this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2024
875 points (99.3% liked)

memes

10398 readers
1773 users here now

Community rules

1. Be civilNo trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour

2. No politicsThis is non-politics community. For political memes please go to [email protected]

3. No recent repostsCheck for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month

4. No botsNo bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins

5. No Spam/AdsNo advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live.

Sister communities

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] southsamurai 25 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I've heard the argument that the evolution of our ability to enjoy such things benefits both that pungent plant as well as us. By eating such things, we propagate them better. But the kind of insects and animals that would otherwise eat them wouldn't assist propagation. So the plants evolved to both repel the disadvantageous eaters and attract the advantageous eater by the same method.

I kinda think that falls apart with horseradish though. Afaik, humans don't spread anything directly with that. We can cultivate it, which helps the plant, but that's not the same action as digging up garlic, eating some, and spreading the cloves, or the seeds from peppers. That puts a hole in this specific set of plants with that idea.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Peppers are that way because birds don't taste the hotness and they spread seeds further than other animals. I guess humans spread seeds even further as you can get them shipped from another continent really easily. Although birds also fly those distances, they poop more frequently.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago

Although birds also fly those distances, they poop more frequently.

You haven't seen me with a belly full of spicy food.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Humans also are really bad at returning digested seeds to the environment. Unlike all other life we process our shit

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

I meant the purposeful spread by agriculture, not the natural way.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (2 children)

How do we propagate horseradish?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago

When a horse and a radish love each other very much they do a special hug.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Kinda like potatoes, garlic, ginger, lots of plants. Dig it up, break of a chunk, eat the rest, replant chunk.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Or if the British are taking all of your food and there's a fungal disease, dig it up, eat most, save some for next year's crop, then eat some of that because starving, while British landlords insist their rights be upheld (and they be allowed to continue to take all other crop yields as rent) and British farmers insist no one be allowed to undercut their food prices that the peasants of Ireland can't afford.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Growing my first horseradish plant this year. Do we not spread it around by breaking off chunks of root and sharing them around? Same as garlic, we're taking pieces of root to grow more?