Bringing home the bacon
A BBC News story on the arrest of a Canadian accused of assisting suicide, through the sale of kits across the globe, coyly referred only to them including a poisonous chemical
, without identifying said chemical. Presumably, this is for our safety.
Fortunately for those of us with a preference for honest, unsanitised news reported without fear or favour
, over nanny-knows-best goo-goo-ga-ga, other outlets are more candid, naming the poison in question as
sodium nitrite.
Sodium nitrite is also used for more positive ends than ending life, including as a food preservative and antidote for cyanide poisoning. Anyone looking for a more accessible way to end things than sourcing sodium nitrite from dodgy websites is gonna have to eat a mega shit-tonne of bacon though.
Assuming an average level of 10mg/kg sodium nitrite in bacon, and a clear lethal dose of 15g, an individual would have to eat around 1,500kg. In a single sitting. At that point, the nitrite would be the least of their worries. 🥓