Rippon tests positive for drugs after eating poppy seed bread

The 72-year-old's unlikely test result picked up the presence of morphine, derived from opium, after she ate a loaf of poppy seed bread and a poppy seed bagel over the course of three days.

The poppy seed experiment came after a contributor to the programme told how he was fired from his job at a power station after a routine drug test showed opiates in his system.

Dumbfounded at first, he realised that the answer must be the poppy seed bread he'd eaten for his breakfast toast.

Rippon said: "In more than 50 years of broadcasting I've found myself in a number of extraordinary situations.

"But I must say I never thought I'd find myself taking a drugs test, let alone have it come back positive."

Rippon had a go at a urine screening test herself as the show explained how drugs tests are becoming more common in work environments where employees drive, operate heavy machinery or where the job is a matter of public safety.

Consulting Queen Mary University toxicology expert, Professor Atholl Johnston, about her own result, Rippon said: "Does that mean that if I was taking a test as an employee, that my employers could say there's a possibility, Rippon, that you're a drug taker?"

Prof Johnston explained: "The amount of morphine in a poppy seed will vary quite considerably depending on when and where it was harvested.

"In fact when tests have been done there's about a six-hundred fold variation in the amount of morphine in poppy seeds."

The popular advice programme has gained popularity through a number of series as it exposes real-life rip-offs and consumer issues that have caught out viewers.

::The fourth series of Rip Off Britain: Food, with Angela Rippon, Gloria Hunniford and Julia Somerville, begins at 10.45am on BBC One on Monday.