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0 pointsgrumple4y ago0 comments

But you could probably devise a scheme by which you feed all of your students an assortment of berries and figure out which ones are safe based on which students get sick or die.

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5 comments · 1 top-level

derekp74y ago· 4 in thread

You are close. You first rub the berry on your skin (or leaf, or whatever). Wait 24 hours to see if a rash develops. Then you taste it, wait another 24 hours. Then you eat one, and see if you get sick after another 24 hours. Now you can eat several, and build up from there.

Yes, that is a lot of time to go hungry and testing just one item. And then you still don't know what actually gives you nutrition vs just not killing you (for example leaves that you can break down such as leaf lettuce, vs eating grass).

DebtDeflation4y ago

Alternatively, let the animals worry about all that and then just eat the animals.

whimsicalism4y ago

Assuming this is in the context of some apocalyptic event requiring you to do this, relying on animal husbandry seems obviously wrong. Plus you only get ~10% of the energy from the lower trophic level.

The prevalence of meat comes from a society of abundance.

zikduruqe4y ago

That is the Universal Edibility Test and gets repeated ad nauseam in all the survival circles. You would miss out on some fine choice foods if you did that. Stinging Nettles (Urtica dioica) is one of them. Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana) too.

Source - used to teach these skills before it was cool to be a "survivalist" on TV and social media.

BenjiWiebe4y ago

Yes I don't know how someone figured out that if you cook pokeweed and change the water multiple times then you can finally eat it without it killing you.

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