When we talk about ‘toxicity’ we’re talking about how poisonous a substance is to a biological organism, like humans. Researchers measure acute toxicity by using this thing called the LD50 (which is nerd talk for “the lethal dose to kill 50% of the test subjects”).
OH, don’t worry, they don’t test this stuff on humans because, aside from violating like a billion human rights laws, it’d be pretty fucking inhumane. They use rats because fuck rats.
So anyway, as I was saying LD50.
There’s a saying amongst Toxicologists that “the dose makes the poison.” Simply, everything can kill you in a large enough dose. No, really. Here’re some examples of everyday foods that can be toxic if consumed in enough quantities.
– 70 cups of coffee
– 17 (500ml) bottles of water
– 40 bars of Dairy Milk
So, can sugar be toxic? Sure, if you go absolutely crazy and consume like 50 (100g) bags of Haribos, or 164 bananas, or 31 small McDonald’s chocolate milkshakes in one sitting.
Otherwise, no.