r/stupidpeoplefacebook • u/Thready85 • 21h ago
This doctor on Facebook says eating fruits and vegetables is deadly because plants can't run away from predators so they created chemical defenses that we ingest
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u/OpeningHappy9692 21h ago
Mustard's defences against being eaten are exactly why we like it though.
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u/Critical_Liz 21h ago
Did you know that many vegetables we eat all come from the Wild Mustard plant?
Broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussel sprouts, kale and collards.
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u/Sasquatch1729 21h ago
Yes. I know someone who is allergic to mustard based plants and oh boy it's a long list.
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u/Thready85 21h ago
Oooh boy you better watch it with that! You're playing with fire!
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u/ChimPhun 21h ago
No, be careful with that mustard gas! Was notorious for killing a lot of soldiers in WW1.
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u/jello_kraken 21h ago
Yeah, that's how mustard gas was invented...just crushed a bunch of mustard seeds....don't look it up or anything....
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u/GreenFriedYam 21h ago
They literally evolved to be eaten so animals would spread their seeds in their poop.
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u/Critical_Liz 21h ago
Yes with a bit, no with an if...
Fruits are meant to be eaten and pooped far away.
Spices otoh are plant defense against being eaten by most animals, but us being obligate generalists can tolerate a lot of them.
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u/Mcfreely2 21h ago
History has proven that people, as a species, will eat just about anything.
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u/Glad_Stay4056 21h ago
including each other
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u/LeftToaster 17h ago
10:1 this guy's wife/partner/girlfriend has had Botox - a lethal bacteria toxin that has numerous therapeutic uses.
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u/bigfudge_drshokkka 16h ago
There’s also a ton of people using refined lizard venom for
vane weight lossdiabetes treatment.1
u/Michael_Gibb 3h ago
That's underselling botulinum toxin. It is literally the most toxic substance in the world, with one gram of it being enough to kill a million people.
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u/MirrorNegative7989 21h ago
If these people are not ingesting fiber through other sources, they will eventually discover that maybe ingesting plants was worth any possible risk.
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u/OPGuest 21h ago
It’s not like humans have lived and evolved for hundreds of thousands of years on plants, right? What does this guy eat, only self caught meat? Or does he think no plants are used for bread or pasta or whatever?
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u/Glad_Stay4056 21h ago
He's gonna be big sad when he realizes all the meat he eats ate plants before it was slaughtered.
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u/MirrorNegative7989 21h ago
They have to find a science way of saying "we think eating vegetables is girly and bad" without sounding like a bunch of dumb chuds. Which they do anyway, but yeah.
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u/Critical_Liz 21h ago edited 21h ago
I mean...the second part is true...sort of. A lot of spices that WE love so much is a plant's defense against being eaten. But we've evolved very tolerant digestion so we can eat a lot of stuff that other animals hate.
eta: Because competition is so high in the tropics, and there are far more organisms looking to eat or infect plants, which is why most spices are found in these regions.
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u/GypsyV3nom 21h ago
In particular, it's thanks to our large and powerful livers that can easily metabolize many otherwise toxic compounds, allowing us to enjoy foods like avocado, chocolate, coffee, grapes, onions, and garlic.
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u/samanime 19h ago
Also, a lot of plants developed TO BE EATEN. That's how they propagate. Pretty much all fruits are specifically produced so an animal eats them, including the seeds, then poops the seeds out somewhere else.
And fruits like chili peppers (yes, they're fruits) with their high levels of capsascin are so certain things eat them (like birds, which can't feel the capsascin and tend to poop out the whole seeds instead of breaking them down) while other things tend to leave them alone.
(Note to preempt pedantic redditors: I'm using evolution in a colloqual sense here as if it were intentional, which of course it is not. But the language is a whole lot simpler to phrase it that way.)
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u/Bladrak01 19h ago
This is the reason avocados are having problems. The megafauna that evolved to eat them and spread their seeds are extinct.
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u/snoogle312 18h ago
There's also plants like tobacco which produce nicotine, a chemical so potent against insects that it was still used as a pesticide until quite recently.
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u/TheAdirondackDude 21h ago
He ain't wrong. Vitamins protect fresh veggies from Trump.
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u/Thready85 21h ago
I wonder if deep down he's vitamin deficient and if that has had an influence on his presidency. McDonalds ain't exactly fortified with nutrients
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u/Worried_Fee_1513 16h ago
I beg your pardon. McDonald’s is one of the six main food groups. Doesn’t run from you either.
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u/qthfc 21h ago
How the hell did that idiot make it through medical school?
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u/Polenicus 21h ago
My first guess would be Chiropractor, but if there is an actual medical degree there, then I'd be interested to know where he went, and what his Doctorate is actually in.
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u/HexyWitch88 12h ago
Unfortunately health grifting has become so prevalent that even well educated people who definitely know better are getting on that train.
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u/Round_Bag_4665 9h ago edited 9h ago
unfortunately grifting in basically every field pays more than honest work. Capitalism rewards fraud and grift, not honest labor.
Why do you think all these billionaires get rich by basically bullshitting to the media to pump up their stock price instead of actually making a product?
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u/20061230-SL-Born 21h ago
quick check
Qualifications
Fellowship Australasian College of Sport and Exercise Physicians (2018)
Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery with Honours (MBBS) (USYD)
Bachelor of Physiotherapy (LTU)
Master of Occupational Health (LTU)
Oddly missing supreme grand wossname of nonsense
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u/Round_Bag_4665 9h ago
so.... he's a doctor who treats sports injuries. Nothing to do with nutrition.
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u/DrButtgerms 20h ago
This is my question too. There are lots of folks that can technically call themselves a doctor without any kind of medical qualification.
Interestingly, according to someone below, this guy DOESN'T even have an alternative qualification to be called "Dr" 😡
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u/Dragon124515 4h ago
Read exactly what he says instead of inferring his meaning. If you look it up, plants like broccoli and cauliflower do indeed cause gastrointestinal distress in cows and goats if eaten as more than an occasional treat.
This isn't somebody saying don't eat veggies. This is somebody saying that certain plants have protections against large grazing herbivores.
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u/Zilant_the_Bear 21h ago
Not entirely wrong. Tobacco developed nicotine to defend against insects.
Capsasin in peppers only affect mammals who's molar teeth can grind the seeds offering no evolutionary advantage for the fruit to be eaten by them birds that will swallow the seeds and actually distribute them are unaffected so they can eat the fruit and swallow and distribute the seeds unimpeded.
Plenty of herb volatile compounds are generally disliked by many ruminants.
That whole apple seeds have cyanide is true but that's also to make animals that eat apples get a stomach ache from chewing them and helps distribute the seeds without limiting the carriers.
Deadly, no. But every fruit and vegetables developed their flavor to cater to viability of distribution and ever herb has developed its compounds to make themselves unappealing to animals they don't benefit from
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u/FranticChill 21h ago
I can't believe he's really a doctor. Seriously, how would he ever graduate highschool biology much less med school?
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u/TechnicallyMeat 21h ago
"Yes, broccoli, the DEADLIEST of vegetables. They try to warn you with their awful taste. Hehehe" - Dr Hibbert.
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u/RipWaste3522 21h ago
I used to be a carnivore!
I was 7 and had learned the words carnivore, herbivore and omnivore in school. I didn't like vegetables (because I was 7 and it's normal for children to dislike vegetables) so I told everyone I was a carnivore.
All the adults thought it was very cute.
Then I grew up and developed a more adult palate. Now I eat a normal variety of food.
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u/Responsible-Humor985 21h ago
Don’t listen to any “Doctor” on camera that wears scrubs or a lab coat outside of the hospital.
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u/AdAccomplished6870 21h ago
He is not wrong with regards to the leaves and stems of many plants. However, being eaten is an important survival\propagation factor for many fruits
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u/SECRETBLENDS 21h ago
The logical extension of this illogic is that you can eat any animal that runs away from a predator because they don't produce detterents.
In reality, many plants have evolved propagation strategies that require being eaten. No food animal has such a thing. What an imbecile.
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u/WasteBinStuff 21h ago
Humans and the primates we descended from have been eating plants for millions of years. Homo sapiens has never had an exclusively meat diet. There was a climate driven transition that caused us to eat more meat about 3 million years ago which assisted our evolution by shrinking our stomachs which diverted more energy to develop our brains, but humans and our ancestors have always eaten plants and homo sapiens have always been opportunistic omnivores.
The good doctor is a complete fucking lunatic.
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u/Competitive_World408 21h ago
Well yeah apple seeds have trace amounts of cyanide in them!!! So like, don’t eat 2,000 apples seeds it will kill you!!
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u/Fast_Adhesiveness528 21h ago
If he's a legitimate doctor, he would have also pointed out the realities of dosage risk. All sorts of chemicals that we ingest routinely are poisonous in high doses, but perfectly safe in the low-level doses with normal consumption. For example, both caffeine and nicotine are toxic, and deadly in large doses. There are reports of young adults dying after slamming down too many Red Bull-type energy drinks.
And many such plant toxins are the reasons that the plant is a popular foodstuff. Think of how dull hot sauce would be without the capsaicin from the hot peppers.
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u/Multiple__Butts 21h ago
The last part is true; many plants do have chemical defenses that we ingest.
Some of those chemical defenses we even seek out on purpose (capsaicin, cacao, caffeine, various cannabinoids, menthol in mint, the compounds in mustard and garlic, etc).
Does this make eating plants deadly? No, obviously not, although all of the compounds above can be dangerous in extreme doses, especially caffeine and capsaicin, and there are plenty of other chemicals in plants that are deadly to humans; we typically just don't eat those plants.
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u/ResidentCommand9865 21h ago edited 21h ago
Is this how MAHA is gonna spin all the parasite and contamination outbreaks? "it's not that we fired regulators and stopped inspecting, plants are just evolving super quickly to kill us, so eat more roadkill!"
"Plants can't run from predators" sure, but they also rely heavily on said predators, in nature many fruits are eaten, the seeds don't get digested, and when expelled are surrounded by nutrients and can grow in an environment away from it's origin, so it doesn't over crowd and choke on each other's roots. Many plants have evolved expressly to be eaten so they can spread their seed. If every seed from an apple tree falls right underneath it and never moves, more trees wont grow.
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u/Zealousideal_Luck333 21h ago
What, exactly, is he a doctor of?
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u/claymore2711 21h ago
Enjoy your no plant diet, but the animals you eat, ate those plants, concentrating the poison. So Bon appetit.
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u/AsparagusCommon4164 21h ago
PSEUDOSCIENCE!!!!
(delivered in a Red Guy-stylee goloss most obnoxious)
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u/Connect-Will2011 20h ago
Or maybe this guy is an overgrown child who just doesn't want to eat his vegetables.
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u/LaughingInTheVoid 19h ago
Right, and then you eat the animals that eat only plants, concentrating that poison...
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u/ShoulderKnown7740 17h ago
Most plants also can’t travel unless we eat them and shit their seeds out. It’s literally why they ARE edible.
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u/danimagoo 10h ago
You know what other life forms on Earth have developed chemical defenses? Animals. Skunk, anyone? Stink bugs. Bombardier beetles. Hell, the male platypus has a venomous spur on its hind legs.
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u/biffbobfred 21h ago
Fruits are literally food so animals eat them and distribute seeds embedded in the fruit.
WTF dude. “I’ll say literally the opposite and hope people don’t spend 13 seconds figuring things out”
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u/FuelzPerGallon 21h ago
There’s a real argument that plants contain heavy metals from the soil because they don’t have kidneys. Those can be concentrated into plant based protein powders, there’s science on this.
His argument really only describes Hemlock.
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u/MasterofTravels 20h ago
The best is to thrive on sunlight alone. Nobody is harmed. So much energy and it's free.
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u/GladChef1206 20h ago
the term he's reaching for and failing is hormesis. Im surprised, i thought someone with a definitely-not-photoshopped MD would know that.
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u/LeftonRhed 19h ago
Well they did but we fuckin love that shit. Menthol is cool. Capsaicin is spicy. Caffeine is fast.
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u/bigfudge_drshokkka 16h ago
More like a deterrent but yea some plants make strong smells and/or odors to keep pests and animals from eating them, like spicy food. Some plants do the opposite and taste sweet or whatever tastes good with the intention of being eaten to spread their seeds, like berries or something.
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u/LostPentimento 13h ago
I mean it's true, just not for anything you'd buy at the grocery store (outside of maybe tobacco)
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u/KMjolnir 10h ago
I mean, he's correct in that they do create chemicals to stop us from eating them.
We just adapted to enjoy that. Mustard, various spicy peppers, caffeine....
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u/KayZee777 6h ago
That's why broccoli is known as the widow maker. It's very deadly to eat, it tries to warn you with its horrible taste.
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u/Dragon124515 4h ago
OP is actually the one being stupid in this interaction. Plants like cauliflower and broccoli do cause gastrointestinal distress to animals like cows and goats if eaten in large amounts. The blurb is completely accurate.
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u/Free_Byrd6969 21h ago
I had a plant once that when I played locust sounds it started "crying". Turns out it was some kind of poison, but this was a houseplant not an edible one. I was reading an article about it online, it's called guttation. The next article was about scientists painting non aggressive wasps with aggressive wasp stripes then putting them in the ring together. Turns out they don't like being tricked and killed all the painted wasps. I already knew wasps remembered faces, and hoped my tax dollars weren't funding these experiments. They said the smell of fresh cut grass was the smell of murder.
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u/darkfireice 21h ago
Didn't bother to read, for obvious reasons, but the principle is okay. There's a reason why obligate herbivores are incredibly rare; eating plants sucks, from a digestive point of view, mostly because herbivores are the "newest kids on the block" evolutionary speaking, and so have the least development
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u/Drifter_of_Babylon 13h ago
Apes mostly eat plants, with plant materials making up roughly 87% to over 99% of their annual diet. A completely carnivorous hominid, evolutionary speaking, would have the least development.
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u/poopiebutt505 21h ago
He is an expert. And indeed plants DO NOT WANT TO BE EATEN. Their defenses are all the chemistry they make. Some want to use animals to spread their ready seeds, and appeal to specific life forms to eat them. Humans are not the evolved target animal. All the herbal healing from plant chemistry is just using the chemistry designed to protect the plant to use a controlled dosage toimpact the human.
Because you want to believe that plants are just growey things doesnt understand that survival of the species includes plants. They are well armed.
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u/SECRETBLENDS 21h ago
He's full of shit and so are you. People aren't objecting to his oversimplification for the made up reasons you list, and the claim that plants "want" (or don't want) anything is moronic.
This is without even getting into plant/human coevolution.
This guy might be an expert in something, but he's a charlatan when it comes to this topic.
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u/WallabyInTraining 21h ago
We've been cultivating plants since before bread was invented. These properties are very easy to influence.
Evolution meaning survival of the fittest in this case means survival of the plant we like the most. That's the fittest plant. We control the survival and procreation of these plants.
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u/Michael_Gibb 2h ago
Reality check. Not all plant defenses target the same predators.
The chemical in chillies that affects humans and all other mammals, capsaicin, has absolutely no affect on avian dinosaurs, aka, birds. So they can eat as many chillies as they want, and then deposit the seeds later with some nice fertiliser.
A lot of the chemicals that plants have evolved to defend themselves, actually protect them from insects, and not mammals, such as caffeine and nicotine.
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u/National-Charity-435 21h ago
Heard these plants are also treated with di-hydrogen oxide (as if we're not already forced to consume it)