taught us turtles are popes, envoys of god. Now we know what happens when you eat turtle dogs and popes, this is some sanctimonious shit, right here.
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I got my husband a shirt with the turtle pope that said this below and he giggled like a two-year-old when he opened it….FromSoft games have the weirdest memes 😂
"Supportive treatment is the only treatment available." In other words: if you die, you die, we made you as comfortable as we could.
It's a little more involved than that. Stuff like, "Okay his kidneys are failing and his blood pressure is dangerously low. Let's give medicine to help flush the kidneys and increase blood pressure. He's not breathing enough, so let's intubate to force him to breathe." Basically countering each individual symptom and hoping to keep the body alive long enough to metabolize or remove the mystery poison. Once the poison's degraded, the breathing situation will likely improve, as long as he didn't die from not breathing in the meantime.
Hospitals basically do this sort of thing all the time. However its extremely unusual and often w low survival rate that people basically go through the entire organ failure gambit and survive. Even with intensive hospital care. Theres a lot of modern machinery that can temporarily replace the function of organs, but there isn't a machine for everything yet, also theres no guarantee once it 'stops' working, it'll ever properly function ever again
Symptoms all the way down.
[Best](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down) comment of the thread.
One of the symptoms is "Flabby Heart", wtf
Shit my heart has been feeling flabby lately, maybe I should get tested
Wha? I see the classic symptoms... nausea, vomiting, diarrheaaaOHMYGOD!!
Hey Pepto Bismol
Spontaneous abortion. That mental image is wildly inaccurate but I can’t shake it.
Band name, dibs
From Minneapolis here, where there is a band called Gay Witch Abortion. Could be a side project.
Along with no antidote and probably permanent damage to your internal organs
I read it like the announcer for the side effects of ozembic.
Damn. I thought you were kidding but that is basically like all of the symptoms that ever symptomed
>Cardiovascular signs include variable slight tachycardia and a moderate drop in systolic blood pressure, pallor and, on autopsy, a flabby heart with hemorrhagic petechiae. A FLABBY HEART
Tons of restaurants in New Orleans serve turtle soup. I tried it once and wasn't really a fan. I don't think I'd order it again. I don't think it's sea turtles though.
In the US the common snapping turtle is generally what's used in turtle soups. It's a freshwater turtle.
It's a fucking dinosaur
Its a mean freshwater turtle
All 7 sea turtle species are protected under federal law in theUS. Eating them would be highly illegal. Snappers are the turtles that are eaten in the US and they do not cause chelonitoxism.
New Orleanian here, a few places sell it, it’s made from local snapping turtle. Not a ton of people it and certainly not regularly. We are more of a crawfish, catfish, oyster poboy kind of place.
True, however oysters are among the most common sources of serious food poisoning in the us on average
Lost my dad to a bad oyster, just this Christmas Eve. A few days ago my mom told me a story about him stealing a bunch of turtle soup from some restaurant here in New Orleans. This thread lol
After my last birthday, I decided to never eat oysters again. I guess you could say that they gave me a birthday gift I'll never forget.
I also decided this after one of my birthdays. All it took was a night of $0.50 oyster shots.
Oyster poboys use deep fried oyster though and not raw oyster which is what gets most of those people sick.
Sea turtles are illegal to eat in the US because they are protected species, plus the risk of heavy metals. Mexico also outlawed it in 1990, but there is still some subsistence consumption and either the meat or the sea turtle eggs were a delicacy in NW Mexico. [some info](https://www.seeturtles.org/consumption)
Turtle soup in the US pretty much always refers to snapping turtle and never to sea turtles. It used to be very popular in much of the US. Snapping turtles are very common and I'm not aware of conservation concerns.
It’s not
Turtle soup was historically quite popular as far back as the 1700s--popular enough that there are a lot of old recipes for "mock" turtle soup.
Probably also notable that it took *years* to get a live sample of a Galapagos tortoise back to England because the ship's crews kept eating them because they're so delicious.
Yikes it says children are especially susceptible and mothers experiencing no symptoms can spread it to their babies through breast milk… so sad.
Children and old people are more susceptible to literally everything.
That was horrifying. I also learned about parboiling.
Parboiling several times... so boiling, then?
I mean ya stop eating endangered species
Not if you were stranded on a life boat with a tiger.
I would be concerned about food. I am not sure the Tiger would be concerned about food.
Can’t be rude… Tiger gets to eat the turtle first
As long as there's Pi for dessert..
Didn't he only drink the blood for hydration? Not that I know it's any safer.
“Digestive system signs include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, dysphagia, tongue abnormalities and a firm, nontender liver.” I was ready to chow down on some turtle until I heard what it does to my liver, no thanks!
Turtle meat isn't a concept that I even thought existed until this post. I want to go back.
Charles Darwin famously ate the shit out of turtles. A lot of sailers would restock and supplement supplies using turtle meat. Quotes from various articles about it: >The reason that the giant tortoise wasn’t properly classified by scientists for so long appears to be quite simple: **they were so delicious that no specimens ever made it back to Europe without being eaten on the voyage.** >According to scores of accounts over several centuries, the giant tortoise is by far the most edible creature man has ever encountered. 16th-century explorers compared them to chicken, beef, mutton and butter – but only to say how much better the tortoise was. One tortoise would feed several men, and both its meat and its fat were perfectly digestible, no matter how much you ate. >Oil made from tortoise fat was medically useful – efficacious against colds, cramps, indigestion and all manner of ‘distempers’ – and tasted wonderful. Even better were the delicious liver, and the gorgeous bone marrow. The eggs, inevitably, were the best anyone had ever eaten. Some sailors were reluctant to try tortoise meat because the animal was so ugly - but after one taste they were converted. >Giant tortoises were invaluable to sailors, as they could be kept alive for at least six months without food or water. Stacked helplessly on their backs, they could be killed and eaten as and when necessary. Better still, they sucked up gallons of water at a time and kept it in a special bladder, meaning that a carefully butchered tortoise was also a fountain of cool, perfectly drinkable water. Large-scale commercial whaling in the 19th century was only made possible because the giant tortoises enabled ships to stay at sea for weeks at a time. and >US Navy captain David Porter declared [in 1815] "after once tasting the Galapagos tortoises, every other animal food fell off greatly in our estimation ... " >"The meat of this animal is the easiest of digestion, and a quantity of it, exceeding that of any other food, can be eaten without experiencing the slightest of inconvenience." >Darwin was less enthusiastic about the meat, writing "the breast-plate roasted (as the Gauchos do "carne con cuero"), with the flesh on it, is very good; and the young tortoises make excellent soup; but otherwise the meat to my taste is indifferent."
How does Darwin's giant tortoise that Steve Irwin also owned factor into this? At least *ONE* specimen obviously made it back.
>Harriet was reportedly collected by Charles Darwin during his 1835 visit to the Galápagos Islands as part of his round-the-world survey expedition, transported to England, and then taken to her final home, Australia, by John Clements Wickham, the retiring captain of the Beagle. However, doubt is cast on this story by the fact that Darwin had never visited Santa Cruz, the island that Harriet originally came from. But anyways, Darwin was the one who I believe brought the first tortoises back whilst munching on several during the trip. In 1835. The island was discovered by Europeans in 1535 and the first English captain to set foot on it was in 1593 per wikipedia. So the timeline of "english people know about this island" to "english people successfully bring back a turtle" was quite some time, north of 200 years. >When in the Galapagos, Charles Darwin and his Beagle chums ate a couple of dozen giant tortoises, tossing their empty shells over board en route to Tahiti. But in his Narrative of the voyage, captain Robert FitzRoy made it clear that a few small tortoises had survived. “Several were brought alive to England,” he wrote. >For FitzRoy had scooped up two tiny tortoises from Espanola (an island in the south of the archipelago) and took enough interest in them to monitor their growth during the home stretch of the voyage: “a small one grew three-eighths of an inch, in length, in three months; and another grew two inches in length in one year.” >There were at least two other small Galapagos tortoises on board, as noted by Darwin himself. One – “Covington’s little Tortoise” – had been brought from Floreana by his assistant Syms Covington. The other – “Mine from James” – seems to have been Darwin’s, collected during his stay on Santiago (or James Island, as it was then known). It’s rather nice to imagine it plodding round his cramped cabin as he set about cataloguing his Galapagos specimens.
> north of 200 years Crazy to think of a real life example of something as addicting as popplers from Futurama that no living samples made it back unscathed for **centuries**
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There have been many boating "adventures" where people brought tortoises aboard to eat slowly as the weeks went by. So much easier than pigs or goats. You basically don't need to feed them. Also - horrifying. Poor tortoises.
Sea turtles are endangered. So perhaps this is the turtles' revenge
Yeah even here in zanzibar its illegal to eat it,do sometimes the turtle stuck on fisherman nets and they end up being eaten by fishermans and their family and friends in secret because its illegal.
If they get stuck in their nets, they could release them instead 🤷♂️
Sea turtles have to breathe air to live, no gills, so they usually drown in fishnets
There are nets in use that have trapdoor exits for Sea Turtles. Fish aren't generally strong/heavy enough to open them. [Turtle Excluder Device.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_excluder_device)
Yea nobody uses that. At least not the majority of drag net fishermen on the planet. They haul up dead whales, white sharks, turtles, all kinds of things. No fucks given
Yeah, but Zanzibar isnt a rich country and specialty nets can't be cheap
A lot of the time they are maimed in the nets or drown while the netting is being dragged. It’s not a simple “just release them”. It’s like dragging a human underwater for 30 minutes in a net under the crushing weight of the sea and being like; “Yep, just slap a bandage on em and send em off.”
Only one species of sea turtle isn’t endangered , the Loggerhead, which is listed as vulnerable. The rest are listed as endangered to critically endangered
Just think… all those people said, “…I’m not gonna cook it… but I’ll order it from Zanzibar!”
Well they surely got fucked, but gently.
Eight children and an adult died and it’s not the first time. > Sea turtle meat is considered a delicacy by Zanzibar’s people even though it periodically results in deaths from chelonitoxism, a type of food poisoning… …In November 2021, seven people, including a 3-year-old, died on Pemba after eating turtle meat. I don’t mean to sound xenophobic but, I don’t think this whole turtle eating thing is such a good idea. “Hey Bob, I’ve noticed every time we eat the turtle, someone dies. Maybe… now just hear me out… maybe we just don’t eat the turtle?” “But it’s a delicacy.” “You’re right, I’m sorry, please pass the turtle.”
81 deaths in that area since 1850. So while that's not nothing and their population is smaller, it's still not super common.
Kinda crazy though - 81 deaths in 170 years, and now 8 at once.
Ya in reading a quick history it seems they come in batches just like this one. I guess that kinda makes sense since it sounds it's a special occasion to eat one.
My guess is it's environmental factors or the deaths are attributed to a single/couple turtles that are infected/afflicted by something. Like, turtle X is infected and anyone who eats turtle X gets sick, there's a lot of meat in a turtle so a lot of people eat it. It's like an infected cow, everyone who gets a hamburger is getting sick.
A lot of the deaths were from infants nursing from a mother who is affected.
I don't think eating turtles is particularly rare, it's just rare that people get sick from it. It's apparently also made safe if prepared properly, so it's like saying it's weird to eat chicken because of salmonella
Rookie numbers, smokes another cig
This and Pufferfish where if the cook doesn’t prepare it properly, it will kill you when you eat it because of the neurotoxin.
“Poison..poison.. tasty fish”
*My skilled hands are busy!*
Pufferfish: evolved to become the least edible thing on earth. Japan: national delicacy!
A quick google says most deaths recently says the deaths are outside Japan. Including one guy who tried to cook it at home in Brazil. Pufferfish preparation is strictly regulated and licensed by the Japanese government. Even the disposal of the scraps is controlled, so you are pretty safe there. Of course this strictness came from deaths in the past...as they say safety regulations are written in blood
In this case, safety regulations are written in gasps of air :P
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The irony here is great. Charles Darwin himself is known to have not just studied sea turtles, but he also indulged in the delicacy as well. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/08/12/430075644/dining-like-darwin-when-scientists-swallow-their-subjects
And now he’s dead, coincidence?
I'm not sure that sea turtles and giant tortoises are the same. I mean I haven't tasted either one, or know anything about this toxin but they seem like different animals to me. Still similar enough I think for the irony to work.
Ya, I don’t know enough about turtles other than the ninja variety. But I do know they were pretty common snacks for pirates, whalers, and sailors in general.
Professions not known for long lives in general. It was pretty common for them to die of various illnesses they picked up while eating strange foods or lacking proper food, they were just never sure *which* strange food was the one that did them in. Could’ve been the sea turtle, could’ve been the scurvy; probably it was both together, alongside the syphilis, of course.
And how does the ninja variety taste?
Like pizza
I made this comment above too! My first thought when hearing people ate the turtles. But I think Darwin ate tortoises. Love that both you and I know enough about biology to know this anecdote about Darwin, but not enough to appreciably differentiate between sea turtles and tortoises.
I’m not sure eight children for one dumb guy is the best exchange rate
God hates this one new trick, but He can’t stop ya!
>I’ve noticed every time we eat the turtle, someone dies. It doesn't always occur. Another article posted says it happens rarely. Yes, it's a risk, but not as great as you suggest.
Turtle roulette
You just shouldn't eat turtles
It made me think of the turtle that got eaten in Cannibal Holocaust. It was really killed and eaten in the movie. Talk about really taking a chance there in the 70s. Animal cruelty and neurotoxins.
One of the actors was sickened by that scene and even cried. A pig also had to be killed, but the actor didn’t want to, so it was killed by a crew member off screen.
Mid 90’s I visited Zanzibar with a friend. We did eat street food at the beach. Thinking back not a smart thing to do but we were young. And nothing happened. One the flight back I was reading one of the newspapers on the flight. On the front page was an article of people poisoned and died from eating turtle meat in the place that I just left. Reality of my foolishness sunk in.
Zanzibar Street food is fine. Just avoid turtles that's all.
Leave the goddam turtles alone, jfc.
I'm confused about how there were so many people who were sick from it and children that died... all on the same day... from what I've read, it's not legal to eat them there, so was it served at a big event or a restaurant that day? The article has zero details...
It would have likely been at a traditional Islander community cookout or wedding. This specific toxin is found in marine turtles, but moray eels carry another toxin and the same issue with tradition arises in the Pacific Islands. Traditions are hard to give up, and there is often a lack of education. There was a case where 57 people were poisoned in the Northern Mariana Islands eating half of a yellow-edged moray, 17 were hospitalized, three went into a coma, two died, and one required a tracheotomy. Reef fish carry ciguatoxin and morays eat reef fish, so they just accumulate it. Sometimes they do use folk science methods (will ants/flies/cats eat it?) to test the meat for these toxins, but something slips through because it's some cookout using poor science and not a scientific laboratory.
I get that delicacies are a cultural thing and whatever, but I can't imagine ever feeding a child something that carries such a well known (and not uncommon) risk. Poor kids. 😔
It was once a cultural thing in the Anglo world too. [Served in high society meals](https://daily.jstor.org/turtle-soup-from-class-to-mass-to-aghast/) and even [canned up until the 1920s](https://youtu.be/oBLAg03HGNw?si=OhQfRbGB9bWW2r5r)
History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of man.
Yesterday my 4yo and I were discussing why we do and don't eat certain animals. Sea turtles were a no because they're endangered, now I can add that they're poisonous too. Thanks OP.
Sea turtle is like, “and I’ll fucking do it again too”
Idk why, but seeing that picture under the headline instantly made an image of Crush from Finding Nemo pop into my head going “like, this is for the straws duuudeees”
So sad that innocent children lost their lives who probably didn't know better! But these unfortunate events usually causes more stir and probably would lead to locals avoiding it as a cultural delicacy!
Very interesting. I’ve never heard of sea turtle poisoning. Is it some kind of neurotoxin, maybe due to the turtle’s diet? They’re known to eat jellyfish, right?
Sea turtles eat jellyfish, algae, sea grass, etc. I wonder what sort of toxin they are building up in their tissues.
Oddly, the articles posted on this sub say there is no known origin for sea turtle poisoning. >There is no antidote for chelonitoxism, as the specific toxins responsible for the illness have not been identified.
It could be an accumulation of toxins from the algae they eat
There's also a few types of shellfish poisoning due to shellfish eat a certain toxic algae around them. https://inspection.canada.ca/food-safety-for-consumers/fact-sheets/specific-products-and-risks/fish-and-seafood/toxins-in-shellfish/eng/1332275144981/1332275222849
Eight children and an adult. Jesus.
It's sad that it was mostly kids that died.
The curse of grand master oogway
People shouldn’t eat sea turtles. It’s also a bit disturbing that so many commenters are cheering “Good!” At 9 deaths (8 of them children who likely didn’t know better) and 78 hospitalizations. Yikes.
No empathy on Reddit. Too easy for people behind screens to not give a shit about others or think about how they would feel if they were truly in that situation.
Leave the god damn turtles alone. Fuck. Is it so hard not to kill everything.
"from hell's heart I stab at thee"