Mad Cow, Bird Flu, SARS, Red Tide...

[UNCjigga]

It seams like nearly every class of meat products/seafood and dairy products is capable of making us really sick, and recently we've seen a lot of emphasis on virii/bacteria that infected animals can pass on to humans with fatal results. Now I could be wrong, but I don't recall any bacteria/virii/disease that can be passed to humans from fruits or vegetables. Is there any? Does our resistance to plant-borne diseases mean we are supposed to be vegetarians, or does bad meat just help us out with natural selection?

 

[KLin]

go burn some oleander plants and breathe in the fumes, or eat some poison ivy.

 

[UNCjigga]

Originally posted by: KLin
go burn some oleander plants and breathe in the fumes, or eat some poison ivy.

But those are plants known to be toxic. I was thinking along the line of like diseased carrots or killer broccoli.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I am thinking of the immortal words of Socrates who said 'I drank what?'

 

[NatePo717]

What about those killer tomatoes??

 

[leftyman]

my wife and i went down to Tampa last month, some areas were hit pretty hard with red tide.really causes some breathing problems. let alone piles of fish emulsifying on the beaches

 

[jjones]

Originally posted by: NatePo717
What about those killer tomatoes??

Yep, killer tomatoes are quite fearsome indeed.

 

[Eli]

Originally posted by: UNCjigga
It seams like nearly every class of meat products/seafood and dairy products is capable of making us really sick, and recently we've seen a lot of emphasis on virii/bacteria that infected animals can pass on to humans with fatal results. Now I could be wrong, but I don't recall any bacteria/virii/disease that can be passed to humans from fruits or vegetables. Is there any? Does our resistance to plant-borne diseases mean we are supposed to be vegetarians, or does bad meat just help us out with natural selection?

Kind've a fascinating question..

I think I know the answer, even though I don't know the complexities of it...

It boils down to the fact that plant cells are just.. different.. from animal cells.

However, it gets kind've complex if you include bacteria/virii/fungi that can merely grow or even just be on the surface of plant materials.

I don't know of any microorganisms that can infect both plants and humans, but I wouldn't doubt that there are some... perhaps they are almost always benign to us or something, unless you are immunocompromised maybe.

Dunno, just speculating.

 

[Eli]

Hmm.

Thinking about it more, there are most certainly microorganisms that can infect plant-based foodstuffs that can either directly or indirectly make you sick.

I'm not so sure about viruses, but there are some fungi out there that can secrete nasty toxins, probably bacteria too..

Probably why we have a natural aversion to eating things with mold on them, lol.

But yeah, I don't think there are really any virii or bacteria that can use both the inside of us and the inside of plants as a host.

Could be wrong, though. I've just never heard of such a thing.