Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Ways I don’t want to die #468: death by cherry overdose. This is a thing that could happen before modern medicine, US President Zachary Taylor went a little too ham at a fundraiser, eating copious amounts of cherries and iced milk. He soon contracted a mild case of stomach grumblies that continued to get worse and worse until he died. It all happened so fast people thought he must have been poisoned but no, they did an autopsy and everything, they dug this man up in the 1980s just to double check and nope, his body just did that. What does this have to do with cherries? Inside the pit of each cherry is a chemical called amygdalin, which when digested reacts with the body to create hydrogen cyanide! Is that what happened to Taylor? I dunno, you’d have to eat a lot, but I am not trying it at home.
Ways I don’t want to die #468: death by cherry overdose. This is a thing that could happen before modern medicine, US President Zachary Taylor went a little too ham at a fundraiser, eating copious amounts of cherries and iced milk. He soon contracted a mild case of stomach grumblies that continued to get worse and worse until he died. It all happened so fast people thought he must have been poisoned but no, they did an autopsy and everything, they dug this man up in the 1980s just to double check and nope, his body just did that. What does this have to do with cherries? Inside the pit of each cherry is a chemical called amygdalin, which when digested reacts with the body to create hydrogen cyanide! Is that what happened to Taylor? I dunno, you’d have to eat a lot, but I am not trying it at home.
