I am injured. Dammit.

Ceylon cinnamon is fine.
If you live in the USA, make sure it says ceylon.
Otherwise small amounts of cassia are ok, but I wouldn't recommend it as a dietary supplement.

It was the rat poison part that got to ya, huh Roger!?

Your avatar picture reminds me of Templeton from Charlotte's Web.

That's Ratbert. He's much more cuddly.

Geez, maybe Delbert stole him. I gotta go read Charlotte's Web and find out.

Matt and Roger:
Of course, add on the cinnamon.
Everything is toxic. I'd be interested in knowing how many tablespoons of cinnamon one would have to consume over a month's or year's time to have any long term or short term deleterious effects. It's possible, but not likely, that shaking an 1/8 to a 1/4 teaspoon on a piece of toast twice a week would have any measurable effect at all.

I love James Burke. My boy, B, can quote from Connections which was, and is, his and my favorite program. There's also a book based on the series, but it's not as much fun as watching them again on YouTube.

Everything is toxic.

Read this out loud, as if you were James Burke.

Think back, moving from a gathering society to an agricultural society 10-15,ooo years ago (which everyone says was such a good thing) just about wiped out the human race because we stopped eating a wide spectrum of meats, grains and veggies and started eating just oats or just wheat or just barley accompanied, not by a dozen different kinds of meat including birds and deer and wild bovine, but by the two easiest creatures to catch and keep ~ chickens and pigs, both of which spread influenza.
Add to that crop failures and microbes in water from human sewage and you have a delicate balance to maintain if you are going to carry on as a society. Populations crashed. Luckily, humans discovered the one thing that brought about safer foods and safer drinks through baking and brewing.
That one thing??? YEAST.
Allowing whole societies to grow based on economies based on bread and beer.
Here today's bread at my place.
<grin>

If you put apples and cinnamon in oatmeal, you get what I call Apple Pie Oatmeal, as in

I'm sure the boys were disappointed to find out that Oatmeal doesn't actually come in Apple Pie flavor ~ except for the really processed stuff which they never were fed.

My oldest boy came home from school one day.
"What did you learn in school today?" I asked.
"I found out that raisins and dates are not candy."
(Picture a very displeased expression)
They had always been given raisins and dates and pitted prunes as "candy snacks." Apparently the kids at school were trading Halloween candy and nobody wanted to trade dates and raisins for a Hershey bar.

Joe(life is hard)Nation

Admittedly toxicity is a relative concept.
A more precise way of looking at effects is looking at therapeutic range. The dynamic relationship between intended effect(s) and unintended effects(s).
The claim could be made that anything is toxic, and that would be correct, but therapeutic ranges vary wildly. Water is toxic when administered at a high enough dose and over a short enough interval. THC (as in from marijuana) has a similarly broad therapeutic range, the toxicity has thus far been ineffectively measured, because it is so low. Coumadin(aka warfarin) for instance has a narrow therapeutic range, so frequent blood tests must be administered when it is used. [Walking that tightrope between bleeding out, and clotting up.]
I agree that using something such as (cassia)cinnamon in moderation is not unwise. My caution is against the "magic bullet" thinking that if some is good, a lot is better. But if you love to eat a lot of cinnamon just look for ceylon (it also tastes better).
There is also some interesting new models of understanding regarding inflammation and carcinogenesis (cancer). It has long puzzled researchers why feeding patients distilled antioxidants does not convey the same benefits as eating fruits and vegetables. They have tried adding different antioxidants together (hoping for additive effects). Still no luck.
One theory regarding this (that I sympathize with) is that the benefits of fruits and vegetables is due to an interplay of toxic and anti-toxic substances within plants. Eating plants "strikes the right cords" on our immune system. They challenge the immune system while also augmenting it, but they do it in just the right tone of voice.

Hey Joe, how're ya feelin'?

I sympathize with both you and your kids, regarding sugary snacks.

My poor mother... when I was very young (3-4 ish), I would see her drinking pop.
"What is that?" I would ask.
"It is pop."
"Can I have some?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"It tastes gross to kids. Sometimes grown-ups drink it, but it isn't that good for them either."
"Ok."
A year later my mom picks me up from the babysitter's house. I run up to her happy as can be.....
"Guess what Mom!? Pop tastes GOOD!!!

Her solution after that was to allow me to have it only very rarely and after secretly watering it down (to decrease the dose).

I am feeling better, I made it to the store and back yesterday, but it was a struggle.
My son is flying to New York this weekend, we are having lunch in Queens. My goal is to get from Court Square to the Z Hotel without bursting into flames.

Joe(or tears)Nation

heh.
My dad told me that same thing about Manhattans. He and Mom had one nearly every night before dinner.
Funny, if you volunteer to clear the table, you might be able to sneak a slurp out that glass partway filled with melted ice and reddish liquid.

I knew right then he was a lying egg-sucking dog.

Joe(I loved him every day of his life.)Nation

Speaking of toxic, nutmeg can cause one to hallucinate or even die, if overused.

If you do like cinnamon (like I do) it's totally worth your time to invest in the Ceylon variety - I can't stand Cassia-derived 'cinnamon.' Never use it.

Ceylon cinnamon is so much smoother, I can't even describe the difference in flavor... I use it to flavor pretty much every chicken and beef dish I cook.

Cycloptichorn

Hi MattDavis,

You might find this guy's experience to be interesting:

http://robrhinehart.com/?p=298

"How I Stopped Eating Food"

Cycloptichorn

Another interesting about cinnamon: if your home is plagued by ants, sprinkle some across their trails and anywhere else you don't want them. They will go somewhere else. Now, ants are among the most valuable of insects, and the virtue of cinnamon is that it doesn't kill them. No body count at all. They simply go away.

I haven't tested this with Ceylon cinnamon. If one type doesn't discourage them, try the other. It's harmless and maybe the house will smell better.

They end up going somewhere else because cinnamon DOES kill them. It's not toxic to them, but it is a desiccant, and will cause them to die of dehydration very, very quickly. They can sense this and won't walk across a line of it.

A line of chalk will do the same thing...

Cycloptichorn

I sprinkled some cinnamon around and haven't seen my ant in years. I wish I could've made my uncle disappear, though. My ant felt that way, too.

As for the chalk and them avoiding it, that makes sense, too. Especially when it forms a chalk outline. They don't much like crime scenes. It ant-agonizes the little critters.

Thanks Cyloptchorn.
It was interesting.
I obviously don't know exactly what what in "Soylent" white, but it is probably pretty similar to commercial tube feedings (enteral/oral/GI) I have used in a hospital setting. The "finding the right combination" problem is actually (from a non-anecdotal perspective) as yet unsolved. The purest form of the problem is in TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition/intravenous) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_parenteral_nutrition
If the author of the study has stumbled upon a solution (s)he needs to quit blogging and start consulting with me. I'll make her/him a multi-millionare.

Actually out of curiosity I looked at some of his ingredients, they are not so "out of a lab" as was my impression from the article.
(S)he lists gingko biloba and ginseng . These are not simple chemicals or nutrients in a reductionist sort of way. These are actually very complex compound admixtures.

Thanks for the link. It obviously was interesting due to the curiosity it sparked in me.

Ingredient list in a follow-up post:

http://robrhinehart.com/?p=424

Cycloptichorn

Thanks that was where, I found the ginko and ginseng.
I made some edits to the original post, that reflected this.

As long as they can walk away unharmed, I guess I'll continue to use it as needed.

I don't get this joke because I was brought up believing that aunt rhymed with 'want" not 'pant'. Some people in Oklahoma tried to convert me but I refused to recant (which is not pronouced re-caunt.)

Joe(I continue to speak funny, so do you, Rags.)Nation