Dinosaur Food: 100M year old foods we still eat today (2022)

Fun idea. At least one correction for the table: For wila/bryorii fremonti's age of 250mya they cite the "geologic history" of... moss. Wila is a lichen, which is primarily fungal with algal symbiotes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryoria_fremontii And even given an edible moss, the fact that moss existed 250mya would not imply that particular species existed "morphologically unchanged". The "reindeer lichen" entry appears to have the same issue.

Gnetum genom does not have a good fossil record, as is the case for many tropical species, but based on molecular clock data, the genus dates to the late Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary (66 mya). Gnetum is a really weird gymnosperm, not a flowering plant, although it does produce fleshy "cones" (strobili). In Indonesia, the seeds are smashed and deep fried to make crisps called "emping".

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.12705/642.12

If you don't restrict the list to living things, then salt and water are surely the oldest answers. :)

This is an interesting way to think about plants and animals.

I'm finding it surprisingly hard to find sources for known age of species - is that information collected somewhere? Or is it something we often just don't know because of how sparse the fossil record is?

Wondering because of trying to look up the age of fern species I do eat (no cinnamon fern near me) and I can't find out.

Hands up who has ever eaten anything from that list!

People eat Horseshoe Crabs? No way, but their precious blood give me

Birds are dinosaurs, and we eat a lot of chicken.

Reindeer lichen is not a moss (Wiki link), or even a Plantae...

Not sure the same crocodiles and sharks we have today were food back than, but current ones are delicious.

Aren’t sea cucumbers 400M+ years old and common in Chinese cuisine?

isn't Sago Palm (Cycas revoluta) highly toxic? i don't think it's edible...

I wonder if there are any fungi that would make that list?

No fiddle heads?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiddlehead

Avocado. I heard it was dinosaur food. Read an article somewhere that says Avacdo trees think that dinosaurs are still around.

I thought avocados were where old food eaten by dinosaurs or at least very large ancient rodents. I guess it doesn't meet the 100 million year old age mark.

I take Gingo three times a week, and eat Horseshoe Crab a few times a year.

The theory of evolution didn´t work on Horseshow crab? Darwin did you read that. Maybe nasa should read it too :)

Meat

Seeing my neighbors gathering ginkgo nuts made me curious enough to try them, and I waded right in without understanding the risks! TLDR— they're not a great food source. It's yet another one of those cases where you have to wonder what "delicacy" means.

The actual fruit (looks like a rotten plum, smells terrible) has ginkgolic acids which cause contact dermatitis (think poison ivy).

Then the nuts themselves contain Ginkgotoxin, which interferes with your B6, screwing up your nervous system and causing seizures. Cooking reduces but does not eliminate Ginkgotoxin.

I only ate one, and ate it raw. It was a delightful texture, but tasted like chewing random plant matter. Like leaves from a tree. Was maybe half a cubic centimeter of matter. Escaped any ill effects.

According to my research, kids can have seizures from as few as 10 nuts, which would probably be like 1.5 spoonfuls if you mashed them up. The guidelines I found don't seem very scientific but supposedly a kid can safely handle 3-5 nuts over the course of a day, and an adult could handle 5-10. So it doesn't seem like there is a good margin of safety.

Overall a real risk to health for an insignificant amount of food that doesn't taste special. But a nice texture.

"We still eat today" vs. "Someone consumed this today" is disingenuous at best.