Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • December 23, 2009 9:31 AM

" ...some of these volatiles that are released when a focal plant is damaged"

Are also usefull to humans. In India they store grain and other foodstuffs with the leaves of certain plants as these act as chemical "keep aways" to a variety of creatures including rodents.

Another "volatil" group usefull to man are the opiates. The actual harvesting process (make a small cut in the seed head) apparently increases opiate production.

Oh and some "organic" gardeners know that the likes of chives can keep the likes of carrort fly off of other crops just by being planted next to them.

Clive Robinson • December 24, 2009 2:55 AM

@ Roger,

"Another interesting corollary to this is that it is unlikely that many of our food plants have no defensive toxins at all. Thus overdoing any one plant is likely to have harmful effects no matter how much it is touted as a wonder food"

Most of them do actually have quite nasty poisons potatos and rhubarb being two prime examples.

In both cases the poison is found in the green parts of the plant. Thus if you are old enough your mother would have told you to not cook or eat green potatos. It is something most under 40's do not appear to know of which is rather worrying.

Another series of exampels are plants that "must be cooked" before they are edible the classic example are beans, most of which will give you an upset stomache if eaten under cooked. However red kidney beans (used in chilly con carne and other Mexican food) will kill you.

Likewise the "caster bean" has one of the most deadly toxins known which is ricin which was used to kill the disident Georgy Markoff. Swallowing just one raw bean will be leathal in the majority of people...

Then there are herbs and spices many are poisons but have medicinal properties in moderate amounts and taste nice in small amounts.

One such spice is "mace" which is the outer casing of the nutmeg. It is said to have similar effects to some recreational drugs.

One such herb is "wormwood" which gives the green colour to Absinth.

There are others such as "cleary sage" which is usually available as an essential oil.

Clive Robinson • December 26, 2009 8:00 PM

@ Peter E Retep,

"would you rather have an insect specific growth disruptor, external and easily washed off, or eat the the brown spot that triggers hudreds or thousands of new toxins profuced inside the whole plant, which you also ingest?"

Honest answer is it depends.

If the plant concerned had been in my ansesters food supply for many generations then I'd go for the brown spot.

If however the plant had not been part of my ancesters food supply then I'd treat it with caution any way (MSG and penuts being a couple of cases in point).

As for pesticides etc I'm not very happy about them or food adatives simply because the testing process is fairly easy to rig and has been in the past.

Also we have a bad track record on such things (think about hydrogenated vegtable oils, silicon oils used in food production, some orange colourings, oh and how about additives to chocolate supposedly ok for humans but will kill the family pet dog).

If however it was from a natural source (such as pyrethans) I would be a little less worried (However there are exceptions such as cyanide laden Koala food ;)

Then there is the issue of the "test group" we know that there are people who won't be poisoned by arsnic or die if they eat death cap fungi. Some south american natives quite happily injest certain plant extracts that make them high but would kill the average European.

As a broad example what about the Japanese intolerance to alcohol it was about 50% of the population just after WWII geting drunk on a single glass of beer or wine.

In Europeans however the level of intolerance is about 1 in 10,000 (depending on who's figures you belive).

Apparently we have bred it out of European genetic stock simply because your life expectancy less than 200 years ago was below breeding age if you had alcohol intolerance...

As for GM sorry I won't touch it for a simple reason. Man's oldest GM crop is wheat, and after several thousand years something like 1% of the population can be killed by eating various varieties of it...

Also I just don't trust the likes of a certain well known US GM entity that has a history of very very underhanded tricks with supplying seed that requires certain fertilizers etc.

Also the "pro" arguments put forward apear to be based on unproven or false arguments such as birth rate predictions in Asia and Africa and land fertility in those areas.

Then of course there is the "kill switch" gene that has provoked a "hold the world to ransom" "domesday senario" from some of the "anti" campaing which goes something like,

"Imagine the money to be made if you could find a GM variety that would be (semi) ok to eat for adults but effected their unborn children subtaly by effecting say their development into adults. But this could be treated in the effected population by them having to take a life long medication, which the GM company only patents at the appropriate time...

Silly and far fetched yes impossible who knows ;)

As I said I'd rather take my chances with plant toxins my grandfather and earlier ate on a regular basis, the chances are I've inherited a degree of immunity 8)