Every plant is a gamble when there are no labels, no books and no phone. So how did the first humans work out which ones would kill them?
Three clues: one in your mouth, one in a cooking pot, and one in a playground. Then three explorers at Cooper Creek in 1861 who found the right plant, and why only one of them lived.
0:00 The salad that cost eleven days
0:46 Why nobody wrote it down
1:21 Clue 1: the alarm in your mouth
2:37 Clue 2: the cooking pot
4:41 Clue 3: the playground
5:20 Three men and a fern
6:45 The answer
What’s a food rule your family swears by? Tell us in the comments.
SOURCES
Jamestown, 1676: Robert Beverley, The History and Present State of Virginia (1705), Book II, p. 24. https://archive.org/details/historypresentst00beve
Bitter receptors: Meyerhof et al. 2010, Chemical Senses 35:157. https://doi.org/10.1093/chemse/bjp092
Bitterness and toxicity: Nissim, Dagan-Wiener & Niv 2017, IUBMB Life 69:938. https://doi.org/10.1002/iub.1694
Children’s bitter sensitivity: Mennella & Bobowski 2015, Physiology & Behavior 152:502. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2015.05.015
Toddlers and new foods: Cashdan 1994, Human Nature 5:279. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02692155
El Sidrón Neanderthals: Hardy et al. 2012, Naturwissenschaften 99:617. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-012-0942-0 ; the rival reading: Buck & Stringer 2014, Quaternary Science Reviews 96:161. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2013.09.003
Chimpanzee self-medication: Huffman 2003, Proceedings of the Nutrition Society 62:371. https://doi.org/10.1079/pns2003257 ; Huffman 2001, BioScience 51:651.
Death cap: Vo et al. 2017, MMWR 66:549. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6621a1.htm
US Army Survival Manual FM 21-76 (1992), chapter 9.
Cassava origin: Olsen & Schaal 1999, PNAS 96:5586. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.96.10.5586
Cassava processing and konzo: Nzwalo & Cliff 2011, PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases 5:e1051. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0001051
The one-night shortcut: Banea, Poulter & Rosling 1992, Food and Nutrition Bulletin 14(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/156482659201400201
Bitter cassava preferred: Wilson & Dufour 2002, Economic Botany 56:49.
Miwok acorns: National Park Service, Yosemite. https://www.nps.gov/yose/learn/historyculture/tools-and-trade.htm
Andean clay: Johns 1986, Journal of Chemical Ecology 12:635. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01012098 ; NPR/KCUR 2017 (Bernabé Cobo’s “as if it were mustard”).
Sweet almonds: Sánchez-Pérez et al. 2019, Science 364:1095. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aav8197 ; NPR 2019 (about fifty wild almonds).
Forager children: Lew-Levy et al. 2017, Human Nature 28:367. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-017-9302-2 ; Aka: Hewlett et al. 2011, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 366:1168. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2010.0373
Burke and Wills: State Library Victoria. https://blogs.slv.vic.gov.au/such-was-life/australias-first-state-funeral/ ; Wills’s journal, June 1861. https://www.burkeandwills.net.au/Journals/Wills_Journals/Wills_Journal_June_1861.htm
Nardoo and vitamin B1 (debated): Earl & McCleary 1994, Nature 368:683. https://doi.org/10.1038/368683a0 ; Handreck 1996, Australian Plants Online. https://anpsa.org.au/APOL2/jun96-14.html
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