Is juniper toxic?
More specifically, are the berries toxic to consume?
There is a significant amount of confusion around this question. And if you were to simply look up, “Is juniper toxic?” or “Is juniper useful?”, you will find many articles and forums warning you to proceed with caution.
Here is the general claim that I hear about juniper toxicity most often:
“Most juniper berries are edible, but some are dangerously toxic, even deadly“.
So then you might think, okay, that’s fine, I’ll just learn to distinguish the toxic ones from the non-toxic ones. However, the claims continue with this:
“In addition, the toxic species are planted ornamentally, and they can hybridize with the non-toxic species to create a nearly indistinguishable toxic hybrid.”
Obviously, this creates a great degree of apprehension when it comes to foraging juniper berries. Further, distinguishing many different juniper species is quite a difficult task!
You’ll find these claims peppered across various sites, blogs, and social media, like this reddit thread.
Today, we also have trouble with AI-generated articles, such as this one, just echoing the claims.
So, is there any merit to them?
Well, I am here today to tell you that they are baseless!
In this article, I’ll walk you through my investigation that led me to conclude that there is no such thing as the elusive, deadly, toxic juniper berry!
We will dig into modern studies on juniper as well as its phytochemistry, toxicology, and historical use to fully understand the case of juniper toxicity.
The species I see listed most often as being toxic is Savin Juniper (Juniperus sabina), which mainly occurs in Eurasia. We’ll focus on that one initially.
However, Cade Juniper (Juniperus oxydrus) is also mentioned as being toxic, and that one will come up later in the article.
Important Caveats
Before we begin, it’s important to mention two things.
One, juniper and other coniferous herbs are not safe for pregnancy.
Two, though this article will discuss some historical medicinal uses, it contains no medical advice and should not be taken as such.
Why should you care?
Juniper berries have been used by every single pre-modern culture that lived where these trees and shrubs grew. From the native peoples of the Americas to the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians around Europe, all the way to East Asia.
They were used as both a spice or food additive as well as an herb.
Culinarily, they go great in saukraut and other fermented vegetables.
They can be added to meat stews to impart their unique citrusy/aromatic flavor.
And also, the dusty coating on the exterior is actually wild yeast! You can use this to get a more successful jump for a sourdough starter and even to make wild juniper berry ‘soda’.
Traditional medicinal uses revolve around coughs, colds, fever, and other respiratory issues.
So now, let’s figure out if we need to worry about some of them being toxic!
Juniper Constituents
To begin our investigation, we’ll look at the chemicals found in savin juniper and see if a potentially toxic agent stands out.
From Dazmiri et al. (2015), we find that the essential oil of highest concentration in both the leaves and berries is Sabinene. (By a large margin)
So this must be the toxic principle, right?
This article from distilling.com seems to think so. They state:
Some juniper species are known as too toxic for human consumption. Savine (Juniperus sabina) is considered poisonous because it contains high levels of sabinene, sabinyl acetate and sabinol.
However, I think that it is unlikely.
In Gonçalves et al. (2022) they found a Common Juniper (Juniperus communis) individual to have a sabiene content in the berry essential oil of 37%, vs 50% in the 2015 study on Savin Juniper (Juniperus sabina), which is not that much lower. It certainly does not clearly suggest that it is the difference between a toxic and a non-toxic species.
The 2022 study also shows us that just within a species, the phenolic profile varies tremendously across different regions, so in some areas the sabiene content could be lower or even higher.
In addition, King’s American Dispensatory mentions that the medicinal applications of Eastern Juniper (Juniperus virginiaia) are the same as Savin Juniper, just a little weaker in effect, further pointing to the difference in species being more of a matter of degree and not completely different chemicals in one compared to another. (Yes, there are traditional uses of savin juniper; we’ll explore that below)
We should also note that Sabienene is present in large amounts from many sources throughout the plant kingdom. From black pepper or carrot seed oil, to nutmeg, and bay.
Again, we’re talking about the concentration of this compound in the volatile oil, not in the total berry. The oil content is usually between 1.5-2.5% of the total weight of the berry. So the actual concentration of Sabinene is always a fraction of a very small fraction.
So, not finding a clear basis for savin juniper being toxic from the chemistry, I needed to try something different.
Modern Studies on Juniper
One thing I always do when investigating toxicity claims about a wild food or herbs is to look for actual toxicology cases in humans.
After all, we would expect there should be at least a few cases of accidental ingestion or use if it really is as dangerous as people claim.
However, there are no toxicology cases for savin juniper. This is strange.
Instead, when we look at modern research and studies on the herb, not only do we find that it is being investigated for having moderate hepatoprotective (liver-protecting) activity and mild nephroprotective (kidney-protecting) activity in this paper Abdel-Kader et al. (2017), but also that there are many well-documented traditional uses of it as stated in Pan et al. (2024).
Again, all of this is not what we would expect to find for a deadly plant.
Toxic Dose Studies
While I was unable to find any actual human toxicology cases of savin juniper, the toxicity has been investigated in animal studies.
In Pan et al. (2024), they reference a few of those animal toxicity studies.
They found the average lethal dose (LD50) of savin juniper essential oil to be 2570 milligrams per kilogram of body weight (2570mg/kg-bw) in mice, with another study establishing a safety threshold of roughly 6.9mg/kg-bw per day (again in mice).
So what do these values translate to in humans?
The Average Human Weight is roughly 70kg, so the lethal dose would be 180g of the essential oil taken at one time.
But remember, the context of this investigation is not about using the distilled juniper essential oil, which requires specialized equipment, but rather about using the berries, which are accessible to everyone.
So, to figure out how many berries would constitute a lethal dose, we need to know how much essential oil is in the berries.
Orav et al. (2010) tells us that the berries can contain up to 2% essential oil (in Common Juniper (Juniperus communis), but we’ll use it as a comparison point)
So, that would mean you’d need to consume 9 kilograms or 19.842 lb of juniper berries!
Twenty pounds of juniper berries is a completely infeasible amount for anyone to consume ever. (Imagine consuming twenty pounds of anything at one time) The photo above shows one quarter of a pound of juniper to put things in perspective. You would have trouble gathering anywhere close to that amount.
Yet, the statements like this are strewn across the internet:
Pelletier-Ahmed (2019):
Savin Juniper is known to be toxic and potentially deadly poisonous if taken in large enough quantities.
“Potentially deadly poisonous if taken in large enough quantities” is a nonsense statement that creates unwarranted fear if you don’t state what the quantity is!
That article also writes this about gin makers (the main flavoring agent for gin is Common Juniper):
Casares (1964) writes that any juniper harvest that was believed to be contaminated with Savin Juniper was destroyed.
However, I searched far and wide for that source, even for other articles citing that source; I was unable to find this claim anywhere.
Even if that were true, I would postulate that it’s just more people buying into the toxicity myth.
Imagine if all articles about coffee consumption had the warning “potentially deadly if taken in large enough quantities” because consuming 4 gallons of coffee in a single sitting could constitute a lethal dose of caffeine.
EVERYTHING is potentially deadly if taken in large enough quantities, but the statement above creates the perception that you may accidentally consume a lethal dose.
We don’t use this line with coffee or common kitchen spices because we understand that it is completely impractical to accidentally consume dangerous amounts; however, I see this warning used for wild food and wild herbs all the time.
Why aren’t people out there talking about how common spices consumed in a similar manner to juniper berries, like turmeric, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cayenne, are also dangerous in large amounts?!
If you actually eat juniper berries, you’ll find out right away that they aren’t really something to eat like a bag of potato chips. They have a small degree of sweetness to them, but it’s accompanied by strong and bitter resinous flavors. You would have to really be going out of your way to consume a lot of juniper.
When I use juniper, it’s for things like brewing an herbal tea, fermenting a wild soda, or flavoring sauerkraut.
So if we don’t have to trip over ourselves to say that cinnamon shouldn’t be consumed in excess, I don’t see any reason why the same rule shouldn’t apply to a wild spice like juniper berries.
Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI)
If you want to use the safe amount set from earlier, of less than 6.9mg/kg-bw of the essential oil, we’d get about 24 grams in a day, or almost an ounce, which is still quite a large amount of juniper! (See photo below)
I can’t imagine normal consumption of juniper berries as a tea or a spice exceeding an ounce, and certainly not something that one would do for many days in a row.
That same study Pan et al. (2024), also mentions this directly (relating to its use as being hepatoprotective):
Other studies have shown that the LD50 values of the volatile oil from the aerial parts of J. sabina are 15 times its effective dosage, suggesting a relatively safe range for the use of the volatile oil from the aerial parts of the plant
Remember, from our phytochemistry investigation, there is no clear evidence that savin juniper is that much stronger than any others, so this safe amount would apply to all juniper berries.
The American Botanical Council sets its safe limit as a max of 10g taken each day, lower than the amount I collected, but still a fair bit of juniper to be consuming every day. One important thing to understand about these herbal articles is that they’re often written to an audience that is trying to take as much of an herb as they can each day.
When used in normal life as a food additive, spice, flavoring agent, etc., it is highly unlikely you just won’t be hitting anywhere close to amounts that raise concern.
The problem comes when you are taking juniper every day as some means to an end.
Juniper Toxicology Cases
As mentioned earlier, I did not find any toxicology cases in humans for Savin Juniper (Juniperus sabina).
I did, however, find some for Cade Juniper (Juniperus oxydrus), but if you look even just a little bit closer, you’ll quickly see why they do not support the claim that foraging and using juniper berries is dangerous.
Two separate cases document acute symptoms, including fever, hypotension, renal failure, hepatotoxicity, and even cardiac arrest in one of them. However, it is of the utmost importance to disclose what they actually consumed.
There is a common preparation of cade juniper called “juniper tar” or “cade tar,” which is a concentrated extract of the branches and wood of cade juniper. It is effectively an essential oil of juniper. That is what they consumed- in one case, a spoonful, and in the more severe case, a glassful.
- Source: Koruk et al. (2005)
- Source: Özdamar & Demir (2023)
It should come as no surprise that this would cause major issues. Imagine having a glass of cedarwood essential oil; that is effectively what these two individuals did! The two individuals both made a recovery and were discharged within two weeks.
There is one more case involving the use of juniper tar, but this time it was a topical application of a newborn…
The parents were attempting to treat minor atopic dermatosis (basically a common skin rash) by applying juniper tar directly to their child’s skin. The child experienced similar symptoms to those in the two cases above, but thankfully, also made a full recovery.
- Source: Achour et al. (2011)
I don’t think you need me to tell you how foolish those parents’ actions are.
But that’s all that you’ll find for toxicology cases. They aren’t about juniper berries at all, but rather the irresponsible use of juniper essential oil.
So throughout the entire history of juniper use, there are zero known cases of poisoning through the berries.
Where did the toxicity claims come from?
From the above toxicology cases, we can see where the cade juniper claims came from, but what about savin juniper?
When we look further into the historical use and context of savin juniper, it becomes clearer.
Pre-1900s, primarily in Europe, savin juniper was known to be used outside of medical contexts to induce abortions.
I cannot emphasize enough how this should never be done. It is not safe at all, and historical texts regularly document severe damage to both the child and the mother when it was attempted.
So, I think the idea that savin juniper is dangerous and toxic carried through, but the context was lost.
Once more, this was with the essential oil, not the berries.
I think we’re about ready to make our final conclusions, but there is one more claim I want to address.
Further Unwarranted Warnings
Outside of the fear of juniper being deadly, I see a lot of herbalists make the claim that juniper berries are “hard on the liver” or “hard on the kidneys.”
This is interesting, because as we saw earlier, modern studies actually suggest the opposite, that when taken in normal doses, juniper berries are potentially protective to the liver and kidneys!
I suspect this came from quick and unthorough glances at the toxicology cases above. In all those cases, both renal (kidney) failure and hepatoxicity (liver toxicity) were documented.
But, it is simply erroneous to make this claim based on those studies, which were on large amounts of juniper extractions that are at least fifty times stronger than berries and from a different part of the plant altogether!
I find it ironic that people complain so much about science ‘attacking’ herbalism, yet in this case, it’s really the natural health community that is doing the fear mongering of juniper, while the scientific community seems to be looking into its benefits in a myriad of areas.
I think our community would benefit greatly from holding ourselves to a higher standard instead of blaming others.
Through my research, I found so many articles that just repeated the same myth over and over again without question.
These copy-and-paste echo chambers only add further confusion and distrust in herbs and wild food.
We can do better!
Okay, rant over.
Conclusions
After many hours of researching juniper, I think that the ‘elusive deadly juniper’ is a complete myth.
I would be completely comfortable consuming the foraged berries of any juniper in normal amounts.
In fact, I did. I went around my city and ate the berries of several completely random landscaping junipers, of which I did not know the species, but I did know they were in the genus Juniperus.
This is not something I recommend, but rather, a self-experiment I felt safe conducting to prove a point.
Indeed, I am writing this article long after that experiment was conducted and can confidently say I experienced zero negative effects.
I hope you enjoyed this article. I would love it if you would share it with a fellow forager or herbalist to help end this myth for good!
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References
Here you can find all the sources used for my investigation on juniper toxicity.
- Abdel-Kader, M.S., Alanazi, M.T., Saeedan, A.S.B., Al-Saikhan, F.I., & Hamad, A.M. (2017). Hepatoprotective and nephroprotective activities of Juniperus sabina L. aerial parts. Journal of Pharmacy & Pharmacognosy Research, 5(1), 29–39. https://doi.org/10.56499/jppres16.151_5.1.29
- Achour, S., Abourazzak, S., Mokhtari, A., Soulaymani, A., Soulaymani, R., & Hida, M. (2011). Juniper tar (cade oil) poisoning in new born after a cutaneous application. Case Reports, 2011, bcr0720114427. https://doi.org/10.1136/bcr.07.2011.4427
- Dazmiri, M. E., Monfared, A., & Akbarzadeh, M. (2015). Chemical composition of essential oil of fruits and aerial parts of Juniperus sabina L. from HezarJarib in Mazandaran province. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Chemical-composition-of-essential-oil-of-fruits-and-Dazmiri-Monfared/6d0feb5cce9ce3cb778df0c3372337b41a8df5fb
- EFSA Panel on Additives and Products or Substances used in Animal Feed (FEEDAP), Bampidis, V., Azimonti, G., Bastos, M. de L., Christensen, H., Durjava, M., Kouba, M., López-Alonso, M., López Puente, S., Marcon, F., Mayo, B., Pechová, A., Petkova, M., Ramos, F., Sanz, Y., Villa, R. E., Woutersen, R., Brantom, P., Chesson, A., … Dusemund, B. (2023). Safety and efficacy of feed additives consisting of an essential oil and tincture from the berries of Juniperus communis L. (juniper oil and juniper tincture) for use in all animal species (FEFANA asbl). EFSA Journal, 21(4), e07977. https://doi.org/10.2903/j.efsa.2023.7977
- Emami, S.A., Shahidi, N.H., & Hassanzadeh-Khayyat, M. (2009). Antioxidant activity of the essential oils of different parts of Juniperus sabina L. and Juniperus foetidissima Willd. (Cupressaceae). International Journal of Essential Oil Therapeutics, 3, 163–170. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267036543
- Felter, H. W., & Lloyd, J. U. (1905). King’s American Dispensatory (19th ed., Vols. 1–2). THE OHIO VALLEY COMPANY. https://www.henriettes-herb.com/eclectic/kings/index.html
- Fernandez, A., Cock, I., Cock, I., & Cock, I. (2016). The Therapeutic Properties of Juniperus Communis L.: Antioxidant Capacity, Bacterial growth Inhibition, Anticancer Activity and Toxicity. Pharmacognosy Journal, 8(3), 273–280. https://doi.org/10.5530/pj.2016.3.17
- Gonçalves, A. C., Flores-Félix, J. D., Coutinho, P., Alves, G., & Silva, L. R. (2022). Zimbro (Juniperus communis L.) as a Promising Source of Bioactive Compounds and Biomedical Activities: A Review on Recent Trends. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 23(6), Article 6. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms23063197
- Hernandez, E. G., Del Carmen Lopez Martinez, M., & Villanova, R. G. (1987). Determination by gas chromatography of terpenes in the berries of the species Juniperus oxycedrus L., J. thurifera L. and J. sabina L. Journal of Chromatography A, 396, 416–420. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0021-9673(01)94085-3
- Koruk, S. T., Ozyilkan, E., Kaya, P., Colak, D., Donderici, O., & Cesaretli, Y. (2005). Juniper Tar Poisoning. Clinical Toxicology, 43(1), 47–49. https://doi.org/10.1081/CLT-45072
- Orav, A., Koel, M., Kailas, T., & Müürisepp, M. (2010). Comparative analysis of the composition of essential oils and supercritical carbon dioxide extracts from the berries and needles of Estonian juniper (Juniperus communis L.). Procedia Chemistry, 2(1), 161–167. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.proche.2009.12.023
- Özdamar, Y., & Demir, M. C. (2023). Acute Systemic Toxicity Associated with Ingestion of Juniper Tar. Journal of Emergency Medicine Case Reports, 14(4), Article 4. https://doi.org/10.33706/jemcr.1374559
- Pages, N., Fournier, G., Baduel, C., Tur, N., & Rusnac, M. (n.d.). Sabinyl Acetate, the Main Component of Juniperus sabina L’Hérit. Essential Oil, is Responsible for Antiimplantation Effect. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/(SICI)1099-1573(199608)10:5<438::AID-PTR866>3.0.CO;2-T
- Pan, L., Zhou, T., Chen, C., Xu, H., & Wang, W. (2024). Phytochemistry, Pharmacology, and Traditional Medicine Applications of Juniperus sabina L.: A Comprehensive Overview. Molecules, 29(24), Article 24. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules29245876
- Pelletier-Ahmed, L. (2019, June 17). Toxic Juniper. Latifa’s Herbs. https://www.latifasherbs.com/toxic-juniper/
