Dr. Anthony Chaffee’s talk, provocatively titled “Plants Are Trying to Kill You”, argues that plants evolved extensive chemical defenses to deter being eaten, and many of those chemicals harm humans. Because plants cannot flee, they deploy hundreds of defense compounds—lectins, phytates, tannins, oxalates, cyanogenic glycosides, solanine and others—that make most wild plants inedible unless you … Continue reading Dr. Anthony Chaffee – ‘Plants are trying to kill you!’