How did people know what foods were edible and which ones weren’t?
In: Other
A lot of it was trial and error
There are some natural defenses we have against eating poisonous plants. A plant that tastes bad, causes itching and burning, or indigestion, diarrhea etc isn’t a good idea to eat.
But much of it was built up knowledge over time.
Krug ate that plant and got indigestion, but at least he didn’t eat the red berries that killed his Mom.
Human tribes became acclimatized to certain regions and tended to stay in those regions. For example living in a sub-tropical forest requires a completely different set of skills and knowledge than living in a Savannah.
Humans would rarely leave the kind of habitats that they were comfortable living in, only doing so if they absolutely had too because adapting to new conditions is extremely difficult.
The answer to the age old question to “Why didn’t the Inuit just go south where it was warmer” is because they adapted to living in those conditions. They honestly didn’t know how to survive down south, and that area was already populated by Native’s that would have killed them.
Once a tribe adapted to living in those conditions they would pass on those skills an knowledge to the following generations. Learning which plants were safe to eat was a key knowledge skill that would be passed onto your kids.
We kinda take it for granted today that we can eat basically anything at the super market. We’ve stopped teaching our kids these basic survival skills.
Latest Answers