Posted on 07/20/2010 10:18:54 AM PDT by Willie Green
Why do many food plants contain cyanide?
In murder mysteries, the detective usually diagnoses cyanide poisoning by the scent of bitter almonds wafting from the corpse. The detective knows what many of us might find surprising — that the deadly poison cyanide is naturally present in bitter almonds and many other plants used as food, including apples, peaches, apricots, lima beans, barley, sorghum, flaxseed and bamboo shoots.
There's a reason that cyanide exists in all these plants, and it is — to paraphrase Sherlock Holmes — evolutionary, suggests Kenneth M. Olsen, PhD, an assistant professor of biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.
Olsen, who studies white clover, cassava and other plants that produce cyanide, says the plants have an ingenious poison delivery system, one that evolution has designed to discourage herbivores from feasting on them.
Due to proper food processing techniques and strict regulations, cyanide-wielding plants pose little threat to the American food supply. But, in Africa, where cassava root has become a major part of subsistence diets, many poor people suffer from a chronic form of cyanide poisoning known as konzo.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.wustl.edu ...
Don’t know about all of them,but with peaches the poison is in the pit not the fruit...
That's why it's banned. They don't want us to make that mistake again.
http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/olivia-newton-john/please-mr-please-11899.html
“Please, Mr., please, don’t play B-17...”
Bump for later
Trees? I have barely enough room to grow zucchini!
Yabbut, zucchini will expand to fill the available acreage if you don't pick 'em quick! Trees grow up, then plant around/under them...I'd love to have a lot more room than I do, I'd have an orchard...at least what will grow here.
Willie, I take the train to work now. I forgive you.
I don’t ever want to hear that song again!
That’s what I thought
I saw Willie green and thought damn he’s back
Next it’ll be tpaine and okcsubmariner and mercuria and alouette and Veronica and OWK....sneakypete or Palo verde...
Some of those may have RIP....who knows
“Due to proper food processing techniques and strict regulations, cyanide-wielding plants pose little threat to the American food supply. “
I’ve been eating apples off of the tree not knowing they have snuck in and processed them unbeknownst to me. Thank you government.
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