Holiday Cooking – Poppy Seeds

This month I have researched some of the plants that flavor my holiday baking using J.O. Swahn’s The Lore of Spices. Today I’m looking at poppy seeds, which are an important ingredient in poppy seed muffins, bagels, breads, and cakes. I am especially fond of the lemon and poppy seed combination. One important research question – can you fail a drug test after ingesting poppy seeds in baked goods?

Papaver somniferum is in the Papaveraceae (poppy plant) family and native to the Near East and Central Asia. Today it is cultivated in Europe (Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Greece, and Bulgaria), Turkey, North Africa, and India. Poppies were used in ancient times in mystery cult ceremonies, as a pain killer, and as a stomach-calming drug. Today, the milky sap of unripe poppy fruit is extracted for its opiates and pain-killing properties; and ripe poppy seeds are harvested for baking, curries, and poppy seed oil. Opium is used recreationally in some cultures.

Botanical illustration of Papaver somniferum from Koehler's Medicinal Plants.
Published before 1923 and public domain in the United States.

The poppy plant is an erect, glaucous annual that grows to four feet high. Leaves are coarsely toothed or lobed; lower leaves are short-petioled and upper leaves are clasping. Flowers are often doubles, to four inches across, in white, pink, red or purple. Petals may be fringed or with a dark spot at the base. Fruit is a seed pod filled with many tiny seeds (the poppy plant was used to represent fertility in ancient myths). According to MythBusters, the answer to the research question is YES. You can fail a drug test after ingesting poppy seeds in baked goods. Traces of the opiates remain in your system up to 48 hours after consumption, so eat that piece of holiday lemon-poppy-seed bread responsibly!