6 ms·

LOL fair question so story time I guess. First incident. In late 2005, I'm in Bangkok for business. On the 3rd or 4th night I ventured to an outdoor restaura

LOL fair question so story time I guess. First incident. In late 2005, I'm in Bangkok for business. On the 3rd or 4th night I ventured to an outdoor restaurant, and ate their "specialty" which was raw shrimp, garlic, and crushed chili. Yes, I was an idiot. On the walk back to the hotel I started to feel it. Broke out into a cold sweat, doubled over, and realized my meal was bad news. I managed to get back to the hotel and asked for help. I thought they would call an ambulance but instead they gave me some charcoal, which I had never even heard of before - but they convinced me to take it. I started to feel some relief after 30 minutes or so. I still felt terrible for a day or two, but I could tell it would have been far worse had I not taken it. Second incident. In 2012 I'm in Madrid on Business, and a colleague and I met up at a somewhat empty restaurant. We split a paella, because we were foreigners and forgot we weren't in Barcelona. We went back to our separate hotels in different parts of town. I had some charcoal with me, and realized I needed to take some. I got back home fine, my colleague went back home and ended up in the emergency room - took her about 10 days to recover. It's not something I take often (maybe once every two or three years). But I swear by it and always travel with it just in case an adventurous culinary experience ends poorly.

why_at 3y ago
I'm not a doctor or anything so I could be mistaken, but my understanding was that activated charcoal is helpful for treating poisons/toxins, not pathogens like you might find in bad seafood. Unless there was a poisonous mushroom or something in your Thai food or your paella, would activated charcoal be expected to help?
- throwup238 3y ago
  Activated charcoal is just a high adsorption material with a lot more surface area (100-1000x or so) than stomach lining so anything floating around is more likely to be trapped by the charcoal than get absorbed by your digestive system. It works with pretty much anything, good or bad, since it exploits a basic physical process of molecules sticking together.
- binarymax 3y ago
  @why_at your comment and @throwup238's (thread name checks out) are IIRC the source of the debate. There is a porous surface area and tests/arguments of the type/size of the particle that can attach - perhaps they are inconclusive because there are lots of other things at play in the stomach and gut like biomes and various substances and surfaces and reactions. In my experience it worked and, based on my recollection I'm pretty sure in both scenarios above I would have been f*cked if not for the treatment. I'm definitely open to the possibility that it might work differently on different people - we're not all clones.
ajkjk 3y ago
So maybe not "life-saving" but certainly seemed to help. Fair enough.
geon 3y ago
> we were foreigners and forgot we weren't in Barcelona. What does that mean? Is Barcelona a cleaner place than Madrid?
- niij 3y ago
  Eastern Spain is on the Mediterranean sea and is home to Paella. Madrid is farther from the sea and not known for Paella. It's like ordering oysters in Iowa.
- fullspectrumdev 3y ago
  As a general rule: if you aren’t by the sea, seafood may not be as fresh as you expect. I avoid any/all fish dishes when not in a coastal region due to repeated bad experiences.
  - geon 3y ago
    Shouldn't you be able to expect any restaurant in spain to follow food safety guidelines?
  - ac29 3y ago
    Most seafood in the US is frozen at some point, regardless of if you are near the coast or not. And, yes, this includes most "fresh" fish, which generally just means recently thawed. There may be exceptions if it is caught locally and in season, but the vast majority of seafood eaten in the US is not local, no matter how close you are to the coast.
  - TeaBrain 3y ago
    These days, in large non-coastal cities, I've heard that it is often other than you would expect. In cities where there are large international airports, fish is flown in daily, to the point where the fish served in nicer restaurants will not be much less fresh than on the coast. The Denver Post article linked below goes into how fish is flown to Denver within hours of being caught, every day. https://www.denverpost.com/2009/01/26/how-does-fish-get-from-there-to-here/ https://www.denverpost.com/2009/01/26/how-does-fish-get-from...
fransje26 3y ago
You ate raw seafood from a street stand? That's a whole new level of "brave". Close to playing Russian roulette with all the bullets in the cylinder..
- cthalupa 3y ago
  You say this, but it's perfectly normal in heavily populated parts of the world to do this. It's not like he found some street stand that popped up for one night only and no one else ever did it again. I've had plenty of raw seafood from food stalls across the world and never had an issue.

why_at 3y ago

I'm not a doctor or anything so I could be mistaken, but my understanding was that activated charcoal is helpful for treating poisons/toxins, not pathogens like you might find in bad seafood. Unless there was a poisonous mushroom or something in your Thai food or your paella, would activated charcoal be expected to help?

throwup238 3y ago
Activated charcoal is just a high adsorption material with a lot more surface area (100-1000x or so) than stomach lining so anything floating around is more likely to be trapped by the charcoal than get absorbed by your digestive system. It works with pretty much anything, good or bad, since it exploits a basic physical process of molecules sticking together.
binarymax 3y ago
@why_at your comment and @throwup238's (thread name checks out) are IIRC the source of the debate. There is a porous surface area and tests/arguments of the type/size of the particle that can attach - perhaps they are inconclusive because there are lots of other things at play in the stomach and gut like biomes and various substances and surfaces and reactions. In my experience it worked and, based on my recollection I'm pretty sure in both scenarios above I would have been f*cked if not for the treatment. I'm definitely open to the possibility that it might work differently on different people - we're not all clones.

ajkjk 3y ago

So maybe not "life-saving" but certainly seemed to help. Fair enough.

geon 3y ago

> we were foreigners and forgot we weren't in Barcelona. What does that mean? Is Barcelona a cleaner place than Madrid?

niij 3y ago
Eastern Spain is on the Mediterranean sea and is home to Paella. Madrid is farther from the sea and not known for Paella. It's like ordering oysters in Iowa.
fullspectrumdev 3y ago
As a general rule: if you aren’t by the sea, seafood may not be as fresh as you expect. I avoid any/all fish dishes when not in a coastal region due to repeated bad experiences.
- geon 3y ago
  Shouldn't you be able to expect any restaurant in spain to follow food safety guidelines?
- ac29 3y ago
  Most seafood in the US is frozen at some point, regardless of if you are near the coast or not. And, yes, this includes most "fresh" fish, which generally just means recently thawed. There may be exceptions if it is caught locally and in season, but the vast majority of seafood eaten in the US is not local, no matter how close you are to the coast.
- TeaBrain 3y ago
  These days, in large non-coastal cities, I've heard that it is often other than you would expect. In cities where there are large international airports, fish is flown in daily, to the point where the fish served in nicer restaurants will not be much less fresh than on the coast. The Denver Post article linked below goes into how fish is flown to Denver within hours of being caught, every day. https://www.denverpost.com/2009/01/26/how-does-fish-get-from-there-to-here/ https://www.denverpost.com/2009/01/26/how-does-fish-get-from...

fransje26 3y ago

You ate raw seafood from a street stand? That's a whole new level of "brave". Close to playing Russian roulette with all the bullets in the cylinder..

cthalupa 3y ago
You say this, but it's perfectly normal in heavily populated parts of the world to do this. It's not like he found some street stand that popped up for one night only and no one else ever did it again. I've had plenty of raw seafood from food stalls across the world and never had an issue.