Contents 3 Cyanogenic Glycosides

Effects of cyanide on wildlife and range animals that graze foliage with high cyanogenic glycoside content (Towill et al. 1978)... 

Frakes, R.A., R.P.Sharma, C.C.Willhite, and G.Gomex. 1986. Effect of cyanogenic glycosides and protein content in cassava diets on hamster prenatal development. Fund. Appl. Toxicol. 7 191-198. 

Over 2,650 plant species can produce hydrogen cyanide (Seigler 1991 Swain et al. 1992). These include edible plants such as almonds, pits from stone fruits (e.g., apricots, peaches, plums, cherries), sorghum, cassava, soybeans, spinach, lima beans, sweet potatoes, maize, millet, sugarcane, and bamboo shoots (Fiksel et al. 1981). The cyanogenic glycoside content of a foodstuff is usually expressed as the amount of cyanide released by acid hydrolysis glycoside concentrations are rarely reported (WHO 1992). 

Ten Canadian flaxseed cultivars were analyzed for total cyanide content (Chadha, 1995) and contents of individual cyanogenic glycosides (Oomah et al., 1992). Chadha et al. (1995) determined cyanide content in 10 cultivars of flaxseed using an autohydrolysis method that required up to 5 hours of hydrolysis time. The maximum cyanide values were typically obtained... 

Various methods could be used to reduce the cyanogenic glycosides content in the seed. Wanasundara et al. (1993) investigated the use of solvents extraction as a means to reduce cyanogenic glycosides content of flaxseed meal. They found that extraction of flaxseed with alkanol-ammonia-water/ hexane resulted in enhanced removal of cyanogenic compounds from 41 to... 

Plant Tissue Content of cyanogenic glycosides (mmol/kg) HCN potential (mg/kg)... 

---