Answer: Yes. Now that I have almond poppy seed muffins back in stock, this seems like a good time to answer this question. You may have heard that eating poppy seed pastries, bagels, or muffins just before a urine drug test can cause the test to come back positive for opiates like heroin. Those stories are true. Periodic drug tests have become increasingly common in our society, and a positive drug test for opiates such as heroin or morphine can have devastating consequences on a person’s reputation and career. If you know that you are going to be taking a drug test, my advice is to not eat anything with poppy seeds in it before the test. Urine drug tests can come back positive for as long as 2 or 3 days after eating poppy seeds, depending on the quantity of the poppy seeds consumed.

The Poppy Seed Bagel Defense. 2 Navy doctors working at the Pentagon tested positive for heroin and were ordered out of the Navy. They appealed the decision. The 2 men had eaten poppy seed bagels for breakfast on the morning of the drug test. They were retested several more times, and the charges against them were dismissed. In a number of studies, a subject was given a drug test that came back negative. Then the subject ate a poppy seed bagel or muffin and was tested again, and the results came back positive for opiates. The subject was then retested every hour, and the test results came back positive for the next 16 to 24 hours. Many organizations and government agencies have banned products containing poppy seeds to avoid false-positive drug tests. Poppy seeds are banned in all Federal prisons in the United States, and prisoners who are granted leaves of absences are required to sign a form promising not to eat anything containing poppy seeds while they are on leave. Guards at federal prisons are also banned from eating poppy seeds.

Can You Get Addicted to Poppy Seeds? Consumed in large quantities, poppy seeds can be addictive. The outer surface of poppy seeds contains morphine. However, you would have to consume huge quantities of poppy seeds for the morphine to have any effect on you. My almond poppy seed muffins contain 1/4 teaspoon of poppy seeds per muffin. A lot of food products contain small quantities of addictive drugs. Did you know that there is nicotine in eggplant? Eggplant has the most nicotine of any edible plant. However, in order for you to ingest the amount of nicotine in 1 cigarette, you would have to eat 10 kilos (22 pounds) of eggplant. When was the last time you ate 22 pounds of eggplant? And that’s just for 1 cigarette. A Hershey bar contains 9 mg of caffeine. By comparison, a small cup of coffee at McDonald’s contains 110 mg. Theoretically, you could get a caffeine rush just by eating a lot of Hershey bars, but you would have to eat an awful lot of them. Some parents won’t let their kids eat chocolate because they say that the caffeine in chocolate makes their kids ‘go nuts’, but there’s no scientific evidence to back that up.

Cyanide. If you want something else to worry about, how about this? The almond flour in my almond poppy seed muffins also contains cyanide. All almonds contain cyanide, but not enough to poison you. I only use California-grown almonds, and all commercially grown almonds in California are the sweet variety. Over 99% of all the almonds grown in the United States come from California. Bitter almonds are another matter. They contain a lot more cyanide than sweet almonds which is why they are bitter. Growing bitter almonds for sale is illegal in California. It is legal to sell bitter almonds in the U.S., but they are all imported. There are a number of places here in Berkeley where you can buy bitter almond ice cream and pastries, but I won’t eat them. There’s a reason why it’s illegal to grow bitter almonds in California.