Yeah, seems many of those studies either single out the toxin in a lab or the populations also consumed other parts of the tree like tea from the leaves. These fruit evolved with megafauna over tens of thousands of years. There may be some compounds in the flesh that help you metabolize any acetogenins. The numerous stories of people feeling sick after cooking or heavily processing the pulp makes me think there may be something to that as well. Also, acetogenin levels in the fruit don’t necessarily equal absorption levels by the body either.
I think more studies would be great, but in the mean time I’m not going to be afraid to eat the fruit fresh and in season. I don’t normally eat more than 1/day either.
show me on the pawpaw where the acetogenins hurt you given all of the past consumption, without evidence of harm, why wouldnt the burden be on proving that first? genuinely curious. the dose makes the poison with everything exogenous. when you find the harm level you find the safe level too. my tap water has nasties in it at levels not considered harmful or toxic to me.
Your argument would just as easily apply to tobacco before we had the studies. In fact, tobacco companies did make arguments like that. People have been smoking tobacco for thousands of years and they weren’t dropping dead, so what’s the problem?
It wasn’t until we did scientific studies that it became clear that it increases the risk of heart attacks and cancer. Just because something doesn’t make you drop dead immediately doesn’t mean it’s not harmful.
There was some evidence, but it was murky enough that it wasn’t widely accepted. Have you seen those ads, “more doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette”?
But we do have inferences/claims that the Amerindians/First People (or whatever politically correct term is currently in vogue) regarded pawpaw as ‘strong medicine’, and did not gorge on them, and had no way to preserve them for consumption outside of their very slim natural harvest window.
No one was paying attention to who got the shakes when they were 70 in native American tribes or colonial America, way less people lived that long too (and populations were lower) so the pool of data would be extremely small. There would never be any evidence of harm from that period so the expectation of it is ridiculous.
You wouldn’t be able to notice if 0.5% of all your brain cells died today, they certainly wouldn’t notice in native American tribes. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t harm you
Annonaceous Acetogenins are low on the list for environmental factors for me compared to all the other toxins encountered from just being alive.
Pollution from burning fossil fuels, forever chemicals and drugs in our food and water supply, herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, industrial waste, lead in pipes, processed food, imported food labeled USA…the list continues. If I am shaking in my old age please tell me how wrong I was. Probably more likely to die of a car accident or cancer. We only get a short time in this world with this body, and I just don’t see why anyone would waste time worrying about it. Have faith that it will be okay and life will continue.
People frequently lived to their 70s in that time. It’s a misunderstanding that because life expectancy was in the 40s people died in their 40s. Most died in infancy but if they reached adulthood they had lifespan into the 70s and even 80s. Just a bit less than modern life spans, but comparable. Also you know they still exist and still eat paw paw
I’m well aware of the averages. 60 yes were fairly common, 70 was significantly less common than today. And more to the point fewer in total people means less data.
It’s easy to imagine some percentage of the population being able to digest them with seasonal consumption without issue and some percentage having issues by the time you reach your 70s+
if youre going to negate the majority of time humans consumed pawpaw, where does pawpaw history start for you, then? if we concede that pawpaw time started in the year 1900, we can assume plenty of people were consuming the fruit given they held mail-in best pawpaw contests. that would put us at almost two 70 year lifespans since then. its probably safe to say that humans have consumed more pawpaw in this time period than in all of history before then.
did i miss the pawpaws are giving people “the shakes” memo?
Mail-in best pawpaw contest? That’s hard to believe, given the delicate and short-lived nature of the fruit.
Regardless, his point is valid. Many diseases were poorly understood until they were studied scientifically – and some are still not understood. Casual observation is especially unreliable when a disease takes decades to emerge, and when the exposure only causes the disease in a minority of people who are exposed.
awfully specific to be made up, no? ive already spent more time on this than pawpaw will take off my life. i dont want to spend yet more time doing the research for you. its actually a pretty cool story in its own right.
I was replying back to his post about Lehman’s Chiffon.
btw if u click on on arrow on someone’s post, it’ll jump to the post which that person is replying to… Here is a pic where to click to figure that out (the arrow next to the user’s “F” icon):
cOiNcIdEnTalLy, those studies all came out AFTER adding filters to the cigarettes, and who knows what a common substance for old cigarette filters was? Asbestos.
given all of the past consumption, without evidence of harm, why wouldnt the burden be on proving that first? genuinely curious. the dose makes the poison with everything exogenous. when you find the harm level you find the safe level too. my tap water has nasties in it at levels not considered harmful or toxic to me.
