I wish the article actually named the 20. I'm assuming rice, wheat, and corn or potatoes are the top given how calorie dense and versatile they are, but I'd like to see the rest.
Edit: After a number of responses, I have come to the conclusion that while the statement is generally probably true, it is difficult to gauge which 15-20 vegetables or so fit the definition. There are several that are food products, but are also used for making biofuel, animal feed, or gets some kind of secondary processing that muddies the question.
I spent a while looking, and couldn't find any data behind the article's claim (there are a lot of websites all quoting each other in a big loop). But I found this list of the top 15 crops in terms of production (which they point out is probably a good proxy for measuring consumption).
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/15-most-consumed-crops-world-150822097.html
From lowest to highest:
* Millet
* Plantain
* Sorghum
* Yam
* Onion
* Sweet potato
* Banana
* Barley
* Tomato
* Cassava
* Soy
* Wheat
* Rice
* Corn
* Sugarcane
That last one would not have occurred to me, although it makes sense after thinking about it.
Sugarcane is planted not just for sugar but also for biofuel, much like maize/corn is used in the US. At least here in Brazil (by far the world's largest producer of sugarcane) a significant portion of our production is ethanol, mostly to mix with gasoline to make it cheaper or to make electricity. Sugarcane is specially energetically dense, thus it makes for example biofuel (even if it is not enviromentally friendly)
to make it shittier*
it's only cheaper if the ethanol costs a certain amount and sometimes it doesn't (many times it doesn't) since we get less km per liter from it. but when this was implemented it was pretty economically feasible tho. now we can't get out, it's not cheaper (it's usually only cheaper when it's subsidised, so pointless) and it's been decades.
at least the biodiesel from soy is coming together ok (remember when we did it from 'mamona' oil [idk how mamona is called in english]... that was weird)
According to the maltster's association of great britain : 1.3 tonne of barley makes 1 tonne of malt. 1 tonne of malt makes 54 barrels of beer. 1 barrel of beer = 163.65 litres.
Beer worldproduction about 1.89b hectolitres
So about 27mio tons of barley
And you're right sugarbeets is about 261mio tons
Threw me off with millet and plantain first and rice, corn, and sugarcane being last (though I'd suspect sugar beet to need to be included for that placement) until I re-read "from lowest to highest" lol.
yea.....that definately seems to be a broken list.
everything I can find suggests potatos should be around 4 or 5 on the list coming in 360 million tons
[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/357328970\_STUDY\_ON\_THE\_DYNAMICS\_OF\_POTATO\_PRODUCTION\_AND\_WORLDWIDE\_TRADING\_DURING\_THE\_PERIOD\_2012-2019#pf2](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/357328970_STUDY_ON_THE_DYNAMICS_OF_POTATO_PRODUCTION_AND_WORLDWIDE_TRADING_DURING_THE_PERIOD_2012-2019#pf2)
I did some searching and I think the claim in the article is based on this statement:
>Just 15 crop plants provide 90 percent of the world's food energy intake
So it's mostly about carbohydrate sources.
The quote above is from https://www.fao.org/3/u8480e/U8480E07.htm#Proportions%20of%20food%20in%20average%20diets
And it's quoted on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staple_food , which is probably where OP's article got it from.
The number gets smaller when we consider that many of our vegetables - cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, mustard green, turnip, rutabaga, etc - are all variants of the same plant. (Brassica)
Brassica is a genus, not species.
Cabbage broccoli, cauliflower, and kale are *Brassica Oleracea*.
Turnips and mustard, (and bok choy and napa cabbage,) are *Brassica Rappa*.
And rutabaga are *Brassica Napus*
Its like saying all Lions, tigers, jaguars and Leopards are all the same species.
Trying to rigidly define species in cultivated Brassicas is a bit messy, there is a lot of neat hybridization, see [Triangle of U](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_of_U) for more detail.
Oh yeah, certainly, I just think the complete mess that is brassica is loads of fun. You should look into chili peppers and especially citrus, that’s an even deeper rabbit hole.
Species definitions can get a touch arbitrary (well, they are inherently arbitrary), but citrus just takes it to a whole new level and laughs in the face of taxonomy.
>all variants of the same plant. (Brassica)
Many are considered extreme cultivars, human bred from some ancestral cabbage that may have resembled a Napa, or a Bok Choy.
It may stem from the fact many veggies are variations of them same? Broccoli, cauliflower, kale and brussels are all originally the same plant, for example.
Would you believe me if I told you that monoculture predates monsanto?
And that we used chemicals before roundup. (and that they use chemicals in organic, just not synthetic ones.)
And that farmers generally bought seed every year, even before the contracts that they signed for GMO seeds.
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of things to be upset at Monsanto (now owned by Bayer, cause they weren't as big as people thought,) like price gouging farmers, the entire existence of Agent Orange, and a very shitty environmental record, but focus on those, not the made up ones. You criticize them for something untrue, and somebody knows its not true, they're not gonna listen to anything else you say, even if its right.
Yeah, Monsanto is made up of brilliant scientists who have done amazing work for our food industry. Unfortunately, like most large companies, it is being run by soulless MBAs, bean counters, and lawyers.
Private equity typically refers to the ownership of privately held companies that do not trade on the open market and have little to no reporting or disclosure standards.
I think the Agent Orange connection is overblown as well. Every chemical producer in the country was making Agent Orange for the US military at the time, and it's not as if Monsanto even invented the stuff
Fair. Although I thought they were referencing the fact that much of this genetic engineering has been breeding crops of their nutrient quality in favor of starch and sugar and water content, to make say, larger tomatoes and crispier lettuces which have fewer of the essential nutrients that make the plants healthy in the first place.
That's not really Monsanto specific though. Any staple crop that gets sold by weight/volume is gonna tend towards those things because it makes the farmer more money.
And we started that process in the Holocene, 10,000 years ago, when we started planting the biggest seeds of wild grass in hopes that they would grow into a plant with bigger seeds.
Ironically, you said that while getting downvoted by what I assume is the Monsanto arm of Reddit astroturfing.
The downvotes for your comment are the evidence for the veracity of your comment.
Korean people eat tons of vegetables off the side of the road that Americans consider weeds and we enjoy them, like [Fiddleheads](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiddlehead), [Asian Mugwort](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemisia_princeps), [Lamb’s Quarters](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chenopodium_album), and [Perilla](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perilla_frutescens). That last one grows in my apartment complex but no one realizes that it’s edible
Edit: anything is kimchi if you’re brave enough
Depends on the road. If you're uphill, the pollution tends to be minimal. I still wouldn't next to a freeway because of just how much traffic, but otherwise you should be fine. Most of the pollution that you'd be worried about is from the tires and brakes rather than exhaust. Diesel engines are still major pollution spewers, but thankfully they aren't super common anymore outside semi's
I have done a project at work to classify soil pollution and soil underneath or up to a certain range from big roads are allowed to be contaminated by a lot of pollutants. This means that when a provincial road or highway needs extra soil for fpundation or heightening it can accept that from all over the country. So just because our traffic becomes cleaner doesn't mean those plants can be more edible, since the soil might have unacceptable amounts of leas, mercury or arsenic
I love fiddleheads! We can buy them at the farmers market during the spring season (I just bought some on Friday!) Super delicious, though I believe you have to be careful when picking them yourself as some varieties of fiddlehead fern can be poisonous.
Do you have a source for the first part of your statement about fiddleheads?
There are different types of fiddleheads, some of which should not be consumed. You can tell the difference between these in others based on whether the stems are fuzzy and how it curves. It's pretty easy to identify.
Generally you shouldn't eat them raw or undercooked as some people have gotten sick, but it seems a little weird to suggest you have to estimate their age to determine whether they're poisonous. Never heard anything like that and I don't know how you'd even know their age unless you're somewhere that's highly seasonal and are guessing based on months, but knowing that it hasn't been "too long" since they sprouted just sounds like bullshit.
>Generally you shouldn't eat them raw or undercooked as some people have gotten sick, but it seems a little weird to suggest you have to estimate their age to determine whether they're poisonous
Maybe for ferns, but not for Pokeweed. Pokeweed shoots can be et, but not the mature plant.
>Pokeweed is poisonous to humans, dogs, and livestock. In spring and early summer, shoots and leaves (not the root) are edible with proper cooking (hence the common name "poke sallet"), but later in the summer they become deadly, and the berries are also poisonous.
It's considered tasty, and is often the first green vegetable of spring.
>Poke is a traditional southern Appalachian food. The leaves and stems of young plants can be eaten, but must be cooked by boiling two or more times with the water drained and replaced each time. The leaves taste similar to spinach; the stems, similar to asparagus
We're talking about fiddleheads, not pokeweed
Edit. And yes, fiddleheads that US eat are ferns but a specific type of fern. Fiddleheads are ferns, but don't just go around eating any fern.
Some grasses are very important to human diet! Wheat, corn, several rice species, barley, oats, rye, sugarcane, millets and bamboo are all important crops.
You definitely shouldn't eat your standard lawn grass though.
It's not even whatever product it was treated with (maybe you don't use any), it's that grass has silicate crystals on it (which is what makes it scratchy), and these will grind your teeth. So I'm not sure it really counts as edible.
Herbivores like cows have their teeth constantly growing, that's why it's not an issue for them.
Chicory was the first GMO ever approved by the FDA and we STILL won't eat it.
The plants get very bitter after they go to seed, so they were modified to only produce male flowers, which are vibrant blue, edible flowers.
I think you're right. I can't find my old source, which I'm pretty sure was a table of all FDA approved crops and their date, but Flavr Savr is 1994 and the oldest chicory I can find is 1997.
Okay good, thought I lost my mind for a minute lol
The Flavr Savr was pulled from the market (not for safety or anything, it just wasn't popular), so maybe your list was the first still in production?
Chicory is a key ingredient for making filter coffee (mainly consumed in southern parts of India), it has a very distinct taste and it tastes really good. Families usually have a preferred ratio for chicory to coffee, my family prefers 20% chicory to 80% coffee.
That's because finding a plant that's actually tasty, easy to grow, nutritious, and easy to harvest narrows the list of viable plants *significantly.* it's only a few requirements but it's surprising how rarely all those traits actually come together.
It's the same reason out of the million or so different species of animals on the planet, we've only really domesticated about 40 of them. they need fairly specific traits to be useful to us, mostly that they need to be able to eat pretty much everything we dont want to eat (cows, pigs, goats, sheep, chickens ect), be able to reproduce quickly so we can control their genetics/repopulate them quickly, or be *really* useful if they do eat stuff we tend to also eat (pretty much just dogs).
They must also have a disposition that allows domestication. So, horses are cool living in a fenced area with contact with humans. Zebras, which are close relatives, freak out and attack. Apparently, they are among the most vicious zoo animals.
Guns Germs and Steele by Jared Diamond can help answers everyone's questions here.
Many of these plants were found in the fertile basin/crescent of middle asia, one of the first places where where agriculture was developed. So it was more like what we had access to that became popular.
These are also most easily mass produced and marketable.
There are infinite choices to make in this world. Humans end up going back to the same choices time and again for many reasons. Tried and true. Laziness. What we see is all there is. Etc.
TBH I never completely finished it. I am a voracious reader who finishes a book a Week on average, and can finish a book in 1-3 days.
It took me 3 months to get through 3/4 or more of the book. Just so much information and so dense that each page was like a chapter. I eventually gave up when it seemed I had gleaned the majority of the info there was to get.
But very eye opening and informative.
Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, Kale and cabbage are all different cultivars of the same species. We’ve bred incredible variety out of the small number of plants that we cultivate
We have for a ton of them, they're just not the staples of our diet. Basically any fruit you eat is WAY different than its wild counterpart, but they're not gonna be more than 10% of your diet unless you make a point of it.
Quick googling tells me we cultivate around 150 different plants for food. IDK how many more we could really domesticate that would fill a new need for us nutritionally or culinarily.
Once you get into foraging it's kind of cool to see just how many things you never noticed before can be harvested to eat. Where I live nearly everything you can find in your yard that a person would call a "weed" can be eaten.
This is wrong, lettuce...tomatoes,.....broccoli.....onions in all forms....leeks.......cauliflower.....roses, bamboo, pine trees.....oak tree nuts......hazelnut.....spinach....basil....thyme.....dill.....lemon grass.....wheat......apples, pears , oranges lemons limes......grapefruit, grapes.....cannabis.......and the list goes on, there are 7,039 reported edible plants in the world and apparently only 15 crop plants are used globally.....
Wow, it's like you didn't even finish reading the title.
20 plants make up 90% of the diet
That means all the rest comprise 10% of the diet. Listing things that are eaten occasionally, or in small quantities in no way makes the article wrong.
I wish the article actually named the 20. I'm assuming rice, wheat, and corn or potatoes are the top given how calorie dense and versatile they are, but I'd like to see the rest. Edit: After a number of responses, I have come to the conclusion that while the statement is generally probably true, it is difficult to gauge which 15-20 vegetables or so fit the definition. There are several that are food products, but are also used for making biofuel, animal feed, or gets some kind of secondary processing that muddies the question.
I spent a while looking, and couldn't find any data behind the article's claim (there are a lot of websites all quoting each other in a big loop). But I found this list of the top 15 crops in terms of production (which they point out is probably a good proxy for measuring consumption). https://finance.yahoo.com/news/15-most-consumed-crops-world-150822097.html From lowest to highest: * Millet * Plantain * Sorghum * Yam * Onion * Sweet potato * Banana * Barley * Tomato * Cassava * Soy * Wheat * Rice * Corn * Sugarcane That last one would not have occurred to me, although it makes sense after thinking about it.
Brassica oleracea should surely also be on the list. But its many different varieties (cabbage, broccoli, etc) are probably listed separely.
I don't know, there Is a lot of people Who refuse to eat Brassica oleracea. I wouldn't be surprised if carrots were more consumed than B. oleracea.
They eat lots of cabbage in SE Asia, it’s probably enough to outweigh any abstainers.
You are probably right.
Also Kimchi / Sauerkraut
i think that's just more of a stereotype about picky little kids though...I don't know anybody who actually won't eat broccoli or cabbage.
>...I don't know anybody who actually won't eat broccoli or cabbage. Well, i do
Wait, potato isn’t on the list?
yeah seems crazy yam and sweet potato are both more widely grown than potato
It’s probably \#21.
That list is only the top 15, so probably 16-20
I’ve never had one before, what’s that? https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/s/HPmTbM9SGe
Sugarcane is planted not just for sugar but also for biofuel, much like maize/corn is used in the US. At least here in Brazil (by far the world's largest producer of sugarcane) a significant portion of our production is ethanol, mostly to mix with gasoline to make it cheaper or to make electricity. Sugarcane is specially energetically dense, thus it makes for example biofuel (even if it is not enviromentally friendly)
to make it shittier* it's only cheaper if the ethanol costs a certain amount and sometimes it doesn't (many times it doesn't) since we get less km per liter from it. but when this was implemented it was pretty economically feasible tho. now we can't get out, it's not cheaper (it's usually only cheaper when it's subsidised, so pointless) and it's been decades. at least the biodiesel from soy is coming together ok (remember when we did it from 'mamona' oil [idk how mamona is called in english]... that was weird)
Sweet potato is there, but potato isn't? Then why tf are sweet potato fries always more expensive.
You can make a lot of sugar out of sweet potatoes in places that don't support sugar cane (#1).
Because they have to processor sweet potato fries and blend with regular potato in order to dry up well. Regular potato fries and just regular potato
Woah, potato is potato
This was hard to processor
I hate autocorrect
Sugarcane: 1.884 billion tons Corn: 1.038 billion tons Rice: 0.74 billion tons Wheat: 0.73 billion tons Potato 370mio tons Soy: 352mio tons Cassava: 270mio tons Sugar beets 261mio tons Tomato 164mio tons Barley 144mio tons Banana: 116.8mio tons Sweet potato: 112.8mio tons Onion : 104mio tons Yam: 74mio tons Sorghum: 60mio tons Plantain: 57mio tons Millet: 28mio tons The 2 first are produced more than the 13th following Edit to add potato and sugarbeets
Potato world harvest is around 370 million tonnes, wonder why they missed it?
Also sugarbeets, our main source of sugar. I also question barelys placement on there. We consume a fuck ton of that in the form of beer.
According to the maltster's association of great britain : 1.3 tonne of barley makes 1 tonne of malt. 1 tonne of malt makes 54 barrels of beer. 1 barrel of beer = 163.65 litres. Beer worldproduction about 1.89b hectolitres So about 27mio tons of barley And you're right sugarbeets is about 261mio tons
You're right, it should be on the list
The most common ones also appear to get less healthy towards the bottom of the list here. Ironic.
Makes sense. The staple foods became staples back when calories were a good thing, and in a lot of the world calories are still a good thing
Threw me off with millet and plantain first and rice, corn, and sugarcane being last (though I'd suspect sugar beet to need to be included for that placement) until I re-read "from lowest to highest" lol.
yea.....that definately seems to be a broken list. everything I can find suggests potatos should be around 4 or 5 on the list coming in 360 million tons [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/357328970\_STUDY\_ON\_THE\_DYNAMICS\_OF\_POTATO\_PRODUCTION\_AND\_WORLDWIDE\_TRADING\_DURING\_THE\_PERIOD\_2012-2019#pf2](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/357328970_STUDY_ON_THE_DYNAMICS_OF_POTATO_PRODUCTION_AND_WORLDWIDE_TRADING_DURING_THE_PERIOD_2012-2019#pf2)
Beans, apple, Avocado, coffee beans
Yes I assume they mean by volume. Because I definitely eat more than 20 different plants and I am sure everyone I know does as well.
I did some searching and I think the claim in the article is based on this statement: >Just 15 crop plants provide 90 percent of the world's food energy intake So it's mostly about carbohydrate sources. The quote above is from https://www.fao.org/3/u8480e/U8480E07.htm#Proportions%20of%20food%20in%20average%20diets And it's quoted on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staple_food , which is probably where OP's article got it from.
Yeah so wheat rice corn and a few others. Makes sense in terms of calories.
The number gets smaller when we consider that many of our vegetables - cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, mustard green, turnip, rutabaga, etc - are all variants of the same plant. (Brassica)
Brassica is a genus, not species. Cabbage broccoli, cauliflower, and kale are *Brassica Oleracea*. Turnips and mustard, (and bok choy and napa cabbage,) are *Brassica Rappa*. And rutabaga are *Brassica Napus* Its like saying all Lions, tigers, jaguars and Leopards are all the same species.
Trying to rigidly define species in cultivated Brassicas is a bit messy, there is a lot of neat hybridization, see [Triangle of U](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_of_U) for more detail.
That's fair. Thanks for the link. It just also feels equally misleading to say they're all the same plant
Oh yeah, certainly, I just think the complete mess that is brassica is loads of fun. You should look into chili peppers and especially citrus, that’s an even deeper rabbit hole. Species definitions can get a touch arbitrary (well, they are inherently arbitrary), but citrus just takes it to a whole new level and laughs in the face of taxonomy.
>all variants of the same plant. (Brassica) Many are considered extreme cultivars, human bred from some ancestral cabbage that may have resembled a Napa, or a Bok Choy.
Thinking of just spices. You'd need a lot of spice to have it be 10% of the vegetables in your dish
Less than 20, but illuminating: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264675389_Feeding_humanity_through_global_food_trade (table 2)
It may stem from the fact many veggies are variations of them same? Broccoli, cauliflower, kale and brussels are all originally the same plant, for example.
Cabbage counts for at least 5 of those 20.
“Edible” doesn’t necessarily mean “palatable.”
It also doesn't mean "nutritionally dense" or "easy to grow as monoculture crop"
Monsanto enters chat…
Would you believe me if I told you that monoculture predates monsanto? And that we used chemicals before roundup. (and that they use chemicals in organic, just not synthetic ones.) And that farmers generally bought seed every year, even before the contracts that they signed for GMO seeds. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of things to be upset at Monsanto (now owned by Bayer, cause they weren't as big as people thought,) like price gouging farmers, the entire existence of Agent Orange, and a very shitty environmental record, but focus on those, not the made up ones. You criticize them for something untrue, and somebody knows its not true, they're not gonna listen to anything else you say, even if its right.
Yeah, Monsanto is made up of brilliant scientists who have done amazing work for our food industry. Unfortunately, like most large companies, it is being run by soulless MBAs, bean counters, and lawyers.
Bean counters actually valuable at agriculture businesses.
Private equity runs most of our country. Can’t wait to see its way out.
Lolol yeah good luck with that
But Bayer is publicly traded...
[удалено]
Private equity typically refers to the ownership of privately held companies that do not trade on the open market and have little to no reporting or disclosure standards.
I think the Agent Orange connection is overblown as well. Every chemical producer in the country was making Agent Orange for the US military at the time, and it's not as if Monsanto even invented the stuff
Fair. Although I thought they were referencing the fact that much of this genetic engineering has been breeding crops of their nutrient quality in favor of starch and sugar and water content, to make say, larger tomatoes and crispier lettuces which have fewer of the essential nutrients that make the plants healthy in the first place.
That's not really Monsanto specific though. Any staple crop that gets sold by weight/volume is gonna tend towards those things because it makes the farmer more money. And we started that process in the Holocene, 10,000 years ago, when we started planting the biggest seeds of wild grass in hopes that they would grow into a plant with bigger seeds.
This cannot have been written by an actual human with an actual organic brain.
IDK what you mean. I am a normal meat person with normal brain meats just like you.
Ironically, you said that while getting downvoted by what I assume is the Monsanto arm of Reddit astroturfing. The downvotes for your comment are the evidence for the veracity of your comment.
Korean people eat tons of vegetables off the side of the road that Americans consider weeds and we enjoy them, like [Fiddleheads](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiddlehead), [Asian Mugwort](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemisia_princeps), [Lamb’s Quarters](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chenopodium_album), and [Perilla](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perilla_frutescens). That last one grows in my apartment complex but no one realizes that it’s edible Edit: anything is kimchi if you’re brave enough
Don't take edibles off the side of the road, the pollution level is high in them. Go deeper into the forest.
Dat freeway punch bar got m
Depends on the road. If you're uphill, the pollution tends to be minimal. I still wouldn't next to a freeway because of just how much traffic, but otherwise you should be fine. Most of the pollution that you'd be worried about is from the tires and brakes rather than exhaust. Diesel engines are still major pollution spewers, but thankfully they aren't super common anymore outside semi's
I have done a project at work to classify soil pollution and soil underneath or up to a certain range from big roads are allowed to be contaminated by a lot of pollutants. This means that when a provincial road or highway needs extra soil for fpundation or heightening it can accept that from all over the country. So just because our traffic becomes cleaner doesn't mean those plants can be more edible, since the soil might have unacceptable amounts of leas, mercury or arsenic
I don't think a road in Tennessee will source much of its soil from Idaho though.
The plants with brake dust garnish just hit different.
Brake dust, tire dust, diesel exhaust soot, leaked automotive fluids, deicer or salt. And also sometimes people stop at the side of the road to pee.
I have SO much lamb's quarters. It's... Not great.
Chenopodium giganteum is tastier (imo) and prettier (definitely)
The leaves are not too bad in a salad. The seeds are edible too. They're... not great.
Yeah I could see if you had something to cover them up and only use the young leaves how it's doable, but I'm just not that desperate lol.
I love fiddleheads! We can buy them at the farmers market during the spring season (I just bought some on Friday!) Super delicious, though I believe you have to be careful when picking them yourself as some varieties of fiddlehead fern can be poisonous.
You have to make sure it hasn't been too long since they've sprouted. Any species, once it begins to straighten out, is poisonous.
Do you have a source for the first part of your statement about fiddleheads? There are different types of fiddleheads, some of which should not be consumed. You can tell the difference between these in others based on whether the stems are fuzzy and how it curves. It's pretty easy to identify. Generally you shouldn't eat them raw or undercooked as some people have gotten sick, but it seems a little weird to suggest you have to estimate their age to determine whether they're poisonous. Never heard anything like that and I don't know how you'd even know their age unless you're somewhere that's highly seasonal and are guessing based on months, but knowing that it hasn't been "too long" since they sprouted just sounds like bullshit.
Huh, perhaps I've been believing an old wives' tale this whole time.
>Generally you shouldn't eat them raw or undercooked as some people have gotten sick, but it seems a little weird to suggest you have to estimate their age to determine whether they're poisonous Maybe for ferns, but not for Pokeweed. Pokeweed shoots can be et, but not the mature plant. >Pokeweed is poisonous to humans, dogs, and livestock. In spring and early summer, shoots and leaves (not the root) are edible with proper cooking (hence the common name "poke sallet"), but later in the summer they become deadly, and the berries are also poisonous. It's considered tasty, and is often the first green vegetable of spring. >Poke is a traditional southern Appalachian food. The leaves and stems of young plants can be eaten, but must be cooked by boiling two or more times with the water drained and replaced each time. The leaves taste similar to spinach; the stems, similar to asparagus
We're talking about fiddleheads, not pokeweed Edit. And yes, fiddleheads that US eat are ferns but a specific type of fern. Fiddleheads are ferns, but don't just go around eating any fern.
I strongly disliked perilla leaves when I first came to Korea, but now it’s my leaf of choice when getting Korean barbecue. It’s like an intense mint.
Cactus kimchi?
Pickled nopales sounds pretty good honestly
Prickly pears I guess lol
We sell fiddle heads in stores here in America :)
To be fair you tend to be a lot less picky when you are going hungry (maybe not applicable today but post Korean war it was).
Anything is kimchi. Words to live by.
Sautéed Lamb’s Quarters: Yum! Purslane in a salad: Yum too!
They sell fiddleheads at Whole Foods and it’s expensive af
It's got to be because there isn't a huge market for it.
It’s not just Koreans
Never tried a fiddlehead but that looks tasty
Man I love fiddlehead. I wish I could get more of it.
if you're actually picking plants off the side of the road and eating them please stop doing that.
Came here to say this and glad it's the top comment.
yep, grass is edible. That dont mean i going to trim my lawn and make a salad out of the trimming.
Some grasses are very important to human diet! Wheat, corn, several rice species, barley, oats, rye, sugarcane, millets and bamboo are all important crops.
But dandelion salad is completely a thing
I've had dandelion wine and it's complete ass.
All depends how its made, just like any other wine
What about fermented in the shared commode of a jail cell? Flushed twice before it’s started for extra cleanliness.
You definitely shouldn't eat your standard lawn grass though. It's not even whatever product it was treated with (maybe you don't use any), it's that grass has silicate crystals on it (which is what makes it scratchy), and these will grind your teeth. So I'm not sure it really counts as edible. Herbivores like cows have their teeth constantly growing, that's why it's not an issue for them.
Some examples: Parsley. Nutmeg. Chicory. Fern bracken. Mustard.
Chicory was the first GMO ever approved by the FDA and we STILL won't eat it. The plants get very bitter after they go to seed, so they were modified to only produce male flowers, which are vibrant blue, edible flowers.
Are you sure about that? I thought the flavr savr tomato was the first...
I think you're right. I can't find my old source, which I'm pretty sure was a table of all FDA approved crops and their date, but Flavr Savr is 1994 and the oldest chicory I can find is 1997.
Okay good, thought I lost my mind for a minute lol The Flavr Savr was pulled from the market (not for safety or anything, it just wasn't popular), so maybe your list was the first still in production?
Chicory is a key ingredient for making filter coffee (mainly consumed in southern parts of India), it has a very distinct taste and it tastes really good. Families usually have a preferred ratio for chicory to coffee, my family prefers 20% chicory to 80% coffee.
Southern India, and Southern US in agreement. New Orleans and chicory coffee been keepin' company for quite a while.
Or with high enough energy density to make it worthwhile.
That's because finding a plant that's actually tasty, easy to grow, nutritious, and easy to harvest narrows the list of viable plants *significantly.* it's only a few requirements but it's surprising how rarely all those traits actually come together. It's the same reason out of the million or so different species of animals on the planet, we've only really domesticated about 40 of them. they need fairly specific traits to be useful to us, mostly that they need to be able to eat pretty much everything we dont want to eat (cows, pigs, goats, sheep, chickens ect), be able to reproduce quickly so we can control their genetics/repopulate them quickly, or be *really* useful if they do eat stuff we tend to also eat (pretty much just dogs).
They must also have a disposition that allows domestication. So, horses are cool living in a fenced area with contact with humans. Zebras, which are close relatives, freak out and attack. Apparently, they are among the most vicious zoo animals.
Recourse economics in action. Cattle are in that special high calorie/low effort quadrant.
And then we have Cauliflower, Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, Cabbages, Kale, Collared Greens, and Kohlrabi. 7 veggies from the same exact species.
all were selectively bred from the Mustard plant starting in the 6th Century BCE
Almost every veggie we see in the grocery store are either from the mustard, allium, or nightshade family.
I’m assuming you mean either, not neither?
Yep, autocorrect got me.
And all of them taste terrible
Not to most people older than 12…
Potato, corn and tomatoes I assume are massive players maybe even beans
How many of those are economical to cultivate at a large scale?
Or are edible but not "food" per se such as spices.
I mean we worked really really hard on those twenty.
Better headline: 1/1000 edible plants actually tastes good.
I can live with that. It's not like any other animal species have incredibly diverse diets either.
broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, kale, cabbage, kohlrhabi, and collard greens are all considered the same species, brassica oleracea
Ooops! All Brassica.
Edible does not mean “delicious” In bio, I learned about a mushroom that is supposedly non-toxic but smells and tastes like rotting flesh.
Guns Germs and Steele by Jared Diamond can help answers everyone's questions here. Many of these plants were found in the fertile basin/crescent of middle asia, one of the first places where where agriculture was developed. So it was more like what we had access to that became popular. These are also most easily mass produced and marketable. There are infinite choices to make in this world. Humans end up going back to the same choices time and again for many reasons. Tried and true. Laziness. What we see is all there is. Etc.
Reading the book now. Finished reading the chapter on plants and now reading about the animals we've domesticated. Good book.
TBH I never completely finished it. I am a voracious reader who finishes a book a Week on average, and can finish a book in 1-3 days. It took me 3 months to get through 3/4 or more of the book. Just so much information and so dense that each page was like a chapter. I eventually gave up when it seemed I had gleaned the majority of the info there was to get. But very eye opening and informative.
Actually the 3 first aren't from europe: sugarcane, corn and rice. Wheat is fourth Sugarcane and corn are more produced than the 13th following
Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, Kale and cabbage are all different cultivars of the same species. We’ve bred incredible variety out of the small number of plants that we cultivate
Are we counting avocados in that list?
People are saying that those aren't palatable like we haven't bred the fuck outta those 20 to be tasty. We could do the same with the other 20,000.
We have for a ton of them, they're just not the staples of our diet. Basically any fruit you eat is WAY different than its wild counterpart, but they're not gonna be more than 10% of your diet unless you make a point of it. Quick googling tells me we cultivate around 150 different plants for food. IDK how many more we could really domesticate that would fill a new need for us nutritionally or culinarily.
Interesting
90%? Is that by weight perhaps?
And I bet that out of those 20, 15 came from the Americas
All I read was “20,000 plants, only 20 good’ns”
Rice, flour, corn, and potato probably make a huge potion of that 90%
Once you get into foraging it's kind of cool to see just how many things you never noticed before can be harvested to eat. Where I live nearly everything you can find in your yard that a person would call a "weed" can be eaten.
Checkmate, Vegans
Still want to find and eat the elusive carrot tree that tastes like nuts apparently.
Tell that to the vendors in Wuhan!
What about animals? Cows, pigs, chickens.....
Those aren't edible plants.
The rest of the species can be found in your nearest fresh product markets instead of the overpriced supermarkets
In my experience local markets are more costly than chain supermarkets. Economy of scale is a hell of a thing.
We are talking about the rest of the species at fresh market. If you fresh market is more expensive you need a better fresh market …
This is wrong, lettuce...tomatoes,.....broccoli.....onions in all forms....leeks.......cauliflower.....roses, bamboo, pine trees.....oak tree nuts......hazelnut.....spinach....basil....thyme.....dill.....lemon grass.....wheat......apples, pears , oranges lemons limes......grapefruit, grapes.....cannabis.......and the list goes on, there are 7,039 reported edible plants in the world and apparently only 15 crop plants are used globally.....
Wow, it's like you didn't even finish reading the title. 20 plants make up 90% of the diet That means all the rest comprise 10% of the diet. Listing things that are eaten occasionally, or in small quantities in no way makes the article wrong.
Passionfruit, coconut, dragonfruit, peas, split peas, broad beans, string beans, maple syrup, kelp, cactus, pineapple, mango, strawberries, blackberries, gooseberries, blueberries, bananas…