Yes, this is going to be confrontational but first, we must examine the evolution of plants. I remember growing up how Brussel sprouts tasted disgusting. And, of course, my mother would serve them for dinner. As far as I was concerned, they tasted horrible like grass. I also remember that “eating our vegetables” was stressed and considered healthy.
In the 1990s, a Dutch scientist Hans Van Doorn was able to pinpoint the exact chemical which cause the Brussel sprout to taste so bitter. According to My Recipes, glucosinolate was identified, the growers began developing new strains of Brussel sprouts that didn’t contain this chemical making them more appealing and tastier.
Believe it or not, most plants and vegetables do not want to be eaten. Since they can’t move and defend themselves, they have evolved to fight with chemical warfare. This means that they have developed and produce chemicals to make themselves less appealing to, not only humans, but to the insects and animals that might want to consume them. Most plants are poisonous to humans in their natural state. They contain a variety poisons, antigens and toxins that will affect us onc3e consumed.
With the case of Brussel sprouts, once they discovered what chemical to remove, the new variants of Brussel sprout were introduced to the food market. Fruits and vegetables were genetically engineered to be sweeter, more disease resistant or less bitter.
With all the chemicals that vegetables produce, some people are affected by them more than others. Some people will react stronger to glucosinolates than others. There are vegetables that are in the nightshade class which are a botanical family that contain alkaloids, which include tomatoes, eggplant, bell peppers, potatoes, tobacco, and spices such as paprika and cayenne.
Alkaloids are chemicals mostly found in plants. Solanine is an alkaloid which acts as a insecticide, allowing the plant to grow. Solanine is produced early on by the plant making them green and giving that bitter taste. As they ripen, the solanine decreases. Eating the unripen vegetables and fruit can cause nausea, fever, headaches, or diarrhea.
If we go back and look at the evolution and genetic modification of past vegetables and fruits, we can see that this botany has changed. Especially for us who cultivated a garden growing up. Seeds, on the hand, as view from the plant’s perspective, the plants want them to be eaten and distributed through our stool so they can populate and spread.
Vegans want us to believe that eating plants is good for us, but if we really think about it, none of those plants, thanks to evolution and genetic modification, existed a thousand years ago. So, how are they so good for us, if they never really existed until we created them.
The one thing that we overlook is that most fruits and vegetables a hundred years ago were seasonal. They were not available except for a select few months a year. With the invention of transportation, freight, and shipping, we have access to more produce than we ever had. Due to colonization, vegetables like potatoes didn’t even exist in Europe until 1585, Germany and Belgium in 1587, Austria in 1588, Ireland in 1587 and France in 1600, according to www.vegetablefacts.com. This is just a small example of how vegetables and fruits have moved around the world. Because of hybridization, you would probably not recognize these vegetables now. Even papayas and pineapples that you think come from Hawaii, actually come from South America. When Christopher Columbus and other Europeans sailed to the New World, they found pineapples growing in the Caribbean. They didn’t arrive in Hawaii until they were taken there.
Furthermore, if you examine the biology of a cow which spends the majority of its day eating grass, cows have a stomach divided into four compartments. These compartments each play a specific role in the digestion of fibrous plant matter. It’s not only cows but deer, sheep, giraffes, goats, hippopotamus and moose have multiple stomachs. Through evolution, the human species has not evolved to only eat plants.
Even the fish we eat have been hybridized to be larger, contain more fat and meatier than their predecessors. Truthfully, it’s not only the fish but any of the livestock have been genetically modified throughout the years.
The choices that you make, whether it’s vegan, paleo, Mediterranean or Keto, doesn’t matter. What matters is that you think in depth about what you eat. A further note is to think about the millions of dollars that we spend on food production of meatless burgers. The food markets have made millions off the food products they sell as healthy but if you really think about what went into the food, it’s not anything we can benefit from and maybe it’s not the right choice. Whatever diet you choose, I hope that your eyes get opened to make the correct choices.
