"Oz" wrote in message
...
Tim Tyler writes
In uk.rec.gardening Jim Webster wrote:
: "Tim Tyler" wrote in message
...

: Our taste buds do their best to warn us about many plant toxins.

: so you don't eat peppers?

I often go easy on many pungent fruit and vegetables.

I'm not sure what your point was - since the fruiting bodies of
many peppers are neither particularly pungent nor terribly toxic.

Jalapenos are most definitely highly 'pungent', but not toxic.

Red kidney beans (a tad undercooked) are not at all pungent, and very
toxic.

Taste, and bitterness, are a crude and fallible test for toxicity.
Much better to know what is and isn't particularly toxic.


Another survival strategy, followed by rats, for example, is to eat small
amounts of a wide variety of foodstuffs, rather than concentrate on large
amounts of one particular foodstuff. This is thought to reduce the risk of
ingesting a fatal dose of toxin.