Dear Netdocs,
A couple days ago I made a batch of soup, and having most of
a bunch of parsley in the fridge that was a couple weeks old
and starting to wilt, and not wanting it to go to waste, I
snipped the tops off and put them in the soup. There were 4
cups of parsley tops used in 10 cups of soup (I know because
I snipped them into a glass measure before adding). It was
simmered about 40 minutes after the parsley was added. The
result was a smidgen bitter at first tasting, but not too
bad. I ate about a third of the soup then put the rest away
in the fridge. A couple hours later I found myself getting
dizzy, not exactly room-spinning dizzy, but feel-like-I-will-tip-
over dizzy. Even felt dizzy lying down. After about 16 hours
the dizziness was pretty much gone, but followed by ringing
in ears. I wonder whether the parsley could be to blame.
Googling around I found a couple references to overdose of
parsley extracts mentioning dizziness, but zilch about the
whole herb. I am not so sure I want to experiment by eating
more of that soup, but do wish I could find out more.
(Yes it was real parsley, not a lookalike poison herb. I
bought it at a major supermarket, and had used a tablespoon
or so of finely snipped leaves in a couple of other dishes
with no ill effect.)
Dan