Tasting Toxic Products

[Howitz]

Would it be dangerous to taste average to extremely toxic products if you were to apply a small quantity on your tongue and then rinse your tongue extremely thoroughtly? Let's say your goal is to experience the taste and minimize the absorption of it by your organism.

 

Would some substances be safe to experience the taste that way? Would some other still be extremely dangerous due to the absorption mechanism or by being more difficult to rinse off?

 

If you're wondering why i ask, i have a Project about intelligence services training and how this could be used as a training to help terrain agents recognize if food is poisonned only from taste depending on situations where you can't do chemistry tests and you need to stay under cover. (rinsing with water would be the preferable scenario, quick trip to the bathroom to rinse it off)

 

I need answer from preferably people who can bring scientific arguments and facts.

 

Best case scenario would be to come up with a list of say, too dangerous to test, pointless to test (tasteless) and such.

[Nup]

Sure, but there are too many substances with which to do this, so that you could say it's definitively a good skill.  

You can taste very poisonous mushrooms no problem, like amanita phalloides. But i wouldn't be so keen to try taste some nicotine

Also, most good toxins are probably not detectable through the use of taste. Otherwise they wouldn't be suitable candidates for poisons to use in food. 

 

So you could make a list of natural products (mushrooms, fish), rather then pure chemical ones. As it's likely they're better suited for their goal.   

[bob345]