I always think this about garlic, chilli, onion, etc. Feeling all tough, naturally designed to punish whatever's just eaten it. Then humans be like, "OOOOO that's yum. Add a bit more."
We like plants that offer a challenge, apparently. We probably evolved to like these chemicals because we refused to be beaten and just ended up liking them.
plant: evolves chemical defense mechanism to stop it from being eaten
humans: ayo put that shit on my steak
Being loved by humans is the ultimate evolutionary advantage, so at the end of the day, task failed successfully.
True, we'll make sure you survive if we like you lol
Passing through the digestive tract of a mobile animal is a good way for plants to disperse seeds and reproduce. It makes sense that some plants would be naturally repulsive to some animals and attractive to others.
Also the plants and the animals evolved together. If you're the only animal in the desert that can chomp on a cactus, you're going to survive and pass on your genes.
We also alter them by cooking them. Not too many people like eating raw onion or garlic
We don't know whether they evolved these chemicals to prevent being eaten by animals though. People have tested spicy (capsaicin based) foods with mice, and found that mice actually seemed to like or not really react to spicy foods. This means that capsaicin did not evolve to protect against rodents like initially thought.
In fact, we now know that capsaicin is a very powerful antifungal chemical. Chili peppers naturally grow in hot, humid environments where fungi thrive. There also aren't many rodents in those areas. So the spiciness experienced by mammals like humans is just a side effect that didn't really affect its evolution.
It's probably some kind of weird reward effect in our brains. Like "Yay, whatever I just ate attacked me and I survived! Gimme some more of that!"
From the perspective of the selfish gene the only objective is to promote itself through a replicator into yet another generation of hosts. Mint, pepper, tulips, sheep, etc. have done a wonderful job finding another species that puts a lot of effort into ensuring that a whole bunch of new mint, pepper, etc. survives and replicates.
The closest wild relative of chickens, some kind of Asian forest fowl have about 300 000 of them, while there are nearly 20 billion chickens with a b.
I mean, the individuals are not having a great time, but the genes are winning.
Evolution doesn’t always have a purpose. Random mutations + coincidence can result is some goofy results
I love mint. Lots of bugs hate it, it makes aches less, tastes refreshing, and also mint ice cream. XD
You forgot about the cool cool balls!
I've never used or even seen this exact bar of soap until I just happened to buy it a couple days ago but haven't used it yet. Weird to see it here today but now I'm not sure if this means it's going to be good or bad on my balls...
You should definitely not test it by rubbing the bar of soap directly against them in such a way as to create a highly concentrated version of it directly on your balls.
Especially with this brand, as it already got highly concentrated version of stuff right off the shelf.
If you wash your balls with it, rinse quickly afterwards, or they may feel like a Dentyne Ice commercial.
I got menthol exfoliating soap gifted to me for christmas one year. I still have them in storage... because the feeling is so intense I only want to use it a few times a year, usually in summer. I mean this experience is so much sensation its like, holiday levels of memorable for me.
The most stolen soap by men.
I used to see them grab it and run out of the store with their hands in their pants.
It did work out for peppermint. Mint got humans to plant them en masse, which makes them very very unlikely to go extinct.
Favorite soap ever was a peppermint body wash that came out one Christmas. Balls cool indeed. 🥶🥶
You might have fallen victim to Chris Tingle from Lush. My wife had some and I made the god awful decision to use some.
I did what now?
We just gonna ignore that the caveman has a nail through their bat/club? Talk about an immersion-breaker.
If Francis E. Dec made soap.
Well if you think about it, since we farm the plants the plants win at the end of the day. Their offspring are more in number even safer in farms compared to wildlife.
So peppermint tea as biological insectizide?
