Discovering!! Fire, cooking, medicinal plants, etc.!

[Pearl]

I often wonder about how things came to be!! Like when did ancient man start cooking their food and how did they figure out to do it? Did they eat animals burned in a wildfire and decided it tasted better than raw meat?? Think about the pioneers trekking across America having to eat native plants!! Polk Sallet for instance is poisonous unless cooked! So if I ate it and got sick, I would not think, hey I'll try cooking it next time! But someone must have! And medicinal plants, there must have been a lot of trial and error!! Just curious about what everyone else thinks about these things!!

 

[Patchouli]

It’s really sad that there were medicinal plants they passed by as they traveled west, sick, dying, not knowing what could have saved their lives. Dysentery, cholera, things like that, could have been cured with the right herbs. There were a lot of situations like that in the membership of my church as they traveled west in the 1800s.

Reminds me of what a veterinarian said to me once. Wild animals know not to eat certain plants. But the tame animals have been tamed for so long that they lost that instinct to know and sometimes eat things that will kill them. I’m sorry I forget what the example was he was using, what plant, what animal.

 

[sonya123]

There are some similar plants in Europe, but other things they probably learned the hard way, if it was poisonous they died, if they lived it was ok to eat. They might have also watched Native Americans, or even animals to see what they eat

we have something called Perilla growing here all over the place. They use it a lot in Korean cooking, sort of like a mix between a mint and a nettle. I didn't know till someone was giving some of the little plants away at the farmers market

 

[sonya123]

It’s really sad that there were medicinal plants they passed by as they traveled west, sick, dying, not knowing what could have saved their lives. Dysentery, cholera, things like that, could have been cured with the right herbs. There were a lot of situations like that in the membership of my church as they traveled west in the 1800s.

Reminds me of what a veterinarian said to me once. Wild animals know not to eat certain plants. But the tame animals have been tamed for so long that they lost that instinct to know and sometimes eat things that will kill them. I’m sorry I forget what the example was he was using, what plant, what animal.

we must have posted at the same time....great minds think alike LOL, both thinking about animals! Our goats stay away from poisonous plants like goldenrod. I used to go nuts when we first started this trying to pull every last poisonous plant out of the pastures, until I noticed they don't eat them.

 

[Pearl]

It is amazing how animals are more in tune to what they can eat!!

 

[Peanut]

Domesticated livestock have lost some of this recognition ability but not all. I've seen them purposely seek out medicinal plants and eat. Then again I've seen them kill themselves by eating acorns and perilla.

Livestock don't normally seek out bad plants. It's only when they are stressed, during droughts etc. Times when their normal feed is lacking they get hungry and eat bad things.

 

[d_marsh]

All men are born with the instinct to grill and BBQ meat.

 

[Peanut]

Funny, just occurred to me… Ancient man is no different than animals during times of stress. When we got hungry we tried new things. Some results bad, we died. Some good, we discovered medicines and all sorts of uses for plants over time.

Man is smarter than critters with a better memory and the ability to reason. I don’t think it was a matter of… Ah! a new plant, think I’ll try this! That'd be stupid, ancient man wasn't stupid. At times when we got hungry or sick we tried all sorts of things.

 

[Pearl]

Funny, just occurred to me… Ancient man is no different than animals during times of stress. When we got hungry we tried new things. Some results bad, we died. Some good, we discovered medicines and all sorts of uses for plants over time.

Man is smarter than critters with a better memory and the ability to reason. I don’t think it was a matter of… Ah! a new plant, think I’ll try this! That'd be stupid, ancient man wasn't stupid. At times when we got hungry or sick we tried all sorts of things.

Animals and people (we are animals) pass along their information to the next generations!! I know animals have the ability to reason and remember! It is interesting watching the deer and Buddy! Certain grasses get eaten first, the tastier ones! The deer teach their children the best paths to the watering holes, where it's safe to sleep, etc.! But I still wonder how the first cooked meal came along?? Was Thog putting extra wood on the fire and dropped his deer leg in the fire, only to hear his wife saying that he's eating it anyway, and it was good???