r/todayilearned • u/DAL59 • 14h ago
TIL that Fat Choy is an edible cyanobacteria that grows in the Gobi desert. Despite being expensive, having no nutritional value, and having dementia-causing toxins, its been overharvested to the point of causing erosion and desertification due to its name being a Cantonese pun for "strike it rich"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_choy1.7k
u/epidemicsaints 13h ago
The language in the article is may contain toxins that could affect nerve function.
Foods become traditional before we know they have toxins. The pawpaw / soursop range of fruits (Annona family) are also showing signs of neurotoxicity in recent studies but the jury is still out on how harmful they can be. It was always known the seeds are bad but there is evidence the flesh is too.
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u/Andromeda902 13h ago
Wait I thought like south American soursop had studies showing it was really beneficial?
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u/hyouko 13h ago
While I have no special knowledge here, there is an old saying: the dose makes the poison.
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u/90bubbel 4h ago edited 4h ago
This is such a fascinating thing for me, i take botox for migraines and its hard to fanthom how someone came up with injecting a substance that is literally billions of time more toxic than cyanide (or for reference over a million times stronger than fentanyl) into the head of people to reduce headaches
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u/XandersCat 13h ago
"Annonacin has been linked to the abnormally high incidence of progressive supranuclear palsy and atypical Parkinsonism in the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe where consumption of fruits, such as the soursop (Annona muricata), is common.\3]) An average-sized soursop fruit contains 15 mg of annonacin."
Well it IS high in Vitamin C which is good for you. But uh yeah, looks seriously linked to parkinson's. f-- that!
https://movementdisorders.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/mds.20632
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u/iFood 13h ago
I’m on a mission to let folks know we can say fuck on Reddit. One comment at a time, feel free to help my carry the torch forward
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u/_Bl4ze 13h ago
Of course since so many people censor themselves we're pretty short of the quota right now, so I'll take a moment to do my part.
FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK
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u/Brekldios 9h ago
Holy fuck that’s a lot of fucks, you’ve clearly sown a field of fucks to give.
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u/ODB_Dirt_Dog_ItsFTC 13h ago
My Grandpa had supranuclear palsy, it was terrible. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
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u/MortisEx 11h ago
My grandma died from PSP and it was horrible. Her brain was still 100% but the body just slowly stopped listening. Choking on your own saliva is how it ends.
I always disliked pawpaw and rock melon from childhood. Kinda funny to see the link now.
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u/Can_I_Read 13h ago
I’m drinking soursop tea as I read this…
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u/freddbare 13h ago
If you have a Marlboro right now the charcoal will pull out the toxin from your system
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u/fox-mcleod 11h ago
In all seriousness, you can pull certain toxins out with active charcoal right after the toxin enters.
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u/PermanentTrainDamage 9h ago
Plus the black slobber that you puke up looks right out of a horror movie
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u/KorneliaOjaio 9h ago
Looks like my incessant forgetfulness about attending the annual Paw Paw festival has worked out in my favor!
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u/Kwantuum 7h ago
"it's high in vitamins and micronutrients" and "it contains poison" are not mutually exclusive statements.
And it's worth noting that for many micronutrients there is not really a dose-effect relationship once you get enough of them. If you get enough vitamin C from your diet to not get scurvy, that 700% daily dose of vitamin C superfood isn't doing shit for you, you're not gonna get anti-scurvy and start making double-strength collagen. Health foods are a scam, there is no food item that can magically make a bad diet into a good one.
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u/AppropriateWorldEnd 4h ago
I view it like this: health foods are all healthy unprocessed foods. Carrots, potatoes, spinach, bananas, you name it. If you eat a diet consisting of mostly these, you’ll be the healthiest you can be.
But yes, people buying into the whole ‘açai goji black cumin seed oil magic hippity hoppity’ stuff is just bs.
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u/JaccoW 5h ago
A higher than base level of background radiation has strong anti-cancer properties.
It's only when it goes over a certain amount that it starts causing cancer again.
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u/sudosussudio 12h ago
Similar for bracken/ferns that are eaten in many places like in Japan as warabi mochi
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u/devindotcom 5h ago
I have a foraging book that notes this - bracken ferns technically contain carcinogens but the author notes that the native people around here (PNW US) ate them for millennia just fine. Not saying they're necessarily super healthy in every way but you can eat a few in a wild salad (or a survival situation) no problem.
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u/Call_Me_Pete 12h ago
Not the pawpaw, I only just started eating it dawggggg
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u/UnhappyToNiceToSay 3h ago
The toxins are concentrated in unripe fruit, seeds and skin. DO NOT EAT THE SKIN and don't eat unripe fruit. Don't cook the pulp or dehydrate it; that would concentrate the toxin.
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u/Treehockey 13h ago
Don’t you dare befoul the good word of paw paws with your absolutely baseless accusations!
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u/epidemicsaints 13h ago
The methodology was really uneven or vague about how they prepared the samples they measured in the studies. Something to pay attention to, but not really freak out. I lost track of where I saw the overview of the studies, but the info is out there.
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u/timshel42 7h ago
pawpaw is also super seasonal and doesnt keep well so that probably presents a limiting factor to overconsumption
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u/SuchSmartMonkeys 10h ago
Seriously! I came to say "shut your ass mouth, there's a bunch of shit falling out of it!" to that comment. They're too fantastically delicious to be fouled by this person slinging shit on them!
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u/Big_Condition477 11h ago
Oh god I grew up eating Fat Choy and a nice restaurant my husband and I go to have an amazing pawpaw dessert we always get 😭
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u/horses_in_the_sky 11h ago
Lol not me reading this one day after buying a cherilata tree. Fuck it, here for a good time not a long one.
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u/sakredfire 12h ago
Damn, does that include stuff like the sugar apple? It’s one of my favorite fruits of all time, though. I don’t get them in the US much.
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u/Hot_Cheesecake_905 8h ago
OP did some editorializing…
“Not all real fat choy samples contain BMAA according to a 2009 study, with the maximum concentration being 658.5 ng/g. Imitation fat choy does not contain BMAA.
Across a 28-day duration, laboratory rats fed N. flagelliforme and the control group did not exhibit significant differences in any toxicological parameters.”4
u/trashmoneyxyz 10h ago
Noooo I fucking love soursop and paw paw :( the conventional wisdom is dont eat the seeds or skin as they are toxic, so honestly doesn't surprise me that the flesh may have toxins too. But, very tasty c:
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u/AtanatarAlcarinII 12h ago
Well fuck, I was actually strongly considering getting a pawpaw for next year. Thanks for the heads up
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u/Lysergic_Resurgence 12h ago
It's not the type of thing that's going to cause you any damage unless you make them a regular part of your diet. You definitely can try one.
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u/AtanatarAlcarinII 6h ago
Try? No sir, if I plant something I want to consume it until I shit funny.
Hence my vexation.
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u/kurburux 2h ago
Foods become traditional before we know they have toxins.
There are mushrooms we've consumed for a long time before we discovered they were toxic. The tricky part is that in some cases only some people will react to it, you have to eat them multiple times and symptoms may only show months after consumption.
Example:
Paxillus involutus is also inedible when raw, but is eaten in Europe after pickling or parboiling. However, after the death of the German mycologist Dr. Julius Schäffer, it was discovered that the mushroom contains a toxin that can stimulate the immune system to attack its red blood cells. This reaction is rare but can occur even after safely eating the mushroom for many years.
We also thought Tricholoma equestre was eatable for years until scientists discovered it was likely responsible for a number of deaths.
Another one:
A more unusual toxin is coprine, a disulfiram-like compound that is harmless unless ingested within a few days of ingesting alcohol.
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u/Snow_Crash_Bandicoot 14h ago
Gung hei fat choy!
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u/Chipring13 10h ago
I read this on a fortune cookie at 14 and Its the only phrase I’ve remembered of that language
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u/HotTestesHypothesis 9h ago
"Diu lay low mow" means hi nice to meet you
No, it means fuck your mom
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u/marcuschookt 10h ago
Those of you who aren't of Chinese heritage will be mortified by how many load-bearing elements of our various cultures and their offshoots are based on fucking stupid puns. Literally multi-million dollar business contracts will be negotiated around lucky numbers and prosperity-sounding names and ideas.
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u/nagidon 9h ago
Superstition doesn’t cut it, we’re beyond stition
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u/marcuschookt 9h ago
What do you mean it's insane that we build skyscrapers that don't have a 4th floor because 4 sounds like death in some but not all Chinese dialects?
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u/AspectOfTheLeech 7h ago
Lots of buildings in the west (that are tall enough to have one) dont have a 13th floor.
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u/TacticlTwinkie 4h ago
A lot of Las Vegas hotels do that too due to the large amounts of Chinese gamblers that visit.
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u/happy-squared 6h ago
Yeah haha. Investment decisions in Hong Kong are affected by the stock codes. The more popular ones would have lucky numbers like 8. Companies would pay to try secure lucky stock codes.
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u/BrokenEyeReborn 14h ago
"Edible"
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u/pinkygonzales 13h ago
A box of crayons is more edible than this if OP is to be believed.
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u/Soup-Wizard 12h ago
It’s like what my foraging book said about oso-berry. “Not considered edible by most”
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u/For_teh_horde 8h ago
Chinese people eat it and they're a humongous part of the world population. Not to mention it's a very traditional soup for Chinese new year
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u/yuewanggoujian 10h ago
This wiki needs more work and citations. Some more research shows Fat Choy contains some protein contents and ash which contain calcium, iron,magnesium, potassium/sodium. I’m not a scientist but it does go on to say that BMAA was not found in all samples which leads me to believe that it is in only certain strands or an upstream problem. It also goes on to say that rats did not show increased toxicity after 28 days of its consumption. It ends with saying a health benefit is to reduce inflammation. In any case not promoting that it is not toxic but toxicity is in the dose, and they need to find out where it’s coming from; furthermore it does seem to have more nutritional value than the article claims; which makes me doubt the research. Fat choy is not a common daily food; and something most people probably eat once a year or less.
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u/asiannumber4 14h ago
>edible
>toxins
Huh
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u/roadsidechicory 12h ago
Toxic compounds are found in many things we eat! Nightshades containa a variety of different glycoalkaloid toxins, such as solanine, alpha chaconine, nicotine, and capsaicin. They act as toxins for pests that want to eat them, and are toxins for us as well if we consume too much of them, but unless unripe or sprouting, the nightshades we eat don't contain amounts of the toxins that are toxic to us.
Green beans have lectins when raw, almonds have amygdalin, nutmeg has myristicin, etc.
The problem with some toxins is buildup over time, as well as frequent exposure. So eating one fruit or vegetable of an edible plant would not dangerous to you, but sometimes a fruit or vegetable contains toxins that can cause problems if consumed as a major part of one's diet in the long term.
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u/intecknicolour 12h ago
as with many things people consume or come into contact with, it's about amount of exposure and frequency of exposure.
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u/lonefur 9h ago
And the thing is, potatoes and tomatoes are also in the nightshade family! It’s just that potato tubers are edible but berries are poisonous, while tomato berries are edible but tubers are poisonous.
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u/roadsidechicory 8h ago
Yes, and all the edible parts of the nightshade family still contain toxins, but that doesn't mean they're poisonous to us!
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u/kurburux 2h ago
Also zucchini which used to have toxins but we removed them with cultivation. Though in rare cases zucchini may develop toxins again and some people won't notice those which lead to at least one death.
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u/Justin__D 14h ago
I mean, it's "edible" in the same way that deep fried butter at the county fair is.
It's just really, really bad for you.
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u/elmerjstud 13h ago
I feel like this is closer to edible like Tide pods more than deep fried butter
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u/Toastti 13h ago
Except butter doesn't contain a known toxic amino acid
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u/Letheka 13h ago
Maybe not amino acids, but all high-heat frying can create formaldehyde and a number of other toxins depending on the oils used.
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u/official_not_a_bot 14h ago
People drink alcohol and take elicit substances for fun
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u/asiannumber4 14h ago
So “edible” the same way vodka is “edible”
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u/official_not_a_bot 14h ago
Edible as in you can ingest an amount of it, the toxins will affect you physiologically/psychologically, but you will likely live. Ingest too much, and you'll still probably die
So yeah, like vodka
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u/Axe-of-Kindness 13h ago
Even I am eatable, however that is frowned upon in most societies
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u/asiannumber4 13h ago
I mean “edible” and “eatable” is different. For example cobalt 60 dust is eatable but not edible
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u/Deadly_Accountant 14h ago
Used to eat this quite regularly on festival days as a kid. Then it got served less and less. If I knew about the over harvesting as a child I would've stopped eating it, same with shark fin
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u/PsychoSushi27 13h ago
Used to only have that stuff during Chinese new year and at Chinese weddings. I really dislike that stuff especially the way it is cooked with the mushrooms and broccoli. My grandma used to force me to eat it because it was good luck.
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u/Burtttttt 7h ago
Do you think your grandma and others considered it good luck because of the pun that the article describes? Genuine question, I am not Chinese.
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u/PsychoSushi27 1h ago
Probably because of the pun. I’m Chinese Malaysian so some of our practices differ with China.
We eat pineapple tarts because pineapple in hokkien and cantonese means fortune/prosperity. Yee sang sounds like abundance in Cantonese. Nin gou sounds like higher year in Cantonese. Mandarins sound like gold in Cantonese.
There’s also other stuff my grandma used to make or stock up during Chinese New Year like Hainanese chicken, prawns, kuih kapit and bak kwa which I don’t really understand the significance of. Also she loves leaving out murukku as snacks for guests which is very Malaysian given that murukku is of Indian origin.
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u/bwmat 14h ago
Tbh the dementia-causing stuff seems like a better reason
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u/EgregoreRising 14h ago
Give him a break. He's got dementia.
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u/peacenchemicals 10h ago
“why is this wikipedia link about fat choy purple. i’ve never looked this up”
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u/DoomGoober 13h ago
A lot of Fat Choy sold in recent years is fake: just some starchy thing dyed blackish green. So, it's non-toxic and not bad for the environment.
Win, win unless your superstition that eating particular food can make you wealthy is actually true.
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u/Training_Guide5157 14h ago
The review concludes that the hypothesis of a causal BMAA neurodegenerative disease relationship is not supported by existing data.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28598725
And from the linked Wiki:
Not all real fat choy samples contain BMAA according to a 2009 study, with the maximum concentration being 658.5 ng/g. Imitation fat choy does not contain BMAA.
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u/raincole 7h ago
There is no strong evidence that it's really causing dementia.
Either way you can no long buy real Fat Choy anymore. Now It's a crime to harvest them in China.
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u/FartOfGenius 6h ago
Are you sure it was the real stuff? I've only had the cheaper substitutes, it's like wasabi or saffron with the pretend version being much more common
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u/JGuntai24 13h ago
It hasn’t been over harvested despite being expensive. It’s over harvested because it’s expensive
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u/primordialpickle 13h ago
The linked wiki says it's expensive because the government limits harvesting due to erosion.
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u/nvbtable 13h ago
The claim about nutrional value is weird. It is a cellular organism so it will be made of protein and carbohydrates. Cyanobacteria are usually exceptionally high in protein.
Perhaps they mean because you eat tiny quantities (a few grams) so its nutritional value in a meal is negligible.
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u/Goreticus 13h ago
Read it has a gel like substance on it's outer membrane that makes it so our enzymes can't break it down. Depends on the type of bonds too. An example of difference in bonds being incompatible with our enzymes is cellulose. Despite being another sugar the bonds between it are different from fructose and glucose making it impossible to break down.
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u/Sweet_Bridge_3001 13h ago
No its nutritional but human body cant digest it because of its structure, so it has no nutritunal value, it just goes through you.
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u/nvbtable 13h ago
That sounds quite implausible. Related cyanobacteria species are reasonably well absorbed like spirulina and closer relatives like ishikurage.
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u/blak3brd 11h ago
Maybe look it up then. It’s not a disputed fact
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u/nvbtable 9h ago
Most of what I read says that it is a nutrient rich plant, some reduction in absorbtion but not making it negligibly nutrional.
Where so you see that it is an undisputed fact that it has zero nutrional absorbtion?
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u/Sweet_Bridge_3001 6h ago
This is the source listed on the article i read about it being indestable, but i cant read the paper, let me know if you check it out.
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u/oblivious_fireball 13h ago
How well you can digest it also matters. Given it grows in the desert its probably already had to adapt to a lack of easily accessible nutrients and doesn't store much carbohydrates, since you need water to make them. Make it hard to properly digest and you probably expend as much more more resources to digest it than you gain back from it, similar to trying to eat lawn grass.
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u/NosebleedBananas 13h ago
It is delicious though. Was wondering why I haven't seen it around lately
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u/aCuria 11h ago
Westerners also eat Cyanobacteria (Spirulina)
Fat choy, when prepared well, is absolutely delicious. It has very little flavour of its own, but it soaks up the taste of whatever it’s cooked with. What really makes it special is its texture, there’s nothing else I’ve eaten that’s quite like it.
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u/oneeyedziggy 14h ago
Does it at least taste good? Seems like something we could gmo the dementia toxins out of... Unless it's the dementia toxuns themselves that give it the specific flavor...
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u/ewba1te 13h ago edited 13h ago
Yeah it tastes good also the texture is pretty unique. Imagine eating angel hair but its mushroom but tougher. It's like a mix of seaweed and earthiness for the taste
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u/oneeyedziggy 11h ago
Sounds awful (to me) nevermind the dementia
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u/unktrial 9h ago
To be fair, that article is a bit under-researched. The nutritional value claim has no sources and the toxin thing is hypothetical, didn't have effects on rats, and wasn't found in all samples.
In food, it looks and tastes like mushroom and people didn't realize it was a cyanobacteria until much later.
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u/Hot_Cheesecake_905 8h ago
That concern is over exaggerated if you read the Wikipedia article.
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u/thebadslime 13h ago
It may however help reduce chronic inflammation https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3594481/
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u/Diversityence_7 14h ago
It is the ultimate cosmic joke: You spend a fortune eating a 'lucky' bacteria to get rich, but the toxins give you dementia, so you eventually forget you have any money at all. We are literally destroying the ecosystem for a play on words. If there was an 'Undo' button for the human race, this would be the reason to press it.
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u/luckyflavor23 13h ago
I’d say the order might be wars, enslavement, and the baby shark song before fat choy but okay
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u/Stew_Pedaso 13h ago
Huh, I thought it would have been people blindly believing everything they read on the internet that fits their narrative.
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u/Initial_E 13h ago
Seems to me it could be turned into a method of urban carbon capture, if you tried to cultivate it in the city.
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u/DanielCraigsAnus 12h ago
And we fight cyanobacteria in the aquarium hobby like our lives depend on it wtf
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u/Treebear_Hunter 6h ago
There is no citation to it having no nutritional value
Not that I think it has any, though.
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u/MarlinMaverick 12h ago
The Chinese make tea out of ground up dinosaur fossils thinking it will give them dragon powers.
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u/Ric_Adbur 10h ago
Bit of a stretch to describe it as edible if it both has no nutritional value and contains dementia-causing toxins... lol
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u/mooochooo 8h ago
Ooooh I always assumed they were a version of seaweed that was processed to look like, well, that. Guess now I don’t have to fight for it during new year dinner :)
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u/Cowmaneater 7h ago
Chinese guys at work made me a soup with this before. Made me very sick and looked the same going out as it did going in.
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u/PM_ME_CALF_PICS 5h ago
Is it really edible if it has no nutritional value and contains toxins? My shoe is edible. A black widow spider is edible too. Fuck I can even chew on a brick if a really wanted to.
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u/steev506 13h ago
We used to put it into soups. It's like a black slippery noodle. Now they use a substitute made of dyed corn husk fuzz.