Food safe wood

[chipmunk]

Neil,
Is "death" the only outcome that indicates that something is poisonous enough to worry about? :roll: :roll:

In the case of laburnum cytisine is the toxin which in small doses gets used as a substitute for nicotine but 34 - 50mg of it can be lethal....

http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/search/a?dbs+hsdb:@term+@DOCNO+3560

Taxine in yew is a more lethal toxin...

http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/search/a?dbs+hsdb:@term+@DOCNO+3541

I suppose I feel that there are so many woods to choose from why would you take risks making stuff in contact with food from either yew or laburnum?

Jon

 

[Neil Farrer]

Neil,
Is "death" the only outcome that indicates that something is poisonous enough to worry about? :roll: :roll:

In the case of laburnum cytisine is the toxin which in small doses gets used as a substitute for nicotine but 34 - 50mg of it can be lethal....

http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/search/a?dbs+hsdb:@term+@DOCNO+3560

Taxine in yew is a more lethal toxin...

http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/search/a?dbs+hsdb:@term+@DOCNO+3541

I suppose I feel that there are so many woods to choose from why would you take risks making stuff in contact with food from either yew or laburnum?

Jon

Jon,

My main point is that the world has become unnecessarily risk averse and your comments are typical of that point. The comments about Yew in the link you posted, and the poisoning that occured, refer only to the (deliberate) ingestion of a quantity of leaves, not eating half a bowl or a salt mill made of yew.

My point entirely earlier in the thread about water, everything in excess is dangerous, but to compare the deliberate ingestion of a volume (be it undefned) of fresh yew leaves and say on that basis that it is effectively dangerous or at least risky to make a salt mill out of the wood is taking things to the extreme.

We have become so risk averse that the health and safety police are ruining our lives.

Statistically, and let us remind ourselves of a fact, that the NHS have reported no incidence since its formation, of a death as a result of the ingestion of laburnum (Source - the Lancet), yet they are repeatedly dealing with car deaths and pedestrian accidents,

And tomorrow I will drive my van and cross the road, and continue to eat salt from the Laburnum mill that I made three years ago, and hopefully I will survive!

 

[chipmunk]

Hi Neil,
I understand your point and agree about the general observation that risk is not treated rationally or in any sort of context and would rather not harp-on...

...but my point here is that whilst it's perfectly ok to voice a personal opinion about the level of risk you are happy to accept, there is a finite probability that if it went unchallenged someone might follow your advice from this forum, turn a green yew bowl (which will almost certainly contain more taxine), use it for salad rather than dry food and becomes sick as a result. Worse still they may sell the thing to a member of the general public and unwittingly cause harm to someone else.

I see absolutely no distinction here between a turner on the forum advocating making turning tools from old files, which would result in howls of condemnation, and your suggestion that yew and laburnum are perfectly safe on the strength of an article in the Lancet that there have been no reported deaths from laburnum poisoning.

How many old file turning tools have killed people when they have fractured in use? Not many, I'll wager.

Jon

 

[Neil Farrer]

Jon,

1) I have never stated that Yew and Laburnum are perfectly safe, nor done so on the strength of an article in the Lancet.
2) It is a fact that there have been no atributable deaths to Laburnum poisoning
3) The simple distinction between turning tools from old files and the applicable toxicity of woods is that one is proven to be dangerous (in that the tools can fracture) and the other is merely speculation, and what is annoying, is that the speculation is perpetuated as fact by some members of the woodturning community.

I trust that your comment "turn a green yew bowl (which will almost certainly contain more taxine), use it for salad rather than dry food and becomes sick as a result" is purely speculative. I think that the aroma of very wet yew (pleasant in my opinion but incompatible with salad!), would deter the enthusiastic new turner from placing a salad in an untreated green bowl anyway, but this is of course speculation, it may well be totally safe.

If someone wants to challenge my personal opinion that's absolutely fine, but I request that they don't present their (not you!) opinion as fact.

Correct me if I am wrong Jon, or anyone else for that fact but there have:
1) Never been any deaths proven to be attributable to eating Laburnum, and
2) Eating Laburnum seeds is a bad move and will give you a stomach upset
4) There are known cases of deliberate poisoning and suicide involving the consumption of Yew foliage
5) There have never been any deaths (sickness not being reportable?) as a result of eating anything from a vessel or plate of Yew or Laburnum.
6) The dust of Yew and Laburnum is a hazard as much as any other wood.

Anyway, we could go on at greater length and the wider woodturning world has probably glazed over and gone off to review their funeral plans. So on that note you are welcome to reply but I will, unless really tempted, refrain from further comment as the wife is getting annoyed! Merry Christmas Jon and sincerely, thanks for the debate.

 

[CHJ]

... Yew is the base of tamoxifen about which I dont know much, but am aware that it is injected as a treatment for breast cancer, so all encompassing claims about the toxicity of Yew should be treated with doubt or total disbelief.

Because it is a poison and delivered in the right amounts kills the vulnerable cancer cells before doing too much collateral damage.
A hand-full of Yew leaves will kill a horse as I've seen for myself when a horse dropped dead in the shafts having just snatched some yew mixed in with hawthorn from a cottage hedge.
Sitting under a Yew tree for shade on a hot summer day for prolonged periods is not recommended either, especially for young children if you don't want them to start hallucinating. (and yes we have experienced that when a helper thought it was a good idea to let them do just that at a summer camp)

http://poolhousevets.com/Equine/yew-tree-poisoning/
http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/liv ... 07-055.htm


I love turning Yew both for it's ease of turning and colourful characteristics, but a moments inattention to dust contamination of skin or lungs causes me to reach for the anti-histamine tablets in short order.

 

[chipmunk]

Neil,
Sorry to perpetuate this

I'm sorry that you took exception to my reference to files as turning tools and feel that my example is hypothetical. I accept that the example was entirely hypothetical but all risk assessments are based upon hypothetical events. I hesitate to use this term because it is coupled to the evil "elf and safety" culture but we all make such assessments and calculations when deciding how close to put our fingers to a rotating exposed chuck jaw or wings of a natural edged bowl or blade of the bandsaw.

My point is a simple one....

Knowing what we do about yew and laburnum i.e.

"Laburnum anagyroides (laburnum) is, after the yew, the most poisonous tree grown in Britain. All parts are poisonous, especially the flowers and seeds." - from here... http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/search/a?dbs+hsdb:@term+@DOCNO+3560

"The genus Taxus includes the yew plants. These plants contain varying amounts of alkaloids (Taxine A and B) that are toxic. The alkaloids are found in all parts of the plant. - from here... http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/search/a?dbs+hsdb:@term+@DOCNO+3541

...and because none of us are able to reliably judge the toxicity of either sort of timber and how much toxin it takes to make you ill apart from anecdotes, why would you choose to use either for food use when there are loads of other timbers out there, many of which have been used for centuries specifically for contact with food?

Just because it's pretty and I have some in the right size seems a pretty poor reason to take the chance IMHO. :wink:

You can always find something else to make from that beautiful piece of yew or laburnum anyway. Or you can think of an imaginative and attractive way to move the laburnum or yew away from the food while still featuring it as part of the item.

Don't get me wrong I'm not risk averse. In the privacy of my workshop I take risks I know I shouldn't.

My suggestion would simply be to save the risk taking for situations where there is a better cost-benefit return such as rock climbing, bungee jumping, sky diving or even running across the road in front of a lorry to save a few minutes using the zebra crossing :wink:

Merry Christmas to you too.

Jon

 

[Neil Farrer]

How to go round in circles?

Its poisonous, - then dont eat it! Dust is harmful, dont sand it.

Laburnum was used extensively to make flutes, recorders and bagpipes. I dont know how bag pipes work, I dont like them, it sounds like someone has put a cow through a mangle. However, the basics of playing a recorder which Laburnum was used to make is that you stick the damn thing in your mouth and at some stage inevitably you swallow your saliva. If the mouth piece was made of another substance the warm air from your body is still going to warm up and condense on the wood and infuse the wood and get into your system. If this presented a problem with either causing a shortage of living recorder players or condeming them to the toilet for prolonged periods our ancestors would have worked that one out pretty damn quick and changed their manufacturing habits.

If its dangerous, as I've said, don't eat it, and for that matter its not wise to eat any wood, its not good for the system! Just because all parts of it are described as poisonous doesnt mean to say that the wood is dangerous. Roads are not dangerous, it is the cars that travel on them that are!

There is a lot more danger (if indeed it is dangerous) associated with making a recorder out of the stuff than a salt mill.

Lets quote Chris West,

" One wood I have used in the projects (Turning Salt and Pepper Shakers and Mills, Page 18) is Yew. Despite the fact that the living tree is toxic, and the leaves and berries are poisonous, I have not seen any conclusive evidence to suggest that dry wood should not be used for shakers or mills."

Merry Christmas - ends