One of the reasons lead paint chips were frequently eaten by children was because they tasted sweet.
this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2025
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Oh what, so that's not an exaggerated story? I always thought that's hyperbole
i could use some brain damage to get me though the day
oooh ooooh leeeead sugar ♩
I believe you can get me through the daaaayyy ♫
And thanks to Patriotic Jesusy Murkan Small Government, soon you won't know if it's in your kid's Halloween candy.
What is the mechanism ? Why does it taste sweet ?
When lead combines with acid it creates lead acetate which interacts with the sugar receptors in the mouth. I'm not sure why, I think the molecules just happen to have a similar shape.
EDIT: after looking at the molecule for lead acetate, it appears to resemble two simple carbohydrates connected by an atom of lead, so I'd imagine the receptor sees the outside and assumes it's something sweet.
They also used lead in their makeup.
And we used lead in our paint, gasoline and water pipes.
They also thought tomatoes were poisonous because the water in them would pick up the lead their plates were made from
Tomatoes are a New World plant. The ancient Romans didn't think they were poisonous because they had no idea what a tomato was.
Maybe I got it wrong. Some watery vegetable.
It was probably another nightshade plant. Eggplant maybe?
I'm thinking cucumber
It has a mildly sweet taste and also causes brain damage
Well... but so does Jack Daniel's. Interestingly, the Romans were aware of the dangers of lead poisoning, including that it could cause madness - which they called "plumbism" (plumbum being the Latin word for lead). Kind of like we know about the dangers of alcohol, flavored sugar water, and many other things we consume wantonly. Like us, they apparently just didn't GAF.
Lead and alcohol are on completely different levels.
There is no way Romans understood fully the damage lead does and how it accumulates in the body.
Also alcohol is presumably consumed by adults only, while this sweet shit was probably given to children too which makes it even worse.
What makes you think it was for children?
The mild sweet taste part
Sugar does that too you know. Better and cheaper.
For pretty much the entirety of ancient history "sugar" and "cheaper" do not belong together in a sentence.
Hahaha, what a bunch of morons, sugar isn't even good for you!
[sips sugar-free microplastic energy-slurry]
Buncha dummies.
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Not having zero, they couldn’t have computers and thus social media, so they had to improvise
Thanks for a good chuckle!
Yeah, well we pumped it straight into the air for everyone to breathe in. We painted schools and nurseries with it as well.
Ah, the good old days. Before those evil woke leftists ruined everything!
We still pump it into the air via small aircraft!
Well, thankfully we made NASCAR stop using leaded fuel way back in [checks notes] fucking 2007?! Holeee shiiit.
Yeah, the good old days are still here. They're just not evenly distributed.
Lead in wine as a sweetener is believed to be why Beethoven was deaf
They had a lot of names for it.
"salt of Saturn"
And a lot if uses.
How much would cause brain damage, and how much brain damage did the average Roman have?
One thing that's overlooked about the Romans and lead exposure is that they did have organic forms of oral chelation available, which helped mitigate the effects. The most commonly quoted version of which is eating garlic, but many foods and nutrients can either decrease the amount of lead you absorb from the other foods that you eat, or increase the amount of lead that you excrete, which decreases their effects on your body and brain.
Of course, these foods by themselves are not going to completely remove all of the lead in your blood, but it would have reduced the amount, so it's not like they were completely raw-dogging lead in their wine.
https://lead.org.au/fs/Foods_for_Lead_Detox_A-Z_20150214.pdf
Man, as if I needed any more reasons to eat even more garlic.
How much brain damage would a brain damaged Roman have if a brain damaged Roman could have brain damage?
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