Re: Venomous Vegetables


<richardparker01@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1116452077.592903.229360@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> If so many staple foods are positively poisonous, how did early man
> ever discover them and make them our main foodstuffs ?
>
> Cassava (manioc) - Contains cyanide - 2 groups of schoolchildren nearly
> wiped out in Philippines this year by poorly-prepared cassava cakes

There a huge number of starch containing food plants that have to be soaked
or leached of toxins. It most likely didn't take more than a couple of
million years for us to learn this trick.
>
> Potatoes - sprouts and skin contain solanine - leaves and stems
> positively poisonous - relative of tobacco and deadly nightshade
>
Those tubers grown below ground can be eaten raw without harm. If they are
dangerously toxic I should have died as a kid.

> Wheat - Phytates in bran inhibit iron absorption, leading to anaemia.
> Also size - see Maize further down.

They also rot your teeth but they don't seem to cause many early deaths.
>
> Taro (and spinach) - contain raphides - crystals of poisonous oxalates
>
> Rice - polished rice grains contain nothing more than almost pure
> starch - filling up with that stuff stops you eating anything healthier

???? Notice you said polished. The first cultivated and collected kind would
have been whole. Polished rice is pretty, easy to chew and digest. A great
source of hard to get calories to stay alive and not nearly as good for you
but people made a choice.

>
> Yams - contain dioscurine - not too good for you

But in moderation....
>
> Red kidney beans - poisonous unless soaked for 2 hours or more

Okay so I'm dead again or maybe not. I simmer the things for ever so they
won't be tough or give me a gas.
>
> Cycads - 'sago' from cycads led to a mysterious mind-killing disease in
> Guam that took 500 years until Oliver Sacks connected the dots, and
> found that (edible) fruit bats were concentrating the poison in humans.

Yeah. Major health problems in about 20 or thirty years. Meanwhile your
tummy is full.

>
> Maize - How on earth did proto-Mexicans ever think that little mountain
> grass (teosinte) would ever grow into big fat corn cobs? See also:
> wheat - above.

The best evidence is it a fertile hybrid between teosinte and another grass.
The little cobs look like a perfect match for the oldest known corn and they
pop up real good!
>
> Milk - about 60% (probably more) of the world's humans cannot digest
> milk or milk products after they've been weaned - ever hear of a
> Chinese cheese?

Tufu made from soy. YUCK!
>
>
>
> Why did humans ever even take up agriculture, when it made them into
> runts, and brought them less leisure, less healthy food, and all the
> troubles of organised religion, politicians, inter-national wars, etc
> etc ?

Well it's like this. First I get real hungry and then I start to eat things
I don't like as much but can get. I don't like being hungry so I try to
increase the supply of food. Growing plants works.

>
> Most of the above are almost totally indigestible unless cooked - just
> what did Homo erectus eat with his 'hunted' meat chunks and marrow
> bones ?

Meat. But then the hunt had better not fail. No doubt like modern animals
they also ate some pretty strong tasting and more or less toxic plants but
many animals deal with this at least in part by eating a little of one kind
then a little of another and letting their liver handle the poison.

One lady rolled up a thistle leaf like a G with the thorns inside and chewed
it up and swallowed. She said it was so bitter her mouth went number.
>
> Jois - Hope this will take the group off on a new tangent - very far
> from water.
>
> regards
>
> Richard
>


.

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