#'i knew a guy who ate raw maize for years and he literally developed paralysis' | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

botanyshitposts · 6 years

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wikipedia page: cassava is a hugely important crop, especially in third world countries. it’s the most prominent source of carbohydrates in the world behind rice and maize.

me: o nice. go on

wikipedia page: usually its great but it also has cyanide in it and some varieties will just straight up kill people and its just like A Thing That Can Happen. most of the plant is literally inedible on a good day. this means that most people living with it as a staple in their diet have ways to process it first to casually remove the cyanide, especially when dealing with more poisonous varieties, but deaths still happen and they get worse during years where environmental conditions are poor in which the plants cope by producing even more cyanide. usually other crops are outright dying in the same conditions, meaning more people turn to them to avoid starvation only to face A Huge Amount Of Actual Cyanide

me:

#HELLO????????#man like. look. i would not last a DAy #i would not last. i would die. id be the dumbass white person to get fucking cyanide poisoning #i cant imagine like. think about like. if maize was poisonous like that #like ive been living literally surrounded with maize my entire life #i cannot imagine just like. looking out and being like #'yea u see those plants being produced en masse?'#'those hugely economically important plants that millions eat as a staple?'#'yea. u kno what they have steve? cyanide. gotta let em soak first. 24 hours. sweet ones have less but the bitter ones...OOOF....'#'u gotta watch out for the bitter ones man they really sneak up on ya'#'i knew a guy who ate raw maize for years and he literally developed paralysis'#'i knew a guy who ate a bitter one raw and he straight up died man like he fucking died'#'u gotta go hard bro u gotta go fucking hard man u soak or u die dude!!!!!! u soak or u die!!!!!!!!!!!!'

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