Healthy Foods? (Plant Wars, Chapter 3)

Introduction, Chapter One, Chapter Two

As every day, Andrea prepared one of her beloved green smoothies. Lots of fresh spinach, an orange, half a banana, hemp seeds, coconut water and some ice all went into a blender together. The result was a drink of health, energy, and youth.

Andrea sipped on her smoothie while planning her day. She’d need to go to work soon but later in the day, she’d have her yoga class. She was looking forward to it because for two weeks now, she was doing a cleanse. Aside from the green smoothies, she was barely eating anything else. It was supposed to make her energy flow better and thus help her with the yoga poses.

An excruciating pain rushed through Andrea’s body, just as she was about to leave the house. With a scream, she fell to the floor. What was that? She hadn’t felt a pain like that in her life! Barely holding it together, Andrea fumbled for her phone and called an ambulance.

The kidney stones that were revealed by an ultrasound in the hospital were enormous. Andrea’s Doctor suspected the oxalic acid contained in the spinach used for the smoothies as a cause. But he had never seen it do so much damage.

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”What do you mean with my liver is failing?? I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol in my life and rarely took any pain medication! How can my liver be so damaged that it is failing?”

”I’m sorry, Mr. Rupert”, the Doctor said. ”We found great concentrations of coumarin in your system.”

”Coumarin? What is that supposed to be?” Asked Mr. Rupert angrily.

”It’s a chemical produced by plants which have a hepatotoxic – that means toxic for the liver – effect. Did you, by any chance, consume large amounts of cinnamon?”

”Cinnamon? Of course! It is one of my favorite spices, I even have it on my latte each morning. Why?”

The Doctor sighed.

”One species of cinnamon, the cassia cinnamon, is one of the main sources of the coumarin we humans consume. I’m afraid that you’ve accumulated a toxic dose of it over the years. All that can save you now is a liver transplant, but I’m not sure if that will be enough.”

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”Mommy, can we have some chocolate? Pleeeeeease?”

Claire frowned. ”You can’t just eat so many sweets all the time. That is incredibly unhealthy. But you can have some cashew nuts if you want.”

For a moment, her son looked displeased, but then seemed to decide that cashew nuts were better than nothing.

”Okay, mommy.”

Claire got up and took a can of cashew nuts out of the kitchen cupboard. She poured a handful of them into a bowl to give to her son. As she handed him the cashews, she took one out for herself and put it in her mouth.

A terrible burning sensation spread in her mouth and on her fingers immediately. With a choked scream, she spit the cashew nut to the floor, but it was already too late. Acid burned her mouth. All she could do was to rip the bowl of cashews out of her son’s hand and call for an ambulance.

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What is the difference between rich people and poor people? One difference is the amount of damage they do to the world. Another one the kind of food they eat.

This was the conclusion The Great Consciousness had reached when it had pondered the possibilities to attack a specific part of the population.

Green smoothies, cinnamon, exotic nuts. These were just some of the foods primarily consumed by people with a higher social and thus financial standing.

After tweaking the amounts of oxalic acid and coumarin, the human body couldn’t counteract the negative effects of spinach and cassia cinnamon anymore. For the cashews, it had been a bit more difficult. The acidly liquid usually didn’t pose any danger after deshelling the cashews. It had to be moved inside the nut itself to become that dangerous for the consumer.

But the efforts had proven successful. More and more people in the so called “first world countries” died, simply because they ate plants. And they didn’t see the pattern yet.

Soon, humanity would pose less of a threat to nature.

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Sources:

Cashew nut workers suffer 'appalling' conditions as global slump dents profits
Effect of dietary oxalate and calcium on urinary oxalate and risk of formation of calcium oxalate kidney stones
Cassia cinnamon as a source of coumarin
Toxicology and risk assessment of coumarin

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