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Apple of My Eye

Did you know that the inner core of an apple—more specifically the seeds of said fruit— contains tiny bits of arsenic? For those of you who‘ve forgotten tenth grade chemistry, arsenic used to be the poison of choice for your average criminal, and long ago, by your average Persian king. 

I found this out from my roommate. She told me so, casually one day, as she munched on an apple. First she started like anyone would: bit into it, ate the fleshy part surrounding the seeds. Then she paused at the core. At this point I returned to procrastinating on the web. The next thing I knew, all there was left was the stem of the apple. What! She ate the seeds? Yup. Arsenic or no arsenic, my conscientious roommate refuses to let any part of the apple go to waste. She would probably eat the stem too, but it had been removed by the kindly dining hall staff. As much as I admire her...”waste not want not” attitude, I don’t think I could ever follow the same route. Is it my American-ess coming to the forefront? Americans are known to be  picky about the food we eat; why else would our menus have so many words on them? While the French gnaw on their frog legs with gusto, we Americans cringe at seeing brains on the “Specials” menu. 

 And in case you wanted to know, here is a little word history taken from Wikipedia: The word arsenic is borrowed from the Persian word زرنيخ Zarnikh meaning "yellow orpiment". Zarnikh was borrowed by Greek as arsenikon, which means masculine or potent. Arsenic has been known and used in Persia and elsewhere since ancient times. As the symptoms of arsenic poisoning were somewhat ill-defined, it was frequently used for murder until the advent of the Marsh test, a sensitive chemical test for its presence. (Another less sensitive but more general test is the Reinsch test.) Due to its use by the ruling class to murder one another and its potency and discreetness, arsenic has been called the Poison of Kings and the King of Poisons 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenic#History
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