A street snack that has baffled botanists • Hacker News Board

Re: A street snack that has baffled botanists

#181

Post by PhasmaFelis » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

simonh wrote: post #76

drubio wrote: post #39

This looks like a giant variety of 'Pachyrhizus erosus' or Jicama, which is also a street snack widely sold in Mexico. I'v never seen ones as large as the one in the article, but the watery texture and how it's condimented (lemon, sugar, salt, chili powder) is exactly like Jicama. Seems wikipedia has a reference to ones as large as 2 meters and 20 kg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachyrhizus_erosus so it may be like…

According to the article it’s not actually the root, that’s just a story the vendors tell, it’s the stem.

Well, that's the theory. They're still not certain it's actually agave.

Re: A street snack that has baffled botanists

#182

Post by PhasmaFelis » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

galangalalgol wrote: post #149

danwills wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hooray!! I totally love the way 'Brassica' vegetables provide such a vivid illustration of the amazing variety that some selection-pressure can yield on the development of essentially a single type of input organism. Makes you wonder what might happen when these types of selection-pressures start affecting humankind more!

Brassica and domesticated dogs diversified because of controlled breeding. Unless you get a bunch of totalitarian eugenicists with differing goals, I dont know how this could happen with people.

I could imagine it happening if interstellar colonization ever becomes a thing, maybe.

Re: A street snack that has baffled botanists

#183

Post by djur » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 5:56 PM UTC

goldenkey wrote: post #167

djur wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the wellness scammer who started the rumors about "yoga mat chemicals" successfully managed to pressure Subway to remove azodicarbonamide from their bread. I'm sure they replaced it with some other equally harmless dough conditioner.

I don't know much about the wellness scammer but that's a poor way to support your stance. Azodicarbonamide has been banned in quite a few countries. It's only listed as safe at 40 parts per million. It has possible carcinogenic products in the form of other carbazides. It doesn't have a large amount of research/testing on it. It is a known lung irritant and caused respiratory issues in factory workers who produce it…

I don't know why you thought that personal attacks were merited here, but the fact remains that Subway removed azodicarbonamide from their bread years ago, as did many other fast food chains.

https://www.eater.com/2016/8/8/12403338/subway-yoga-mat-chem...

Re: A street snack that has baffled botanists

#184

Post by girishso » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 6:00 PM UTC

dandelany wrote: post #105

girishso wrote: post #10

I have eaten it many times, vendors say it's a root. But the last time I ate it, it was little more fibrous and hard and I ate little more than the usual. For the next couple of days my tongue was itching and I had little difficulty speaking. Then I googled it and read somewhere that it's not edible. It's surprising experts don't know what the thing is given it's so commonly available.

Yikes. Your symptoms were likely caused by calcium oxalate raphides, little mineral needles present in raw agave (and several other plants). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphide

May be, but it surely scared the hell out of me.

Re: A street snack that has baffled botanists

#185

Post by citizenpaul » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 6:11 PM UTC

rsynnott wrote: post #150

wombatmobile wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, it's an unclassified botanical specimen. That's not really a "mystery". It's just an unclassified botanical specimen. This makes the product application of the root even less mysterious: "It was seasoned with salt, chili powder, and lime; my husband’s had sugar and lime. It was crunchy, juicy, and refreshing, but had no taste of its own."

It's _extremely_ weird that there is a commonly sold food, and no-one can figure out what it is. In particular, the vendors are unwilling to talk about it, and where pushed vaguely claim it's an agave, but the agave expert says it's not (of course, maybe he's wrong). The whole thing is fascinating. It's a low-stakes mystery, but a mystery all the same.

Based on the comment about

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphide in agave can be toxic. And the fact that it is only sold in paper thin strips. My guess is the vendors are aware that it is poison but in those parts of the world life is cheap and money is hard to come by. So they just ignore this and carry on selling it. Anyone asking might be there investigating the cause of some of their health issues.

Re: A street snack that has baffled botanists

#186

Post by mekoka » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 7:48 PM UTC

darkerside wrote: post #179

mekoka wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2010, after a long anatomical study, they performed DNA barcoding on a slice of the snack and found it to match that of agave’s by 89 percent [narrowed] down to Agave Sisalana. [...] Next, they chopped off its leaves and there it was: the fat, white, watery trunk familiar to millions of Indians from food carts. They ate a slice from it, and it was tasteless and crunchy just like Ram Kand. The findings were publish…

The source code for two applications might match 89% and yield completely different results

I'm not sure that I get the point of your analogy.

To be clear, I'm saying that genetic match supersedes any list of superficial attributes to determine identity. If it's established that X and Y are an 89% DNA match, even though X tastes and looks like Z, the fact that Y and Z belong in distant genetic branches should be enough to dismiss X as a possible Z.

Re: A street snack that has baffled botanists

#187

Post by q-rews » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 7:52 PM UTC

CarelessExpert wrote: post #178

q-rews wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My logic is: If others eat it, it’s fine. It also helps to eat it with someone who’s somewhat familiar with it. My first time in Thailand I ate a disgusting salty soup with a spoon. It turns out you’re supposed to dip vegetables in it. What I did was the equivalent of eating ketchup with a spoon, except it was many times more flavorful. Now I love it: น้ำพริกกะปิ

> My logic is: If others eat it, it’s fine People used to eat radium, inhale mercury, and play in piles of asbestos before we came to understand their long term health effects. You might want to rethink this.

That risk is fine to me. I meant it more as a “people eat it, so it must be likable” than “people eat it, so it won’t kill me.”

Re: A street snack that has baffled botanists

#188

Post by darkerside » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 7:54 PM UTC

mekoka wrote: post #186

darkerside wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The source code for two applications might match 89% and yield completely different results

I'm not sure that I get the point of your analogy. To be clear, I'm saying that genetic match supersedes any list of superficial attributes to determine identity. If it's established that X and Y are an 89% DNA match, even though X tastes and looks like Z, the fact that Y and Z belong in distant genetic branches should be enough to dismiss X as a possible Z.

My point is that being an 89% match doesn't necessarily mean very much.

Re: A street snack that has baffled botanists

#189

Post by fieldcny » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 8:03 PM UTC

mekoka wrote: post #186

darkerside wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The source code for two applications might match 89% and yield completely different results

I'm not sure that I get the point of your analogy. To be clear, I'm saying that genetic match supersedes any list of superficial attributes to determine identity. If it's established that X and Y are an 89% DNA match, even though X tastes and looks like Z, the fact that Y and Z belong in distant genetic branches should be enough to dismiss X as a possible Z.

Humans and chimps share 98% of their DNA, We also share like 84% with pigs.

89% doesn’t really seem like a case closed kind of stat.

Re: A street snack that has baffled botanists

#190

Post by mekoka » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 8:12 PM UTC

esquivalience wrote: post #180

NelsonMinar wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This looks like a giant variety of Jicama"... A giant variety that has heretofor been unknown to the world? Hacker News, we cracked the case! Edit I feel like I should explain the snark. The comment I'm replying to is coming from a classic flaw in human reasoning. "This looks kinda like this other thing I'm familiar with. So clearly it must be some variety of that!" Then it's couched in some authoritative sounding w…

Respectfully, you inferred the conclusion "So clearly it must be some variety of that!". GF doesn't say that, they merely say it may be like that and that the explanation given in the article doesn't agree with their experience.

Respectfully, GF quite explicitly also dismissed the claim that it is agave.

Meanwhile the article states that there is established scientific evidence that it is (probably the Sesalana species), in the form of an 89% DNA match, but more likely the trunk part of the plant rather than the root (as initially claimed by vendors).