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Apparently before carrot was domesticated, it was almost indistinguishable from hemlock.

I bet the story of how humanity sorted that one out is wild.

See also: potatoes - early varieties would likely cause death by solanine poisoning, as well as tasting vile.

Almonds - originally full of cyanide and apparently tasted of bleach.

Rhubarb - stalk lovely, leaf gives excruciating death by oxalic acid poisoning.

How desperate and hungry were our ancestors to turn lethal poisons into food crops?

And it would have saved a lot of bother if they’d never bothered with the gluten grains. Rice deserved better.

IanMoore3000

@goatsarah I recall Guns Germs & Steel mentioning that not being poisonous in almonds is a recessive genetic characteristic, then speculating that some almonds being non poisonous might have been discovered by accident when a naughty child ate almonds and then didn't die.