yucca/cassava and cyanide poisoning if improperly cooked... how much is too much?

[Anonymous]

Made some soup, tossed some peeled, chopped up yucca in it. Did not drain the water. It boiled/simmered in it for maybe 30 minutes, and now I'm reading that raw or not fully cooked yucca can cause cyanide poisoning - vomiting, nausea, fatigue, and rarely death.

Are we going to die? How much is too much before you experience symptoms? Can we do anything (after eating) to counter the effects?

[Anonymous]

Call poison control... they will be able to give you advice.

[Anonymous]

I found this:
“ Do not eat it raw. You may have heard that yuca contains cyanide. This is true, but there is no cause for concern when purchasing yuca in the U.S. The yuca sold here is the sweet variety found in the Caribbean and Central America. The toxin levels in sweet yuca are low enough that peeling and cooking the yuca removes those toxins. The bitter variety of yuca, which comes from Africa, is higher in cyanide and requires hours of soaking and cooking before eating. In other words, if you are buying it here in the U.S., you are good with just peeling it and cooking it until tender.”

Was the yucca soft/cooked through when you ate it? I’d assume so, because eating hard yucca isn’t fun.

[Anonymous]

If you cook until tender you are fine. Honestly.

[Anonymous]

The problem that currently worries me is, you are suppose to boil then dump the water, because thee cyanide is not destroyed by the boiling water, it only leaches from the root into the water. And I, much like the op just put it in a broth with other veg, cooked it and then ate the soup.

[Anonymous]

You are posting.

If you truly had any significant amount of cyanide poisoning you'd be dead within minutes.

[Anonymous]

Yeah we avoid those cyanide containing root vegetables, even in prepared snacks. They just aren’t that much better than the dead simple safe variety. Like how different is a yucca than a sweet potato?? This story always comes to mind when I hear cassava or yucca

I’m not even a fan of tapioca since it comes from cassava, though I know by its very nature is much more likely to be safe

https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna7136123

[Anonymous]

Can you imagine how we learned to eat yucca and cassava? It kills quickly, but we have nothing else to eat, so let’s try soaking, and cooking some more and see if Mikey likes it… nightmare