Everything we currently eat or are able to eat was established by the deaths of millions of people who helped us to figure out what not to eat. And we’re dumb animals, so often it would take several deaths or unfortunate circumstances before we figured out what was bad for us.
It’s kind of like OSHA rules and regulations … it’s all written in blood and death.
They used children and dogs for sure
When I was a kid we found some berries in a field, but we didn’t know if they were safe to eat. So we asked our parents, they didn’t know either, they told us to ask our great-grandmother since she was super old she might know what the berries were.
So we took the berries to grandma and she looked at them for a second and then immediately ate the all of them.
“So… they’re safe to eat?”
“Come back tomorrow, if I’m still alive they are safe to eat”
She reasoned that she was old and if the berries killed her it wouldn’t be a big deal. But if one of us kids died it would be a huge tragedy.
So from that experience, I’m guessing it wasn’t children that tested if things were safe to eat it was probably the elderly.
Children at a certain age keep putting everything in their mouth and trying to eat it. It’s wonder any used to survive.
They mainly just observed what other animals ate…
What other animals eat ≠ safe for human. So still trail and error.
Sure, but it helps a lot. A lot of the chemicals in question attack aspects of physiology that many animals have in common, especially if you’re observing other mammals. You’d not be guaranteed safety, but you’d avoid most of the worst ones I’d reckon.
Do other animals eat psychedelics?
Yes. Brian from Family Guy had mushrooms one episode. Bojack Horseman did drugs to write his autobiography. Pretty sure Snoopy smokes weed, and Scooby Due is definitely second-hand high from Shaggy all the time
Supposedly reindeer will eat psychedelic mushrooms. Shamans would collect their urine and drink it to trip, i mean vision quest. The theory is the animal filters out the toxins but the psilocybin is just expelled.
Can you imagine this as a punishment or execution method? Like, you committed some terrible crime or were on the wrong end of a feud, and now you are forced to eat a mushroom, wait two or three days, then get force fed (or even unknowingly fed!) the next one. Then you have some shalman/stone-age-food-scientist recording what happens.
Imagine the first person to make bread. Do you know how much shit has to go right in the perfect amounts and time for it to work?
Think about stages to the process. Crush grain and mix with water to be easier to eat. Put paste on rock near fire to cook (flat bread). Leave paste sit for a while and wild yeast do their thing.
I’m pretty sure that last one explains why they kept coming back to them.
This is not quite true because “dose makes the poison”. Foragers would have protocols to evaluate just by dosing. You can safely lick most berries and mushrooms and use that as a strong identifier.
1 God Shroom Please!
You never question animals knowing what they can eat, but I guess they don’t have as diverse a diet as people.
