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Dinosaur Food: 100M year old foods we still eat today (2022)
- munificent 8mo agoIf you don't restrict the list to living things, then salt and water are surely the oldest answers. :)
- procaryote 8mo agoHydrogen ions are edible, although usually dissolved in water. Hydrogen ions existed before oxygen or water
- austinjp 8mo agoYep, I ensure I ingest a healthy amount of plain old-fashioned protons. Surely among nature's most ancient foods.
- pavel_lishin 8mo agoI don't like them, they taste sour: https://youtu.be/FSYE1T5d9jc?si=jQP90-q7QAHnrcJt https://youtu.be/FSYE1T5d9jc?si=jQP90-q7QAHnrcJt
- siriaan 8mo agoDon't forget dirt - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geophagia#Humans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geophagia#Humans
- masfuerte 8mo agoI remember when I was a very young child - more than half a century ago - getting into trouble for eating dirt. I was amused more recently to hear about my nephew doing the same thing. It seems, from my point of view, to be instinctive. I wonder why?
- imoverclocked 8mo agoBored? Low on minerals? Too many parasites? Dogs do this instinctively too when they might need something from the dirt.
- grimgrin 8mo agodon't little kids sometimes eat play-doh, bugs, crayons, etc? new experiences/curiosity i'd imagine
- wileydragonfly 8mo agoFamily ancestors in very rural Texas used to drink “sour dirt” which was a tablespoon or two of dirt mixed with water. Intermediate generation did gather some from their favored spot and have it tested. Several essential minerals in it. Go figure.
- kleiba 8mo agoHands up who has ever eaten anything from that list!
- mgh2 8mo agoWater caltrop nuts are common in Taiwan, very nutty and good for meat soups.
- ch4s3 8mo agoLotus root is pretty common in Chinese and Japanese cuisine. I've had it pickled and in a Sichuan dry pot. It's crunchy and takes on flavors pretty well.
- arunc 8mo agoWe use it in cuisines from India, particularly from Tamil nadu, as well. Lotus root, seeds, the petals, pretty much all.
- fuzztester 8mo agoCan you name (in Tamil, but written in English) and describe the dishes in which those lotus parts are used? Interested.
- arunc 8mo ago1. Thamarai Thandu Poriyal / Varuval (Stir-fried Lotus Stem): A popular dish where the lotus stem is peeled, sliced into coins, and stir-fried with coconut oil, mustard seeds, shallots, green chilies, curry leaves, and sometimes sambar powder or chili flakes. 2. Thamarai Thandu Uppukari (Lotus Stem Dry Curry): A preparation where the lotus stem is boiled with salt, then deep-fried or stir-fried until light golden brown to create a crispy side dish, often served with rasam rice. 3. Thamarai Kizhangu Vathal (Dried Lotus Root Crisps): A traditional, shelf-stable snack where the lotus stem is sliced, salted, and dried, then fried before consumption. 4. Lotus Petal Paruppu Usili (Steamed Lentil Crumble): A dish made by finely chopping tender inner lotus petals and mixing them with coarsely ground, steamed, and crumbled lentils (dal), similar to traditional Tamil Paruppu Usili. 5. Thamara Vadai (Lotus Stem Fritters): A traditional snack in South India that uses sliced lotus stem in a seasoned batter, similar to a vadai.
- droopyEyelids 8mo agoSeeing my neighbors gathering ginkgo nuts made me curious enough to try them, and I waded right in without understanding the risks! TLDR— they're not a great food source. It's yet another one of those cases where you have to wonder what "delicacy" means. The actual fruit (looks like a rotten plum, smells terrible) has ginkgolic acids which cause contact dermatitis (think poison ivy). Then the nuts themselves contain Ginkgotoxin, which interferes with your B6, screwing up your nervous system and causing seizures. Cooking reduces but does not eliminate Ginkgotoxin. I only ate one, and ate it raw. It was a delightful texture, but tasted like chewing random plant matter. Like leaves from a tree. Was maybe half a cubic centimeter of matter. Escaped any ill effects. According to my research, kids can have seizures from as few as 10 nuts, which would probably be like 1.5 spoonfuls if you mashed them up. The guidelines I found don't seem very scientific but supposedly a kid can safely handle 3-5 nuts over the course of a day, and an adult could handle 5-10. So it doesn't seem like there is a good margin of safety. Overall a real risk to health for an insignificant amount of food that doesn't taste special. But a nice texture.
- BigTTYGothGF 8mo ago> contact dermatitis Lots of food is like this, for example mangoes.
- fellowniusmonk 8mo agoI eat foods with long history of co-evolution and domestication. Barley and Yogurt, they are the dogs we domesticated from wolves that changed us too. Daily barley water is a life changer, I don't think our digestive systems really function without a smidgen of daily barley.
- groos 8mo agoIn university, one year, our building started smelling like there had been a sewage overflow. Pretty soon, everything around started smelling like this - the stores, restaurants, cinema, etc. in central campus was stinking. It was soon found out that the decorative Ginko trees planted in the central part of campus were fruiting (probably for the first time since planting) and the fruit was getting crushed underfoot and carried everywhere. The smell took a few weeks to go away.
- ge96 8mo agoPeople eat Horseshoe Crabs? No way, but their precious blood give me
- OJFord 8mo ago'eaten as a delicacy in some parts of Asia' according to Wikipedia, but to be fair OP is only asserting possibilities anyway (the criteria are 1) old enough to have been around for dinosaurs to eat; 2) edible by humans).
- throwup238 8mo agoTechnically they eat the roe. Horseshoe crabs have very little meat and it’s so tough as to be practically inedible.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- linksnapzz 8mo agoThese aren't the Limulus Polyphemus of the North Atlantic, I think they mean one of the other (Pacific?) three or so species of horseshoe crab. Though, were I a crab of any sort, anywhere, I'd live in terror of a hungry Cantonese chef...
- irishcoffee 8mo ago"We still eat today" vs. "Someone consumed this today" is disingenuous at best.
- notorandit 8mo agoMeat
- plaguna 8mo agoWhich one?
- JohnMakin 8mo agoMaybe pythons - some types of crocodile/alligators. But that's very region specific.
- rbanffy 8mo agoSharks as well.
- icameron 8mo agoSturgeon. Maybe lamprey (I've never tried it)
- seszett 8mo agoCatshark maybe, although I don't know if that species in particular is old enough.
- notorandit 8mo agoAny. Title says "food".
- magneticnorth 8mo agoThis is an interesting way to think about plants and animals. I'm finding it surprisingly hard to find sources for known age of species - is that information collected somewhere? Or is it something we often just don't know because of how sparse the fossil record is? Wondering because of trying to look up the age of fern species I do eat (no cinnamon fern near me) and I can't find out.
- throwup238 8mo ago> I'm finding it surprisingly hard to find sources for known age of species - is that information collected somewhere? Or is it something we often just don't know because of how sparse the fossil record is? It depends on what you mean by the age of the species. You can find the oldest known fossil occurrence at the Paleobiology Database [1] and the divergence time from molecular phylogenies via TimeTree [2]. [1] https://paleobiodb.org/ https://paleobiodb.org/ [2] https://timetree.org/ https://timetree.org/
- cogman10 8mo agoThat's because when something becomes a new species is a surprisingly difficult and contentious debate in biology. That's simply due to the nature of evolution. It's nearly impossible to look at one past generation of chicken to the next to figure out when the ancestor was no longer a chicken. Yet, go back far enough and you'll find T-Rexes in the mix. Every generation is a new missing link. It's an extremely fuzzy process.
- b112 8mo agoGreg Bear and his fancy pants radio says otherwise.
- usrnm 8mo ago> Yet, go back far enough and you'll find T-Rexes in the mix Afaik, T-Rex was never a direct ancestor of modern birds, including chicken. T-Rex and birds are theropod dinosaurs, but it was a very large and diverse group of animals.
- neuroelectron 8mo agoI thought avocados were where old food eaten by dinosaurs or at least very large ancient rodents. I guess it doesn't meet the 100 million year old age mark.
- andrewflnr 8mo agoIt was once thought that giant ground sloths were important for spreading avocados, but that seems to have been a mistake. Anyway, that was long after the dinosaurs. Flowering plants in general were still pretty new by the time the dinosaurs died out. I bet an actual dinosaur never saw an avocado. :) Edit: transcript of a video about the sloth/avocado thing: https://nerdfighteria.info/v/jpcBgYYFS8o https://nerdfighteria.info/v/jpcBgYYFS8o
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 8mo agoNo fiddle heads? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiddlehead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiddlehead
- smm11 8mo agoI take Gingo three times a week, and eat Horseshoe Crab a few times a year.
- andrewflnr 8mo agoFun idea. At least one correction for the table: For wila/bryorii fremonti's age of 250mya they cite the "geologic history" of... moss. Wila is a lichen, which is primarily fungal with algal symbiotes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryoria_fremontii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryoria_fremontii And even given an edible moss, the fact that moss existed 250mya would not imply that particular species existed "morphologically unchanged". The "reindeer lichen" entry appears to have the same issue.
- throwup238 8mo ago"morphologically unchanged" seems like a very low bar for lichen too. Are we talking like electron microscope slides that compare their microstructure? It seems like fossilized lichen will have a lot of morphological overlap between many species, possibly ones that aren't even lichen.
- andrewflnr 8mo agoYou'd be surprised what they can find these days with an electron microscope and a sufficiently well-preserved fossil. Microstructure is sometimes visible. But yeah, there's still only so much you can do.
- jkdorio 8mo agoThis guy parties
- andrewflnr 8mo agoI go to nerd parties where I'm appreciated. :D
- kilpikaarna 8mo agoReindeer lichen is not a moss (Wiki link), or even a Plantae...
- whyenot 8mo agoGreen algae, which are essentially being farmed by the fungus, are closely related to Plantae and are often included in the kingdom in the broad sense (Plantae sensu lato).
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- smoll 8mo agoisn't Sago Palm (Cycas revoluta) highly toxic? i don't think it's edible...
- procaryote 8mo agoIt's a staple food in some cultures. It needs preprocessing, but people have been doing that for a while
- rbanffy 8mo agoA lot of vegetables are toxic when raw, but safe after cooking. My favorite among these is mandioca, when it’s cooked and then fried. Goes well with churrasco.
- hnlmorg 8mo agoI wonder if there are any fungi that would make that list?
- trilogic 8mo agoThe theory of evolution didn´t work on Horseshow crab? Darwin did you read that. Maybe nasa should read it too :)
- rbanffy 8mo agoEvolution rarely escape local maxima.
- whyenot 8mo agoGnetum genom does not have a good fossil record, as is the case for many tropical species, but based on molecular clock data, the genus dates to the late Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary (66 mya). Gnetum is a really weird gymnosperm, not a flowering plant, although it does produce fleshy "cones" (strobili). In Indonesia, the seeds are smashed and deep fried to make crisps called "emping". https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.12705/642.12 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.12705/642.12
- rbanffy 8mo agoNot sure the same crocodiles and sharks we have today were food back than, but current ones are delicious.
- zkmon 8mo agoAvocado. I heard it was dinosaur food. Read an article somewhere that says Avacdo trees think that dinosaurs are still around.
- SAI_Peregrinus 8mo agoFunnily enough they're toxic to all remaining dinosaurs.
- SideburnsOfDoom 8mo ago> Avocado. I heard it was dinosaur food. Nope, and this is trivial to check. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avocado#Taxonomy_and_evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avocado#Taxonomy_and_evolution The proposed seed dispersers are now-extinct mammalian megafauna. Much more recent than the dinosaurs - 10k to 100k years ago.
- tgbugs 8mo agoA great related article on mammalian megafauna and plants. https://www.americanforests.org/article/the-trees-that-miss-the-mammoths/ https://www.americanforests.org/article/the-trees-that-miss-...
- linksnapzz 8mo agoThere's a book; Ghosts of Evolution, that discusses this in depth. Wasn't dinosaurs, it was probably some kind of proboscidian gompothere.
- golem14 8mo agoAren’t sea cucumbers 400M+ years old and common in Chinese cuisine?
- kazinator 8mo agoBirds are dinosaurs, and we eat a lot of chicken.
- gpt5 8mo agoTrue. And all land vertebrates are technically fish.
- whyenot 8mo agoThey share a common ancestor with ancient fish, yes. Land mammals also share a common ancestor with starfish. That doesn't make them starfish.
- eesmith 8mo agoThe "humans are fish" idea comes from cladistics. "Fish", if taken as a monophyletic term, includes land mammals because tetrapods are osteichthyans -- bony fish. In common use, "fish" is, however a paraphyletic group which excludes tetrapods but otherwise includes all other osteichthyans. Since starfishes don't include tetrapods, nor vice versa (nor do they share biological features to be in a polyphyletic grouping like "crabs"), the relevant common term is "Animalia" -- "animal".
- femto 8mo agoFour of the eleven on the list are endangered (according to Wikipedia), so if they are still being eaten, they won't be for much longer.
- einpoklum 8mo agoThe only thing I recongized from that list is the Lotus (and I don't eat it, though I remember hearing that some do).
- tigerlily 8mo agoI wonder what megafauna evolved to eat watermelon?
- throwup238 8mo agoNothing evolved specifically to eat watermelon but elephants and large bovids can break them apart to get at the flesh quite easily.
- deepsun 8mo ago> Ginkgo has been around so long, it predates the dinosaurs! Isn't the first dinosaurs appeared like 400m years ago, but Ginkgo only 290m?
- shagie 8mo agoThis is a confusion about what a "dinosaur" is. It is a particular branch of reptiles, not just an ancient one. The first dinosaurs were in the Triassic (roughly 240 mya). It was likely the Permian-Triassic extinction that opened the evolutionary niches for dinosaurs to evolve into (much like the Cretaceous extension event opened up the way for the mammals). While there were creatures that looked like dinosaurs in the Permian period (298 mya) - creatures like the dimetrodon (the one with the sail on its back that you'd find next to dinosaurs in the museum - though the dimetrodon is of the branch that lead to mammals rather than reptiles) and early lizards and turtles - these aren't dinosaurs.
- Razengan 8mo agoGingko evolved into dinosaurs
- zippyman55 8mo agoThe pre-historic creatures suffered incredible evolutionary pressures. While the meteor strike was undoubtably significant, other weaknesses challenged them every step of the way. Early creatures were highly vulnerable when they ate, as well as when they went to the bathroom. The early dinosaur bird, The terodactyls was extremely vulnerable to Darwinian selection pressures when the bird urinated due to the high pitched urine noise. Evolutionary pressure resulted in the development of silent urination of the pterodactyls, hence the name change and the silent “p”.