There´s reocurring joke that 6 guys died trying to find when to eat a venomous fish that needs 7 days to cook, In Brazil ppl eat mandioca leaves, also 7 days, how the hell folk back then decided they needed to eat that and how they came to the number of DAYS needed to cook that thing clearly unfit for human consumption?
In: 5
In most cases, these things work on a sliding scale. Cooking something for a short amount of time will destroy some of the toxins, and cooking it for longer will destroy all of them. So the joke is (shockingly) not scientifically accurate in the sense that it implies that the fish is fine if cooked for 7 days but incredibly deadly if cooked for 6. The people who ate it too early would maybe get sick but not necessarily die. It then doesn’t take much genius to think that maybe they should cook it for longer next time.
And for what it’s worth, I’m skeptical of these extremely long cook times. Most common ways of processing mandioca/cassava take a day or two, if that, and these are much gentler than just boiling it.
In general it is not like a certain amount of toxins will kill you stone dead while just a slightly lesser amount will have no effect. A toxin will have some sort of effect in small amounts. The more you eat the more effect it will have. And if you eat enough the effects it will have on you may end up killing you eventually.
So it is usually pretty safe to have a small taste of something that might be poisonous and then wait for any effects. If there are no effect then you can have a bigger taste. If there are some small effects, then you may try to boil it for some time and taste again. What is amazing is that someone was patient enough to do this for seven days before eating. It is quite likely that they were very hungry people.
ELICaveMan:
Ugg put meat on fire. Ugg wait short bit. Ugg eat meat. Ugg die!
Ugg brother Ogg put more meat on fire. Ogg wait longer bit. Ogg eat meat. Ogg finds meat tasty! Ogg lives!
Now all Ogg Tribe wait longer bit before eat meat!
Latest Answers