• Question: why can't you eat a table spoon of cinamon?

    Asked by chloeanded to Cathal, Daphne, Darren, Jon, Katherine on 19 Mar 2012. This question was also asked by 10cbul.
    • Photo: Darren Logan

      Darren Logan answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      Ah, your talking about the cinnamon challenge, right?

      There is a couple of reasons this is difficult to do and also not a good idea to try. Cinnamon powder is very hydrophobic (which means it doesn’t “like” water), therefore it is very difficult to mix with your saliva. Saliva lubricates our food and helps us to swallow it. Since it doesn’t mix the powder just coats the inside of your mouth and gets stuck there. Add to that the fact that cinnamaldehyde (the chemical in cinnamon) is actually pretty nasty at high concentrations so it stings the inside of your mouth and makes you feel pretty sick. Finally, and probably most dangerous, since you now have lots of a fine powder stuck in your mouth, when you breathe in you risk inhaling the powder into your lungs. This is really dangerous and makes you cough and splutter. Obviously coughing, feeling sick, having your mouth sting, and being unable to swallow all together makes it very difficult to eat cinnamon.

    • Photo: Katherine Haxton

      Katherine Haxton answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      Until this morning, I’d never even heard that people would want to try and do this! Reading Darren’s answer, I think I’ll stick to cinamon buns!

    • Photo: Daphne Ng

      Daphne Ng answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      I’m sure you can if you can swallow it! But cinnamon is spicy. I once had cinnamon flavoured chewing gum and it was hot!

    • Photo: Jon Benton

      Jon Benton answered on 20 Mar 2012:

      I hadn’t heard of this before I saw this post but I looked it up and it’s pretty funny watching other people doing it. I really like cinnamon but don’t think I’ll be trying this!

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