Poppy seeds come from the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, yet the ripe seeds hold little or no opiate alkaloids inside. The morphine and codeine on a poppy seed come from the plant’s milky latex. According to the US FDA, alkaloid-bearing dust from harvest and processing can lodge in the seed’s pitted, honeycomb-like coat. The EU also names insect damage as a route.
How much ends up on the seeds varies enormously. In 21 poppy seed products that the FDA bought online in 2019, morphine ranged from 1 to 520 ppm. A teaspoon (2.8 g) of poppy seeds has 15 calories, 0.5 g of protein and 40 mg of calcium, which is 3% of the daily value, plus 8% of the daily value of manganese. In the EU, poppy seeds sold to consumers have been capped since July 2022 at 20 mg/kg of morphine plus a fifth of the codeine.
Nearly all the research on poppy seeds asks one of three questions: does eating them change a drug test, what do washing and baking do to the morphine, and how dangerous is poppy seed tea. Almost no human trial tests whether they improve health.
Health benefits of poppy seeds
The top findings from 25 studies, strongest evidence first
What the stars mean
- Strong. Several randomized trials, pooled in a meta-analysis, point the same way, or regulators (FDA or EFSA) have approved the claim.
- Moderate. Good randomized trials support it, but there are fewer of them, or their results vary.
- Limited. Small, short or single trials, or mixed results. Promising, but it needs confirmation.
Population and lab studies get no stars: they show a link or a mechanism, not proof.
How we rate evidence →- ★Can cause a positive opiate drug testIn 10 adults, 100 g of poppy seed paste kept urine opiate-positive for up to 48 hours at the common 300 ng/mL cutoff. A review found cooking and baking cut the morphine by up to 90%, yet a positive test stays possible.
- ★Can look like codeine use in drug testsIn 11 people eating 10 poppy seed products, 6 of 33 urine samples (18%) were codeine-positive and morphine-negative. That pattern can look like codeine medicine.
- Population studyPoppy seed tea linked to overdoses and deathsUS poison center and FDA reports link at least 19 deaths to poppy seeds, and the overdoses mostly involved poppy seed tea. Voluntary reports cannot show how common deaths are.
- Population studyLinked to poisoning from tea of non-food-grade seedsIn Australia, tea made from non-food-grade poppy seeds poisoned 40 people in 3 months, with muscle spasms, convulsions and one death. Seeds high in thebaine had entered the food supply.
- Population studyLinked to allergy, sometimes severe, in childrenAmong 191 children sensitized to poppy seed, 38 (19.9%) were truly allergic, and 10 of them had anaphylaxis, a severe allergic reaction.
All 25 studies, strongest evidence first
A review of 95 references found that cooking and baking cut the morphine in poppy seed foods by up to 90%, yet a positive drug test after eating them stays possible
Review of the toxicology of poppy seed foods and opiate drug tests. Normal poppy seed consumption is generally regarded as safe, but no unambiguous marker separates poppy seed foods from heroin or morphine medicine, and no amount of food is known that would never cause a positive test. Most earlier trials did not measure losses in cooking, so they overestimated the dose.
Eating 100 g of poppy seed paste at breakfast kept urine opiate-positive for up to 48 hours at the common 300 ng/mL cutoff
Ten healthy adults in Turkey ate 100 g of paste made from white, yellow or blue-black seeds, which held 1.9 to 4.0 mg of morphine per kg. At a higher cutoff of 2,000 ng/mL, which Turkey adopted in 2016, urine stayed positive for up to 12 hours. Thebaine, a marker of poppy seeds, showed up in all urine samples, and the heroin marker 6-acetylmorphine did not.
Poppy seed curry eaten twice a day for 3 days turned urine opiate-positive in 5 of 6 people at the higher dose
Randomized trial in Malaysia with 6 people per group and a placebo curry as control. At 1 g of seeds per 100 mL of curry (138 µg of morphine), nobody tested positive after one meal or after repeated meals. At 5 g per 100 mL, 1 of 6 tested positive after a single meal. Against the 300 ng/mL cutoff, the authors link the one positive result after a single meal to low water intake.
Two of five poppy seed foods eaten daily for 10 days gave opiate-positive urine at the 300 ng/mL cutoff every time it was tested
Ten adults each ate one of five foods at breakfast for 10 days. In the 60 urine samples from the two positive foods, codeine was always higher than morphine, and 27 (45%) also held morphine. None of the samples reached 15,000 ng/mL, and no hair sample reached the common reporting level of 200 pg/mg.
Some poppy seed foods gave codeine-only urine results in 6 of 33 samples (18%), a pattern that can look like codeine medicine
Eleven people each ate one of 10 poppy seed food products, including three that had been linked to real forensic test results. Six samples, from three products, were codeine-positive and morphine-negative at 300 ng/mL cutoffs. The authors conclude that poppy seed foods cannot reliably be told apart from codeine use by earlier published concentrations and ratios.
One helping of poppy seed pastry left some people opiate-positive for up to 108 hours when the urine cutoff was very low
Fifteen adults ate as much as they liked of a commercial poppy seed pastry (kolachi) and gave urine for 5 days. At the common 300 ng/mL cutoff, 7 were still positive at 48 hours and 4 at 72 hours. At a high cutoff of 4,000 ng/mL, 8 were positive at 8 hours. The authors say thebaine could help tell pastry from drug use.
Two poppy seed rolls turned one volunteer’s urine opiate-positive for up to 6 hours, and cake slices did so for up to 24 hours
Small UK study. Four people ate rolls topped with 0.76 g of seed on average, and only the one who ate two rolls tested positive. Four people ate cake slices holding 4.69 g of seed, and positive screens lasted up to 24 hours. Seeds tested in this study held up to 33.2 µg of morphine per g, and the authors say the “poppy seed defence” is plausible.
Nine volunteers who ate poppy seed cake reached urine morphine peaks of about 10 µg/mL, ten times the doping limit for athletes
German study that tested eight commercial poppy seed products and baked one batch into a cake. Several urine samples passed 1 µg/mL, the International Olympic Committee cutoff for morphine, so a high-performance athlete could test positive in doping control.
Five volunteers who ate poppy seed products tested opiate-positive in urine, yet no free morphine showed up in their blood
German study with seeds holding 50 mg of morphine per kg. After lab treatment to release bound morphine, morphine was found in every blood sample, but free morphine, the form measured against a 10 ng/mL driving threshold in Germany, was not detected. The authors think penalties for drivers who ate poppy seeds are unlikely.
Raw poppy seeds holding about 3.2 mg of morphine gave urine morphine of 294 to 4,213 ng/mL, against 155 to 1,408 ng/mL when the same seeds were eaten in a roll
Twelve people ate a poppy seed roll and, in a second part, an equivalent amount of raw seeds from the same source, which also held 0.6 mg of codeine. Urine was tested at 2, 4, 6 and 20 hours. Oral fluid also tested positive for up to 3 hours after the raw seeds.
Two 45 g doses of raw poppy seeds kept oral fluid screening positive for 0.5 to 13 hours in 17 adults
Each dose held 15.7 mg of morphine and 3.1 mg of codeine and the doses were 8 hours apart, far more than a meal of seeds holds. Morphine in oral fluid peaked at 177 µg/L. With a 40 µg/L cutoff, the last positive result came 1 hour after the dose.
250 g of poppy seeds eaten in the evening revealed a bladder-bowel fistula in 11 of 17 patients when black seeds turned up in their urine
German urology team. Seventeen patients with a suspected vesico-enteric fistula, an opening between bladder and bowel, ate the seeds and were watched for seeds in urine over 2 days. Surgery confirmed the fistula in all 11 who passed seeds, and in 2 of them this was the only test that found it. It is a diagnostic trick, not a health effect of poppy seeds.
US reports link at least 19 deaths to poppy seeds, and the poison center overdoses mostly involved poppy seed tea
Cross-sectional analysis of 591 poison center cases involving poppy products between 2000 and 2018, plus overdoses and deaths in FDA reports. Intentional exposures rose over the period, mostly in males in their teens and twenties. Voluntary reports cannot show how common deaths are among everyone who eats poppy seeds.
Tea made from non-food-grade poppy seeds poisoned 40 people in Australia in 3 months, with muscle spasms, convulsions and one death
Observational study of cases from November 2022 to January 2023. Blood tests in 23 men confirmed high thebaine, an alkaloid that acts more like strychnine than morphine. All 23 had muscle spasms, 6 had convulsions and 2 had cardiac arrests. Seeds high in thebaine had entered the food supply.
A woman died of a bowel blockage after eating raw poppy seeds, but her blood morphine was below 10 ng/mL
Single autopsy case from the US. A 54-year-old woman with vomiting was found unresponsive, and a cast-like mass of poppy seeds blocked her large bowel. The authors conclude that large amounts of raw seeds did not cause fatal opiate poisoning here, and that poppy seed tea has been linked to overdose deaths.
A baby had neonatal withdrawal after the mother drank poppy seed tea daily, and the recipe gave about 7.8 mg of morphine per serving
Case report from Texas. The mother drank the tea 5 to 6 days a week for about 7 months of pregnancy to ease nausea. Researchers remade the tea from her own recipe and measured it. A single case cannot show how common this is.
Hungarian adults who eat a lot of poppy seed food could take in 18 to 25 µg of morphine per kg of body weight in a day
Exposure model built on poppy seed tests from 2001 to 2010 and two national food surveys, allowing for the morphine lost in cooking. For children the same estimate was 32.9 to 66.4 µg/kg. No safe no-effect level had been set when the study was done, so the authors could not judge whether this is a risk.
Among 191 children sensitized to poppy seed, 38 (19.9%) were truly allergic, and 10 of them had anaphylaxis
Retrospective review at a children’s allergy center in Turkey from 2020 to 2024. Many of the allergic children also reacted to sesame and tree nuts. A skin prick test with the seed and a blood test for the seed protein alpha-hairpinin separated allergic from tolerant children best. Allergy to poppy seed is uncommon but can be severe.
In 36 people sensitized to poppy seed, a blood test for alpha-hairpinin caught every true allergy but also flagged some who tolerated the seeds
Retrospective study in which 10 people reacted to a food challenge and 26 did not. The test had 100% sensitivity and 77% specificity at a cutoff of 2.60 kUA/L. In lab tests, poppy seed proteins cross-reacted with proteins from hazelnut, buckwheat and almond.
Washing poppy seeds in water cut opium alkaloids by about 50 to 80%, but baking them in a model baked product did not
Lab study by food scientists, including US FDA staff, on seeds with 14.7 and 210.0 mg of morphine per kg. Dry heat halved morphine only after 30 to 40 minutes at 200 °C, and steam helped in one type of sample. Washing or long heating, not baking, may be needed to cut these compounds.
Baking poppy seed cake left only 16 to 50% of the morphine, and poppy buns baked at 220 °C only 3%
Lab study at a German food testing laboratory. Ground seed lost more morphine than whole seed. The result differs from the study above, which found no effect of baking, so how much baking removes seems to depend on the recipe.
Harvested and heated poppy seeds, at normal food amounts, stayed under EFSA’s single-day safe level of 10 µg of morphine per kg of body weight
Lab analysis by UK researchers of harvested seeds, with and without heating and a food matrix. All alkaloid levels fell after heating. Other studies above found much higher levels in other batches of seed, so this does not show every seed is low.
Home-brewed poppy seed tea showed that lethal amounts of morphine can be rinsed off the seed coats
Lab study of seeds bought online and four home-brewing methods copied from drug user forums, prompted by two autopsy cases of men aged 21 and 24 with high blood morphine. Morphine in the seeds ranged from under 1 to 2,788 mg/kg.
Poppy seed oil in the diet lowered body fat and liver cholesterol in obese rats but also promoted oxidative stress in their livers
Animal study in lean and genetically obese rats, comparing poppy seed oil with hemp seed oil. Poppy seed oil had no effect on body fat or blood lipids in lean rats, and hemp oil lowered liver cholesterol more. The authors call the effects in obese rats only partly beneficial. This tested the oil, not the seeds, and it cannot show effects in people.
Washed poppy seeds reduced weight gain and lowered triglycerides and LDL in rats fed a high-fat diet
Rat study with a 4 week seed phase and a 6 week obesity phase, using washed and unwashed seeds. Higher doses of unwashed seeds raised liver enzymes (ALT and AST) and caused mild kidney inflammation. Rats are not people, and the abstract does not give the doses.
Who should be careful with poppy seeds
Most people can eat poppy seeds freely in food. Take a little care if one of these applies:
- Poppy seed tea. The FDA says consumers should not make it, and it has received 11 reports of deaths linked to homemade tea. The “tea” is a cold-water rinse of the morphine-bearing residue on the seed hull, and a lab test of home-brewing methods found that lethal amounts of morphine can be rinsed off the seeds.
- Drug testing. Poppy seed foods can make urine tests for opiates positive, in some trials for 48 hours or more at the common 300 ng/mL cutoff. If a test matters, skip them for several days and tell the lab or doctor what you ate, because markers such as thebaine can sometimes help tell seeds from heroin.
- Pregnancy and other higher-risk groups. The German risk institute BfR advises against eating large amounts of foods made with a lot of poppy seed, especially in pregnancy. The FDA lists children, older adults and people taking sedatives or alcohol as more sensitive to opiate alkaloids. A sprinkle on a bagel is a small amount.
How to choose, store and eat poppy seeds
- Washed: washing in water cut opium alkaloids by about 50 to 80% in an FDA-linked lab study. Rinse seeds before use, and never drink the rinse water.
- Baked in a cake or bun: morphine fell to 16 to 50% in cake and 3% in buns baked at 220 °C in one study, while another found baking in a model product made no significant difference, so do not count on it.
- Raw, in small amounts: a sprinkle on bread or a salad holds little. The studies that fed people 45 g or 100 g at a time used far more than a normal topping.
Buy food-grade seeds from a regular grocery or spice seller, because seeds bred for drug production can carry far more alkaloid and online batches vary widely. Poppy seeds are about 42% fat by weight, mostly polyunsaturated, so buy small amounts and keep them airtight in a cool, dark place. We found no official pesticide residue data for poppy seeds, so we leave that out.
Sources
- Opiate alkaloids on poppy seeds. US Food and Drug Administration. Content current as of April 2026.
- Levels of pharmacologically active opium alkaloids in poppy seeds should be lowered to the minimum technologically achievable level. BfR Communication No 018/2018. German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment. 2018.
- Update of the scientific opinion on opium alkaloids in poppy seeds. EFSA Journal 2018;16(5):5243. European Food Safety Authority. 2018.
- Commission Regulation (EU) 2021/2142 of 3 December 2021 amending Regulation (EC) No 1881/2006 as regards maximum levels of opium alkaloids in certain foodstuffs. Official Journal of the European Union. 2021.
- Shetge SA, Dzakovich MP, Cooperstone JL, Kleinmeier D, Redan BW. Concentrations of the opium alkaloids morphine, codeine, and thebaine in poppy seeds are reduced after thermal and washing treatments but are not affected when incorporated in a model baked product. J Agric Food Chem. 2020.
- Sproll C, Perz RC, Lachenmeier DW. Optimized LC/MS/MS analysis of morphine and codeine in poppy seed and evaluation of their fate during food processing as a basis for risk analysis. J Agric Food Chem. 2006.
- Powers D, Erickson S, Swortwood MJ. Quantification of morphine, codeine, and thebaine in home-brewed poppy seed tea by LC-MS/MS. J Forensic Sci. 2018.
- Özbunar E, Aydoğdu M, Döğer R, et al. Morphine concentrations in human urine following poppy seed paste consumption. Forensic Sci Int. 2019.
- Maas A, Krämer M, Sydow K, et al. Urinary excretion study following consumption of various poppy seed products and investigation of the new potential street heroin marker ATM4G. Drug Test Anal. 2017.
- Reisfield GM, Teitelbaum SA, Mathias KT, Jones JT, Lewis B. Extended urinary opiate detection following ad libitum ingestion of poppy seed pastry. J Anal Toxicol. 2026.
- Bozan B, Temelli F. Chemical composition and oxidative stability of flax, safflower and poppy seed and seed oils. Bioresour Technol. 2008.
- Poppy seeds nutrition facts. NutriScrolls, from USDA FoodData Central (FDC 171330).
History of poppy seeds
People have grown the opium poppy for more than 7,000 years. Seeds of the plant turn up at Neolithic sites around the Mediterranean, and radiocarbon dates from eleven sites in the western Mediterranean and Europe put its presence at least as far back as the middle of the sixth millennium BCE. By about 5300 to 5200 BCE it had reached land west of the Rhine.
Genetic work in 2025 points to the wild Papaver setigerum as the closest relative and to the western Mediterranean as the place where cultivation began. At a Swiss lakeside village site from about 3170 BCE, seeds were already a mix of wild and domestic forms, so the plant was still being domesticated at that time.
The name tells the other half of the story. The ancient Greeks called the plant’s sap opion, which became “opium”, and the species name somniferum means “sleep-bringing”. According to Wikipedia, the Ebers Papyrus, written around 1550 BCE, lists poppy seed as a sedative.
The seed itself is a kitchen staple far from the poppy’s drug reputation. A gram holds about 3,300 of the kidney-shaped seeds, which are under 1 mm long. Poppy seed strudel and Mohnkuchen are popular in Central Europe, especially at Christmas, poppy seed hamantashen were the main traditional Purim food of Ashkenazi Jews, and in Bengali cooking the white seeds thicken dishes such as aloo posto.
Rules are now catching up with the seed. The EU set limits for poppy seeds and for bakery products with them from 1 July 2022, and in April 2026 the FDA said it planned to publish a draft action level for opiate alkaloids on poppy seeds during 2026.
Sources
- Salavert A, Zazzo A, Martin L, et al. Direct dating reveals the early history of opium poppy in western Europe. Sci Rep. 2020.
- Machado RSR, Bonhomme V, Soteras R, et al. The origins and spread of the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum L.) revealed by genomics and seed morphometrics. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2025.
- Jesus A, Bonhomme V, Evin A, et al. A morphometric approach to track opium poppy domestication. Sci Rep. 2021.
- Poppy seed. Wikipedia.
- Opium poppy. Wikipedia.
- Commission Regulation (EU) 2021/2142. Official Journal of the European Union. 2021.
- Opiate alkaloids on poppy seeds. US Food and Drug Administration. Content current as of April 2026.
Frequently asked questions about poppy seeds
Are poppy seeds good for you?
They are nutritious but eaten in tiny amounts. A teaspoon (2.8 g) has 15 calories, 0.5 g of protein, 0.5 g of fiber and 8% of the daily value of manganese. No human trial here tested a health benefit, since almost all research is on drug tests, safety and cooking. The two rat studies are not evidence for people.
Can poppy seeds make you fail a drug test?
Yes, they can. In a trial of 10 adults, 100 g of poppy seed paste kept urine opiate-positive for up to 48 hours at the 300 ng/mL cutoff, and two of five poppy seed foods eaten daily for 10 days stayed positive at that cutoff. Tests with a higher cutoff of 2,000 ng/mL turned negative after 12 hours in the paste trial. Markers such as thebaine can sometimes help separate seeds from heroin, though not always.
How long do poppy seeds stay in your system?
It depends on the amount and the test cutoff. Urine screens stayed positive for up to 6 hours after two poppy seed rolls and up to 24 hours after cake slices, 48 hours after 100 g of paste, and up to 108 hours after pastry at the lowest cutoffs. Oral fluid screens in one trial were positive for 0.5 to 13 hours after two 45 g doses of raw seeds.
Are poppy seeds safe to eat?
In normal food amounts, yes for most people. The FDA is not advising consumers to avoid poppy seed foods, but it says not to make poppy seed tea. EFSA’s safe single-day level is 10 µg of morphine equivalents per kg of body weight, and some seeds can exceed it when eaten in large servings. Allergy and pregnancy are the other points to keep in mind.
How many poppy seeds are too many?
There is no fixed count, because the alkaloid content varies so much. By our arithmetic, a 60 kg adult has a safe single-day level of 600 µg, and a teaspoon (2.8 g) of seeds at the EU limit of 20 mg/kg holds up to 56 µg. A teaspoon of the most contaminated FDA sample, at 520 ppm of morphine, holds about 1,460 µg, which is over the level.
Does washing or baking remove morphine from poppy seeds?
Washing helps, baking is less certain. Washing in water cut opium alkaloids by about 50 to 80% in one lab study, while baking in a model product did not change them significantly. Another study found only 16 to 50% of the morphine left in poppy cake, and 3% in buns baked at 220 °C, so the recipe matters. The EU notes that food processing can reduce the alkaloids by 25 to 100%.
Are poppy seeds high in calcium?
For their size, yes. A teaspoon (2.8 g) has 40 mg of calcium, 3% of the daily value, and a tablespoon is three teaspoons, so about 120 mg or 9% by our arithmetic. Per 100 g, the seeds hold 1,438 mg, which is 111% of the daily value, but nobody eats 100 g. No study here tested how well the body absorbs it.
Can you be allergic to poppy seeds?
Yes, but it is uncommon. Among 191 children sensitized to poppy seed in Turkey, 38 (19.9%) were truly allergic and 10 of those had anaphylaxis. Many also reacted to sesame and tree nuts, and lab tests found cross-reaction with hazelnut, buckwheat and almond proteins. See an allergist if seeds ever caused hives, swelling or breathing trouble.