Dinosaur Food: 100M year old foods we still eat today (2022)
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Dinosaur Food: 100M year old foods we still eat today (2022)
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Re: Dinosaur Food: 100M year old foods we still eat today (2022)
#2If you don't restrict the list to living things, then salt and water are surely the oldest answers. :)
Re: Dinosaur Food: 100M year old foods we still eat today (2022)
#3Hands up who has ever eaten anything from that list!
Re: Dinosaur Food: 100M year old foods we still eat today (2022)
#4Hands up who has ever eaten anything from that list!
Water caltrop nuts are common in Taiwan, very nutty and good for meat soups.
Re: Dinosaur Food: 100M year old foods we still eat today (2022)
#5Seeing my neighbors gathering ginkgo nuts made me curious enough to try them, and I waded right in without understanding the risks! TLDR— they're not a great food source. It's yet another one of those cases where you have to wonder what "delicacy" means.
The actual fruit (looks like a rotten plum, smells terrible) has ginkgolic acids which cause contact dermatitis (think poison ivy).
Then the nuts themselves contain Ginkgotoxin, which interferes with your B6, screwing up your nervous system and causing seizures. Cooking reduces but does not eliminate Ginkgotoxin.
I only ate one, and ate it raw. It was a delightful texture, but tasted like chewing random plant matter. Like leaves from a tree. Was maybe half a cubic centimeter of matter. Escaped any ill effects.
According to my research, kids can have seizures from as few as 10 nuts, which would probably be like 1.5 spoonfuls if you mashed them up. The guidelines I found don't seem very scientific but supposedly a kid can safely handle 3-5 nuts over the course of a day, and an adult could handle 5-10. So it doesn't seem like there is a good margin of safety.
Overall a real risk to health for an insignificant amount of food that doesn't taste special. But a nice texture.
Re: Dinosaur Food: 100M year old foods we still eat today (2022)
#6Hands up who has ever eaten anything from that list!
Lotus root is pretty common in Chinese and Japanese cuisine. I've had it pickled and in a Sichuan dry pot. It's crunchy and takes on flavors pretty well.
Re: Dinosaur Food: 100M year old foods we still eat today (2022)
#7People eat Horseshoe Crabs? No way, but their precious blood give me
Re: Dinosaur Food: 100M year old foods we still eat today (2022)
#8Hands up who has ever eaten anything from that list!
Lotus root is pretty common. A crunchy tuber that keeps its texture after cooking, bland taste, unique visual appeal. I threw some in the last pot of bean chili my family made, and the kids liked it.
Re: Dinosaur Food: 100M year old foods we still eat today (2022)
#9Hands up who has ever eaten anything from that list!
Lotus root is pretty common in Chinese and Japanese cuisine. I've had it pickled and in a Sichuan dry pot. It's crunchy and takes on flavors pretty well.
We use it in cuisines from India, particularly from Tamil nadu, as well. Lotus root, seeds, the petals, pretty much all.
Re: Dinosaur Food: 100M year old foods we still eat today (2022)
#10"We still eat today" vs. "Someone consumed this today" is disingenuous at best.