It doesn’t even have to get that far: the whole thing hinges on how much alcohol can be produced in a batch of pizza dough in the first place, given the relatively short “brewing” time. Then the next problem is “how much of this tiny amount of alcohol is vapourized.” Then the next problem is “how can just a couple or few deep breaths when mixed with air be absorbed into the body in quantity.” All this before we even get the liver involved.
Even if someone sat and hyperventilated with the vapours, I would suspect CO2 suffocation effects causing the dizziness long before alcohol. IIRC there have been cases of dough workers at large bakeries becoming sick or even dying of CO2 buildup.
I’m aware that a couple of drunk driving defense books cite literature of drunk dogs and other animals which are huge quantities of pizza dough, but this was 1) dough which was eaten in a large quantity, not inhaled, which 2) had sat for a very long time in the trash and been allowed to ferment for days, which 3) was impacting a relatively small mass animal.
And IIRC ether is a far more potent and powerful intoxicant, and doesn’t need to be processed by the liver first.
Una, I wasnt refering to a pizza dough fume buzz. I was talking about an inhaling air with alchohol vapor buzz. I generally agree with your points about the evils of pizza dough fumes.
This seems fishy to me… blood alcohol content can peak very rapidly, especially using an inhaler, but the metabolism rate is the same whether you drank it or inhaled it. Maybe the lightheadedness is just anoxia from taking a big hit of CO2?
The key here might be BLOOD content. It spikes from inhalation, buzz, goes down fast. Drinking is a slow process, so the TISSUES of your body have chance to get loaded up too, so it takes awhile to liver to pump the levels back down.
If you do it fast inhaling, ONLY your blood spikes, which is fraction of the mass of the tissues, so the liver can pump that reservoir down faster. Also, when you drink, its not like your stomach pumps it into your blood immediately. Its pumping the alcohol constantly for lets say something like 30 minutes. The alcohol source stops nearly immediately in comparision when you quit breathing it.
Also, its my understanding that a booze buzz, lack of oxygen, and excess CO2 don’t feel the same. Someone might confuse one with another, but thats probably only because they arent being very observant or precise.
I don’t think this is correct reasoning. I don’t know that there’s any significant reserve in the tissues as you suggest, but if there is, it must first enter via the bloodstream whether the alcohol is drunk or inhaled, and thus would behave the same. However, you might have a partial point about the stomach alcohol reserve.
Yeah, I don’t know the relative importance of this contribution. But I don’t think it would be the “same”, because still, ingestion means ramping up slowly, staying steady for a bit, then ramping down. Which gives plenty of time for the booze to go from the blood the “tissues”. But thats just a minor point really.