Theobromine/chocolate poisoning in a human-bird hybrid character

[bluerosekatie]

Hello!

EDIT: Thank you to everyone who added details, this is the result! (Locked to AO3 users to avoid AI scraping)

I have been looking into chocolate toxicity as it occurs in birds, since I want to write a scene where a human character with significant amounts of bird DNA tries chocolate and regrets it. I'm not planning on killing her, but I do want to figure out an accurate amount of chocolate to give her for it to make sense. Looking at the treatment methods, I would probably want a milder case of theobromine poisoning but enough to be a close call, if that makes sense. How much chocolate do you think she'd need to have, and what would be the proper course of treatment?

Comments

[stepnix]

very rough quick search, "just a bite" is already seriously dangerous for birds. and with beaks that's not a very big bite at all.

However! Since she's not really a bird, just has sci-fi DNA science going on, you can "round down" the severity of that. So, one piece of dark chocolate->one close call with theobromine poisoning sounds plausible to me

[bluerosekatie]

Thank you! Yeah, I was looking into it and got a few things that seemed to say it went by body weight and others that said just a bite would be enough -- so that makes sense to me.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Hi, I asked my sister and she said 20 mg/kg of weight would make them sick, but she hasn't gotten back to me how much would kill them (or almost kill them). I don't she's actually had a case of it but she's been a vet for about 25 years. She gave me the example of one M&M which is 0.7 g and there are ~2 mg/g of methylxanthines (theobromine being one) in milk chocolate so 1.4 mg of it in one M&M. She used the example of a macaw being .5 kg so it would have to eat at least 10 M&Ms to even make it sick and it would probably start vomiting way before that.

FYI, she said avocados are more of a problem than chocolate. Hope this is helpful!

[bluerosekatie]

Thank you! I do know about avocados being a thing, but I feel like it's more plausible for a semi-sheltered character to be peer pressured into trying chocolate (sweet, normally a pleasant experience, "you'd be missing out" etc.) than avocados. So it would take some doing to ingest enough to be seriously ill without getting the alarm first, right?

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Well, one text says that even small quantities will harm it, but I suppose it depends on the size of the bird. Maybe that's what the 'one bite' above is talking about.

I asked her if 40 mg/kg would kill a macaw and she said 'probably, a block of Baker's chocolate would do it.' So maybe 20 M&Ms for macaw (that doesn't seem like a lot to me) They would have central nervous system and cardiovascular stimulation, so tachycardia and hyperactivity and vomiting and diarrhea. It would all be out of the bird's system within 30 hours, but they would give it active charcoal as treatment to get it out if they knew that's it was. I think they would definitely feel the effects of it quickly so if they ate, say, a quarter to a half of a chocolate bar quickly, maybe dark chocolate? then it could hit harder and faster--boom.

[bluerosekatie]

Thank you!! I figure the treatment would be figured out somewhat fast so a small bar of dark chocolate makes sense!

[pallas_rose]

As a human doctor I have nothing to contribute but wanted to note that I am very glad chocolate is not poisonous to us... I ate a leftover Lindt gold bunny yesterday and it was divine

[full_metal_ox]

Good for you! You could do with some creature comforts.

[bluerosekatie]

Ah yes, mood -- I had someone point out if she remembers not being part-bird and having chocolate then this would be a big disappointment to her lol!

[conuly]

Theobromine sorta is, actually. You'd just have to eat an awful lot of Lindt bunnies in a very short period of time. Or... actually, I doubt you could eat enough milk chocolate bunnies to do it, you'd have to ingest your theobromine in the form of raw cocoa. I don't know why you'd do that, but you could if you wanted to. (At least in theory. As the article points out, one of the early effects of theobromine poisoning is vomiting, not that you probably wouldn't already feel queasy from all that chocolate.)

[bluerosekatie]

Yes, lol, I did look it up in general earlier and was a little surprised to find that out. I sometimes feel some of the effects so perhaps I should be careful with chocolate myself!

[full_metal_ox]

Conversely! She might flabbergast everyone with her capsaicin tolerance, scarfing down Double-Dog Dare chili pepper cultivars as if they were cherry tomatoes. (Wild chiles evolved to spread their seeds by being eaten and excreted by small songbirds; capsaicin is a mammal repellent.)

[bluerosekatie]

Ah yes!! I actually could use that as part of the beginning of the story, baffling Everyone with various reactions to food!

[conuly]

If there is a God of Evolution, or a God of Chili Peppers, the fact that humans love spice must be totally baffling to them.

[full_metal_ox]

A tale of Evolution, Deity, chili peppers, and humans all working in mysterious ways:

https://gallusrostromegalus.tumblr.com/post/706055251905691648