jmcquown wrote:
>
> The thread about Crab Legs, and also the one about 10 Foods it Takes Guts to
> Eat, leads me to post this.
>
> Here are a few of my thoughts which don't necessarily count for a hill of
> beans, as some will tell you
>
> I suspect people first decided to eat crabs because they saw sea-birds (or
> maybe even bears in certain areas) cracking them open on rocks and plucking
> out the meat. Probably the same with oysters, clams, mussels, etc.

Makes sense.

>
> Drinking milk is rather a given; human women have always breast fed and so
> do goats, cows, sheep. Naturally it would follow, milk the cow.

Also makes sense.
>
> Berries and fruit I can also understand; watch the birds and the deer, they
> eat them so they must be pretty much okay.

Some risk in that of course. Some berries are poisonous to humans but
not to other animals.
>
> But what made that first brave soul pluck a mushroom from the ground and eat
> it?

Rather what made the *second* brave soul try again after the first one
died...

>So many nightshades are deadly.

True. Could have been a case of desperation. Someone was starving and
ate the nightshade berries that didn't look like the other nightshade
berries.



What wild critters were they watching
> to determine this one was okay and that one wasn't?

As was said before, there probably was a lot of trial and error. Not
everything that animals can eat is completely safe for humans. After
all, birds don't suffer chile burns the way mammals do.
>