(Wait, THAT MANY new posts while I was composing this one? Yikes.)
Its not a question of allergy, Its poison.
Caffeine is technically poisonous. To You too. Its just it isn't poisonous in small amounts per body weight. I.E. Dogs can't drink Coffee either. And you can't consume a ton of Cofee our die. And Pure caffeine is pure poison. And, according to this, caffeine is the most widely consumed stimulant drug in existance.
According to wikipedia, dogs (and cats, but cats are much less likely to try eating chocolate, as they cannot taste sweetness) metabolize caffeine and theobromine much more slowly than humans do, which is one reason chocolate is more lethal for them (also coffee, coffee grounds, coffee beans, etc). Baker's chocolate also does have an excessive amount of theobromine, as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theobromine_poisoning says "The amount [of theobromine] found in highly refined chocolate candies (typically 1.4–2.1 g/kg or 40–60 mg/oz) is much lower than that of dark chocolate or unsweetened baker's chocolate (> 14 g/kg or > 400 mg/oz)." The LD50 wikipedia lists for theobromine is 300 mg/kg for dogs and ~1000 mg/kg for humans. Googling comes up with an LD50 for caffeine for dogs of 140 mg/kg. Wikipedia says for humans "The LD50 of caffeine in humans is dependent on individual sensitivity, but is estimated to be about 150 to 200 milligrams per kilogram of body mass or roughly 80 to 100 cups of coffee for an average adult."
Hershey's has a chart showing caffeine and theobromine amounts per serving size (and grams per serving) in their products, which is nice of them (although this is not an endorsement, and I do not buy any of their products myself; it just showed up as the first google result when I searched for 'caffeine chocolate bars'):
http://www.thehersheycompany.com/nutrition-and-wellness/chocolate-101/caffeine.aspxLooking at the unsweetened baking chocolate, which is probably the deadliest thing... They don't say the number of servings / blocks per bar anywhere (even on the pages about the individual products), although a picture of the bar appears to show 8 blocks to it. If there are 8, 17 mg caffeine * 8 servings = 136 mg. 157 mg theobromine * 8 servings = 1256 mg. As I thought, there's far more of a danger for dogs from the theobromine than from the caffeine (as they would hit theobromine toxicity long before hitting caffeine toxicity unless eating something which has a bit less than twice as much theobromine than caffeine (because the LD50 for theobromine for dogs (300) is almost twice the LD50 for caffeine for dogs (140)). The only thing on Hershey's list which fits that criteria or even comes close is "Bliss, White Chocolate Meltaway" - which ONLY has a tiny amount of caffeine, and no theobromine at all). Tea may have more caffeine than theobromine, from a quick google search. Not sure about coffee.
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Topic: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O (Read 14847113 times)