Everything we currently eat or are able to eat was established by the deaths of millions of people who helped us to figure out what not to eat. And we’re dumb animals, so often it would take several deaths or unfortunate circumstances before we figured out what was bad for us.
It’s kind of like OSHA rules and regulations … it’s all written in blood and death.
You could say the same our very DNA. Natural selection provided the guard rails that shaped evolution over the eons. And you know that was on the other side of those guard rails? Blood and death! :D
This is not quite true because “dose makes the poison”. Foragers would have protocols to evaluate just by dosing. You can safely lick most berries and mushrooms and use that as a strong identifier.
Hunger will make you eat all kinds of things.
They mainly just observed what other animals ate…
What other animals eat ≠ safe for human. So still trail and error.
Sure, but it helps a lot. A lot of the chemicals in question attack aspects of physiology that many animals have in common, especially if you’re observing other mammals. You’d not be guaranteed safety, but you’d avoid most of the worst ones I’d reckon.
Do other animals eat psychedelics?
Yes. Brian from Family Guy had mushrooms one episode. Bojack Horseman did drugs to write his autobiography. Pretty sure Snoopy smokes weed, and Scooby Due is definitely second-hand high from Shaggy all the time
Can you imagine this as a punishment or execution method? Like, you committed some terrible crime or were on the wrong end of a feud, and now you are forced to eat a mushroom, wait two or three days, then get force fed (or even unknowingly fed!) the next one. Then you have some shalman/stone-age-food-scientist recording what happens.
Imagine the first person to make bread. Do you know how much shit has to go right in the perfect amounts and time for it to work?
I’m pretty sure that last one explains why they kept coming back to them.
1 God Shroom Please!
