On 08/09/2020 11:13, Nick Maclaren wrote:

It's always worth being a little cautious, because wild forms of most
food plants have rather higher toxin levels than cultivated forms.

What evidence do you have that wild forms have higher levels of toxins
than cultivated forms? Does wild rhubarb have more oxalic acid than
cultivated forms? How are you defining "toxins"?

However, we need some toxins in our diet, which is why we use spices
in our food!

Now I really don't understand that. What "toxins" do we /need/ in our
diet? Maybe it's best to use the word "poisons" instead of "toxins"
(most definitions of toxin seem to end up eventually as being synonymous
with "poison"). So what level of "poison" would you deem acceptable?
Something like vitamin A, perhaps, which becomes poisonous in large
quantities? Any what has that do do with spices? I thought they were
there to add to the taste of bland food, or take away the taste of
unpleasant food - perhaps, for example, to mask the taste of meat which
has "gone off" a bit. Surely, though, we don't actively seek out that
sort of food to have in our diet?

But, if such a plant tastes bitter or acrid, reject it
and don't eat large quantities or every day. The same applies to a
great many cultivated plants, incidentally.

I have never liked a bitter taste in food or drink, even beer, even
though I used to drink lager, and also occasionally stout. I'm afraid I
have no time for these "designer" leaves which taste slightly bitter.
Give me a Romaine or Iceberg lettuce any day - you can keep your frisee!
It often seems to me that, like those who think the hotter chillies are
the better, even though you can't taste anything else in the dish, there
is a movement to make bitter things even more bitter. I once made the
mistake of trying Brew Dog's "Nanny State" when I was looking for a
low/non-alcoholic drink. To me, it was undrinkable. Mind you, there's no
accounting for taste. I tried Şalgam in a restaurant here last year - I
understand it is very popular in Turkey. Heaven knows why!

--

Jeff