Cecil missed one crucial part: It has to be REAL Nutmeg (ie: not the stuff you buy in the spice isle at the grocery store, must be REAL shaved off the nut, nutmeg)
ETA: Link to column - Is nutmeg hallucinogenic? - The Straight Dope
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“Cecil missed one crucial part: It has to be REAL Nutmeg (ie: not the stuff you buy in the spice isle at the grocery store, must be REAL shaved off the nut, nutmeg)”
Why? They’re the same thing. One is not realer than the other. Are you suggesting there’s some chemical in ungrated nutmeg that evaporates or changes with exposure to air or something?
Although my guess is that “doobsy420” won’t be back for a discussion of this topic. Wish I’d paid attention to the username…
Prove me wrong, doobsy.
I suspect the psychoactive ingredient does evaporate. My only source is my dad, who while in high school was something of a prodigy-chemist. He told me a story once of distilling a few drops of what sounded like some aromatic compound of nutmeg. As the story went, he went to place a drop onto his tongue, and the instant it touched his mouth his heart rate went through the roof, he could hardly breath, and was sweating profusely. He said that for an hour or so he thought he was going to die, but recovered soon thereafter.
The psychoactive compound in nutmeg is myristicin, a weak MAOI. Neither it nor trimyristin, the characteristic oil of nutmeg, is very volatile; I therefore expect that dried, ground nutmeg will do the job just fine, as reported by many partakers.
The distillation of trimyristin is a common freshman exercise, and it’s quite possible that an early distillation will contain enough myristicin to produce the effects reported by your dad (certainly the symptoms are characteristic).
It’s amazing that a non-volatile compound had produce such an immediate whole body reaction! My assumption was the drug exposure must have been through a little insufflation of the volatile stuff. Now I’m interested in learning more!
Noted later posts in the thread discussing the facts, however, it’s certainly true that ground nutmeg does not keep as well as whole - this is also true of many other culinary spices - whether it’s attributable to evaporation of volatiles, oxidation due to increased surface area, or some mechanical issue, it’s generally the case that freshly ground spices are a different thing to those bought in a ready-ground state.
Nutmeg contains many volatile compounds which are responsible for its flavor and aroma, and these indeed evaporate rapidly from ground nutmeg. However, none of these is myristicin.
Understood and acknowledged above.