3 ms·

My favorite crazy quote from one of these influencers mentioned in the article is this one: “plants are poison—they don’t want to be eaten, and have, as a resu

My favorite crazy quote from one of these influencers mentioned in the article is this one: “plants are poison—they don’t want to be eaten, and have, as a result, evolved defensive chemicals designed to disrupt your digestion” As if animals do want to be eaten. I’d argue that animals don’t want to be eaten even more than plants.

phantom784 3y ago
Plus, some parts of plants do "want" to be eaten - namely fruits, as a strategy to spread seeds.
- jwestbury 3y ago
  It also doesn't address the fact that we've been genetically modifying (read: breeding) plants to be eaten for around 10,000 years. Most of the plants we eat are nothing like their wild antecedents. Compare maize to teosinte, for instance. Or cultivated potatoes to the wild tubers they were bred from -- the wild ones will kill you, full stop. (As an aside, I highly recommend Bill Bryson's "At Home," which discusses these topics and many more related to how we came to live the lives we do -- it's a great companion to A Short History of Nearly Everything.)
zkms 3y ago
The claim is that plants cannot run nor fight so their defenses must be chemical (or physical, like spines or needles or camouflage) in nature. It's far more difficult for a prey animal to have its muscles/fat/organs suffused with chemicals that will kill/injure its likely predators, especially if its predators have similar metabolic pathways as itself -- it'd be at risk of poisoning itself if the poison broke free! Animals certainly fight back against being eaten (running away, fighting, etc) but once they're dead their meat (barring like, snake venom glands or pufferfish or other poison/venom-suffused sea creatures) won't fight back. Obviously "plants are poison" is phrased for shock value and there are traditions and safe handling practices (like "cooking", or "not eating green potatoes" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solanine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solanine) for plants that remove, denature, or prevent the formation of defensive chemicals.
- brokencode 3y ago
  Sure, but animals can be dangerous to eat too. With improper handling and cooking, you can get a bacterial infection or parasites from animals. Eating animal brains can give you an untreatable and fatal prion diseases. And more insidiously, red meat is high in saturated fat that can lead to arterial disease over time. So the idea that it’s inherently better and healthier to eat animals because “plants are poison” is not only on its face a bad idea, but it’s also a bad idea upon closer inspection.
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mr_toad 3y ago
Many (most) plants are toxic or inedible to humans. But the plants are poison idea ignores a very important point - that we eat the parts of plants that have evolved to be eaten, by us and other animals. For the most part we eat only the seeds and fruit, and we help spread them in an almost symbiotic relationship.

phantom784 3y ago

Plus, some parts of plants do "want" to be eaten - namely fruits, as a strategy to spread seeds.

jwestbury 3y ago
It also doesn't address the fact that we've been genetically modifying (read: breeding) plants to be eaten for around 10,000 years. Most of the plants we eat are nothing like their wild antecedents. Compare maize to teosinte, for instance. Or cultivated potatoes to the wild tubers they were bred from -- the wild ones will kill you, full stop. (As an aside, I highly recommend Bill Bryson's "At Home," which discusses these topics and many more related to how we came to live the lives we do -- it's a great companion to A Short History of Nearly Everything.)

zkms 3y ago

The claim is that plants cannot run nor fight so their defenses must be chemical (or physical, like spines or needles or camouflage) in nature. It's far more difficult for a prey animal to have its muscles/fat/organs suffused with chemicals that will kill/injure its likely predators, especially if its predators have similar metabolic pathways as itself -- it'd be at risk of poisoning itself if the poison broke free! Animals certainly fight back against being eaten (running away, fighting, etc) but once they're dead their meat (barring like, snake venom glands or pufferfish or other poison/venom-suffused sea creatures) won't fight back. Obviously "plants are poison" is phrased for shock value and there are traditions and safe handling practices (like "cooking", or "not eating green potatoes" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solanine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solanine) for plants that remove, denature, or prevent the formation of defensive chemicals.

brokencode 3y ago
Sure, but animals can be dangerous to eat too. With improper handling and cooking, you can get a bacterial infection or parasites from animals. Eating animal brains can give you an untreatable and fatal prion diseases. And more insidiously, red meat is high in saturated fat that can lead to arterial disease over time. So the idea that it’s inherently better and healthier to eat animals because “plants are poison” is not only on its face a bad idea, but it’s also a bad idea upon closer inspection.

deleted 3y ago

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mr_toad 3y ago

Many (most) plants are toxic or inedible to humans. But the plants are poison idea ignores a very important point - that we eat the parts of plants that have evolved to be eaten, by us and other animals. For the most part we eat only the seeds and fruit, and we help spread them in an almost symbiotic relationship.