Eva Hedin wrote:

>All plants have some, if very little poison. All plants that had no poison
>at all were eaten to extinction hundreds of thousands of generations back.
>The plants that survived this evolutionary race are those that protected
>their seeds/grains against being eaten.
>
I always learned that certain plants have adapted to being eaten on
purpose. Fruits contain seeds that are meant to be distributed after
passing some animals intestines.  Some only develop well after falling
on the ground and others seem to need that journey in the dark..
Could it be that the toxicity is to discourage certain TYPE of animals
and lure others to eat the plant?  Dung of one sort of animal might
agree with specific plants' needs and be compatible that way?  The
animal might roam for instance an area where the plant would like to be
seeded.  So it seems logical to reason it would grow into a form of
cooperation.
Same way primates can eat leaves we could not get away with.
It seems that nature is far more detailed that any of us in a society
formed by Victorianism were taught at school. Same we I truely believe
that ancestry has a lot to do with tolerance towards what we eat now.
 New world foods, the slightly smaller intestines of the Japanese, it
makes sense to mutually adapt to the environment.  Unfortunately there
is no way of adapting to McD and Pepsi so the world is in more trouble
then they know.  So many around me are edgy, crancky, moody, sulky just
from eating all that s**t.
Even small amounts of grains (or foodcoloring and preservatives) can
cause all these effects and I think it's a residue from the time we
could smell a plant of have a small taste to see if it's compatible.
Eating only two or three components per meal has helped me to discover
what feels right to eat of not.  When you eat one food at the time you
taste it when it becomes too much and your body doesn't seem to need
whatever it contains anymore. From yummy it goes too: this is enough.
Plants spread chemicals to warn eachother, like those trees in the
desert that are grazed by antilope. The first couple of branches are ok
but by then the first tree has warned the others and they begin to sweat
bitter fluid in their leaves and the antilope have to stop eating
Yes, very logical in a climate where you need your leaves to survive the
heath.  Same way you could smell and taste appealing to an animal to get
it to eat your fruits and multiply yourself.
Certain types or traces of poison might be very attractive to certain
animals. Has anyone ever done research on plantchemicals that seem toxic
but help perhaps animals digestion?  Or attractiveness to the opposite
sex or............, the list could go on and on.
For me as a Paleoeater it clearly meant that the cleaner my body got,
the easier it became to tell what was right to eat or not.  I always had
a good sense of smell but at this point I might consider a career as
snifferdog at the airport ;-)

Christy