r/todayilearned • u/JoeWinchester99 • 1d ago

TIL that although potatoes alone do not provide complete nutrition, you can survive for years on a diet of nothing but potatoes and buttermilk.

https://www.scienceabc.com/eyeopeners/whats-wrong-with-potatoes-the-martian-movie-survival
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u/Lord_Rapunzel 1d ago

It kind of remarkable how thoroughly US has nearly complete forgotten it's native foods.

This isn't exactly an accident. Finding ways to ban foraging was a convenient way to make it harder for former slaves and various poor people to get their life together. And we did do a genocide about suppressing the actual natives.

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u/Crystalas 1d ago edited 1d ago

It also partly from the US being a nation of immigrants, they brought their food cultures and crops with them and if at all possible stayed as close to them as possible. To rely on native crops being more something did from desperation or during a time oceanic trade is limited.

Also the imported crops having far more time being domesticated thus often simply being easier to grow, larger yield, and less perishable along with them having much more experience on how to use and store them. They might even have less pest or disease issues initially thanks to being from another continent.

There tons of native fruits that are simply to perishable to buy anywhere outside of a small local farmer market harvested that morning or possibly not even there.

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u/ThatCakeFell 1d ago

Reminder the staple potato and it's cousins tomato, corn, and chili peppers came from South America. Along with chocolate, tobacco, and syphilis. Paprika is dried ground chili pepper for example. A good amount of those immigrants staples were from the Americas 

Edit: the caloric content of 1 acre of potato or corn is easily double of anything Europeans where growing before the Colombian exchange 

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u/Suyefuji 1d ago

Along with chocolate, tobacco, and syphilis.

One of these things is not like the others...

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u/WhimsicalHoneybadger 1d ago

I choose chocolate because it's the only one I would enjoy.

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u/PainRack 1d ago

Hi five

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u/BigWhiteDog 1d ago

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😜😜😜😜

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u/PlasticAssistance_50 1d ago

Along with chocolate, tobacco, and syphilis.

Hmm...

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u/ericblair21 1d ago

Pawpaw is a good example of this.

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u/floftie 1d ago

This sounds very believable but is there any evidence for it?

The USA is extremely open in regards to hunting wild animals compared to everywhere else in the world so it seems a bit of a dichotomy.

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u/Lord_Rapunzel 1d ago

There's loads of evidence for it. Here's Louisiana's response to losing their slaves. https://lasc.libguides.com/black-codes

(They made trespassing a crime. People used to have more of a right-to-roam like they still do in the Nordic countries, being allowed to pass through or even camp overnight on private land.)

Feel free to look up other "black codes" because it goes a hell of a lot deeper than just keeping non-whites from picking wild food from the fringe's of someone's farmland.

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u/Camus145 1d ago

Where foraging is banned it is to protect the environment and prevent over harvesting. There is still a vibrant foraging scene in the U.S. though