What Are The Benefits Of Poppy Seeds?

Modern medicine, baked goods and popular culture owe a great deal to poppy seeds. Morphine prescribed for serious pain comes from the poppy plant and the tiny seeds used to grow poppies provide flavor and crunch to treats such as lemon cake. Additionally, folklore about poppy seeds and plants cultivated scenes in the "Wizard of Oz" and "Seinfeld."

History

Poppy seeds, from which opium is grown, have a long and controversial history. Accounts of opium date back to 3400 BC. The ancient Assyrians, Babylonians and Egyptians cultivated opium and Hippocrates prescribed opium to his patients. During the time of the Roman Empire, soldiers sometimes gave wine with poppy juice to persons sentenced to crucifixion. Poppy seeds produce a fruit that provides the source for heroin, codeine and morphine.

Nutrition and Alternative Medicine

Poppy seeds provide flavor to salad dressings and baked goods. They contain iron, phosphorus and fiber. They also contain thiamine and riboflavin as well as B vitamins. A teaspoon of poppy seeds contains 13 calories. Poppy seeds contain linoleic acid and are used in some forms of alternative medicine. In Aruveda medicine, poppy seeds serve as an all-purpose tonic, a remedy for diarrhea and as an aphrodisiac. In Iran, poppy seeds are used to treat boils and nosebleeds, and healers in Algeria sometimes stuff poppy seeds into tooth cavities to relieve pain.

Kidney Stone Prevention

Poppy seeds may reduce calcium absorption. Crystallized calcium deposits create some types of kidney stones. Your doctor may suggest you limit your calcium intake or tell you to eat poppy seeds and other foods high in oxalates when you consume calcium in food, beverages or supplements. Other foods that contain oxalates include dried figs, chocolate, rhubarb and Swiss chard. If you've had kidney stones, your doctor may suggest a number of preventive measures, including following a diet low in salt and protein.

Considerations

Although you won't get high from eating a poppy seed muffin, you could experience hallucinations if you consumed poppy seeds, an opiate, in large quantities. Poppy seed tea recipes flooded the Internet in 2008 and led to at least one death, according to a report by Dan Childs for ABC News (Jan. 16, 2008 ). According to a May 14, 1994 article in "Courier-Mail," in England, wholesale suppliers of poppy seeds faced possible jail time for selling poppy seeds. Police found that more than half the seeds for sale, primarily to bakers for use in breads, muffins and cakes, proved viable -- potent enough for cultivation as heroin. In the 1980s, poppy seeds were treated with gas to make them sterile, but wholesalers discontinued the practice when the gas proved a potential cancer risk.