- Health
Sodium chloride and corn gluten meal aren’t hazardous to humans, even though they are used as mouse poison
Key takeaway
Some rodenticides contain sodium chloride—table salt—and corn gluten meal. This combination forms a thick plug that physically obstructs the airway of rodents. Because rodents are anatomically unable to vomit, this leads to suffocation and death. These rodenticides aren’t hazardous to other animals and humans, who are physiologically different from rodents. Humans can safely eat processed food containing sodium chloride and corn-derived products, as long as they are part of a balanced diet.
Reviewed content
Verdict:
Claim:
Salt and corn gluten meal are used to kill mice, they are hazardous to humans
Verdict detail
Misleading: The reel cited the fact that salt and corn gluten meal are both present in mouse poison and some processed food to imply that this food is hazardous to humans. However, this claim overlooks the fact that these ingredients are hazardous to rodents but not to humans or other animals because their bodies work differently.
Full Claim
Salt and corn gluten meal are used to kill mice, they are hazardous to humans; “ALL of the ingredients in this mouse poison are found in our every day food. If it’s killing mice…what is it doing to your body?”
Review
In late June 2024, dentist and wellness YouTuber Michelle Jorgensen claimed in a Facebook reel that “a lot of processed food that [people] are eating has the same exact ingredients as mice poison”. She implied that salt and corn-containing processed food is hazardous to humans based on the fact that some rodenticides use the same ingredients to kill mice and rats.
As supporting evidence, she listed the active ingredients of a rodenticide called MouseX, which include sodium chloride and corn gluten meal as active ingredients. Sodium chloride is the chemical name for table salt. Corn gluten meal—which, despite its name, doesn’t contain gluten—is a by-product from milling corn.
The claim is reinforced by the reel’s caption, which stated “ALL of the ingredients in this mouse poison are found in our every day food. If it’s killing mice…what is it doing to your body?”
However, this is misleading. In fact, MouseX and similar rodenticides use sodium chloride and corn gluten meal specifically because their combination is lethal to rodents but not to humans and other animals.
A registered U.S. patent for corn-based rodenticides explained that rodents like rats and mice cannot vomit, unlike humans or other mammals:
“In studies, when a rat is fed a diet of bulky food items, when the rat regurgitates stomach contents, the regurgitant is pasty and thick in composition and, as a result of the rat’s tongue action, becomes packed as a plug within the rat’s pharynx, larynx and esophagus. Because the regurgitant forms a plug, the rat chokes and often dies.”
A document from the New York State Integrated Pest Management Program at Cornell University also stated that:
“[Corn gluten meal] is toxic to rodents and other non-emetic (incapable of vomiting) animals when treated with a dehydrant ingredient, but non-toxic to humans and other emetic animals”.
In other words, mice and rats that eat corn gluten meal with a dehydrant like sodium chloride cannot successfully expel the food through vomiting and suffocate instead.
This same document also explained that corn gluten meal is “generally recognized as safe” by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Similarly, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) doesn’t consider corn gluten meal to present toxicological risks to humans, explaining that it’s “naturally occurring” and “possesses a non-toxic mode of action”.
That said, salt and corn gluten meal should still be consumed in moderation like any other ingredient. For instance, the World Health Organization called for people to eat less salt in an effort to improve their health. Excessive salt consumption is associated with a greater risk of conditions like high blood pressure, kidney disease, and gastric cancer.
In summary, while table salt and corn gluten meal are used in rodenticides, this doesn’t mean that they’re toxic to humans. Both ingredients are lethal to rodents because they form a thick plug that physically obstructs the airway of rodents. Since rodents are unable to vomit, this obstruction leads to suffocation and death. However, this mechanism doesn’t occur in humans. It’s safe for humans to consume salt and corn-derived products as part of a balanced diet.
