How did people learn to cook poisonous plants?

In 1860, Robert Burke and William Wills set off from Melbourne in the south of Australia to Carpentaria Bridge. Their aim was to explore the inner parts of Australia, where there was little known about it.
But the discovery did not go as planned. Burke, Wills and the Irish soldier John King, who joined them, had run out of food on the way back.

They were trapped near a stream. "We couldn't leave the creek, both of our camels were dead, we ran out of food. We are trying to survive," Wills wrote.

The aboriginal Yandruwandha tribe living in this region could survive despite all the negative conditions.

The tribe members gave the explorers the bread they made by crushing the seeds of a four-leaf clover-like fern called "nardoo" (Marsilea drummodii).

Burke attacked the aborigines, shot his gun and scared them away. His two friends thought he had learned the skills needed to survive.

They found these seeds and tried to make their own bread. Initially everything seemed normal. They were full. But after a while fatigue began. A week later, Wills and Burke were dead.

The seeds had to undergo some processing to make them eatable. Because an enzyme called ti thiaminase ği contained in the plant showed poison effect in the human body, breaking down the B1 vitamins in the body made the absorption of nutrients impossible.

In other words, the explorers' bellies were saturated, but they did not get any food.

The Yandruwandha tribe cooked the seeds, crushed them into flour and contaminated the dough with ashes and neutralized the enzyme's poison. All of this was not coincidental.

King, who lost his friends and took refuge in the standing tribe, survived and survived months later with the help of the Europeans.

Cassava root
Nardoo up another toxic plant plant is the cassava root. This plant is an important source of calories in Africa and Latin America .

Bitter cassava contains hydrogen cyanide. Toxic if not processed and cooked well; damage to organs such as liver and brain, paralysis of the legs.

But Hans Rosling, a young Swedish doctor in Mozambique in 1981, did not have this information.

Many patients came to the clinic with complaints of paralysis of the legs. However, the symptoms were neither polio nor other diseases in the medical books.

Even the question of whether a chemical weapon was used in Mozambique, which lived in a civil war, was raised.

Dr. Rosling moved his family to a safe area and continued his research.

Epidemic friend Julie Cliff was finally able to explain what was going on. All of the patients had consumed foods containing bitter cassava root which had not been fully processed.

These hunger people had eaten the cassava root without waiting for the process to end and became paralyzed as a result. It's called Konzo's.

Trial and error

We're surrounded by poisonous plants. Some of these can only be made by cooking, while some can be made to be eaten by long and complicated processes.

So how did people learn how to defeat plants like cassava root or nardoo?

Evolutionary biologist Joseph Henrich emphasizes that this is not something that one person learns, but that knowledge is cultural. Our cultures progress through trial and error processes that run parallel to the evolution of biological species. Just like biological evolution, cultural evolution yields highly developed results over time.

One by chance discovers a method that reduces the poison of cassava root. This spreads gradually and then something new is discovered. Over time, complex processes are developed, each one more effective than the previous.

In Latin America, tribes that have eaten cassava root for thousands of years have learned to develop various methods to remove the venom of this plant: peel, grate, wash, boil, and cook the pulp for two days and then cook on fire.

If you ask why they do this, they don't talk about hydrogen cyanide; "Our culture is like this," they probably say.

Cassava root did not come to Africa when it came to the 17th century, with instructions for use. Cyanide poisoning is still a problem. People are skipping some operations to take a shortcut; because the cultural learning process is still not complete.

Cultural evolution
According to Henrich, cultural evolution follows a much smarter path than individual people.

Regardless of whether the inhabitants of the cold regions discover Eskimo homes, antelope hunting, burning fire, hunting poison ducks with straws, or defeating the cassava root, learning is based on imitation, not understanding.

People do better by learning from their previous experiences and drawing conclusions.

The most instinctive imitation is the human being.

Research shows that the mental capacity of a two-and-a-half-year-old child and chimpanzee is similar, but that human beings are much more advanced in terms of imitation.

The basis of civilization
According to Henrich, human civilization lies at the heart of human learning rather than pure intelligence.

Throughout the generations, our ancestors have accumulated useful information through trial and error, and subsequent generations have imitated them.

Of course, those who are less useful are also involved: rain dancing or sacrificing to prevent volcano eruption.

In general, however, man has been more successful by imitating without questioning than by assuming.

Cultural evolution, of course, can only advance us to some extent. Today we can explain that it is necessary to wait for two days to make the cassava root edible with the scientific method and the victim does not work.

When we understand the basic principles, the improvement is much faster than trial and error and imitation. But the discovery in Australia should not underestimate the collective intelligence that has allowed King to survive.

It was this collective intelligence that made civilization and a working economy possible.

Posted using Partiko Android