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  • 19 years ago

    Interesting. I wonder if this could be made with any wine jelly recipe. If Annie can put bubbles in her root beer jelly, I think champagne would be ok.

    Gold should be ok because it's inert, so it doesn't react as it passes through your body. 24 karat gold is nominally 100% gold, so there are no other heavy metals, such as nickel which is poisonous in large doses and an allergen in small doses (like how cheap rings react with your skin). Still, I'm not sure I want to eat a heavy metal, except maybe in a really fancy dessert. I've heard it claimed that the gold flakes in Goldschlager liquor is there to scratch up your throat so the alcohol gets in faster, but gold is really soft, so who knows.

    As for eating it off someone, well, I guess that depends if you feel like cleaning up later. Not me. :-)

    Thanks for the cool link Jennie Sue. Here's another link, to a site that claims gold is good for you, which contradicts the idea that it does not react with your body (i.e., get digested).

    Melissa

    Here is a link that might be useful: eating gold

  • 19 years ago

    Silver is also used as a 'dragee' , those little silver balls you see on wedding cakes and other decorations. Yes, it is a silver coating they apply which is edible. I would expect that if gold were used, the cost would get quite expensive. I have a gold crown as a front tooth and it has worn down the lower teeth that rub against the back of it. The dentist aid that the gold showed little abrasion while the regular tooth enamel has neary worn down to the tooth core.

  • 19 years ago

    Ken, that is surprising that the gold crown wore down your teeth. I thought the main benefit of gold in dental work was that it doesn't wear down the enamal, which is very hard. Ceramic wears down tooth enamel a lot. Most gold crowns are a gold alloy (mixture of metals) rather than pure gold, which would not be suitable for biting because it's soft. Notice how 24K gold rings scratch easily.

    I think those silver balls are regarded as safe by the FDA, but usually the container says "for decoration only" or "do not eat." Eating too much silver causes argyria, which turns your skin gray. I believe silver is "bioaccumulative," meaning it builds up in your body similar to mercury or lead, which is why fish can be a concentrated source of toxic metals. Not that a few dragees are going to kill you, but if you are picky about toxins, you might choose to avoid them. More dangerous are the large silver foil sheets used in some Indian dishes, because they may be alloys with toxic metals such as cadmium, lead, mercury, aluminum, and chromium. The last is a necessary nutrient in small amounts, and in fact most elements are necessary in at least trace amounts--even arsenic, in tiny doses, may be helpful to the body in synthesizing certain organic compounds (research is not conclusive on that).

    Sorry to go on & on. My point is, be aware of what you choose to consume, and be cautious with metals. Me, I'm not sure whether I'll put dragees on my Christmas cookies this year as I have a few times before--they look striking, but I would prefer not to ingest silver, and they are quite rough on the teeth anyway.

    Melissa

  • 19 years ago

    For the Christmas cookies, colored sugars are nice, or those multi colored 'sprinkles'. Ever eaten an angel food cake with those multi color beads inside. Once baked, they melt into a prety festive cake once its sliced open. Betty Crocker used to call it a 'Confetti' cake as a mix.

    When I was in grade school, one of the teachers used to call those silver dragees 'Mrs. Piggy Wiggles Truth Pills". Seemed to force us not to lie when we were very young and impressonable. Funny how you remember something like that which was over 55 years ago..