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The Story of Nature's Toxins - From Spices to Vices
by Noah Whiteman
An evolutionary biologist reveals the origins of natural toxins, why they evolved, and the biological basis for our attraction—and addiction—to them.
A deadly secret lurks within our spice racks, medicine cabinets, backyard gardens, and private stashes.
Scratch beneath the surface of a coffee bean, a red pepper flake, a poppy seed, a mold spore, a foxglove leaf, a magic-mushroom cap, a marijuana bud, or an apple seed, and we find a bevy of strange chemicals. We use these to greet our days (caffeine), titillate our tongues (capsaicin), recover from surgery (opioids), cure infections (penicillin), mend our hearts (digoxin), bend our minds (psilocybin), calm our nerves (CBD), and even kill our enemies (cyanide). But why do plants and fungi produce such chemicals? And how did we come to use and abuse some of them?
Based on cutting-edge science in the fields of evolution, chemistry, and neuroscience, Most Delicious Poison reveals the origins of toxins produced by plants, mushrooms, microbes, and even some animals, the mechanisms that animals evolved to overcome them, and how a co-evolutionary arms race made its way into the human experience. This perpetual chemical war not only drove the diversification of life on Earth, but it is also intimately tied to our own successes and failures. You will never look at a houseplant, mushroom, fruit, vegetable, or even the past five hundred years of human history the same way again.
"A fascinating discussion of how nature's toxins can affect us all." ―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"This amusing debut from Whiteman, an evolutionary biology professor at UC Berkeley, explores the 'ways that toxins from nature arose, have been used by us humans and other animals, and have consequently changed the world.'" ―Publishers Weekly
"Humans have benefitted for millennia from the wild variety of healing, intoxicating, delicious or stimulating toxins produced by the biological warfare that pervades the natural world. Whiteman provides a wonderful overview of the diversity and ubiquity of these drugs, giving us an inspiring, entertaining look at both the richness of nature and the clever ways humans—and many other species—have learned to exploit it." ―Edward Slingerland, author of Drunk
"Through captivating storytelling, Noah Whiteman breathes life into the history of nature's toxins, exploring the pleasures, comforts, and agonies that have shaped human evolution as it has intertwined with the evolution of these vital yet often overlooked organisms." ―Beth Shapiro, author of How to Clone a Mammoth
"Magisterial, fascinating, and gripping, Noah Whiteman's Most Delicious Poison is a tour de force. With infectious enthusiasm and deep knowledge, Whiteman opens the curtain behind the substances that affect all of our lives." ―Neil Shubin, paleontologist and author of Your Inner Fish
This information about Most Delicious Poison was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Noah Whiteman is an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is Professor of Integrative Biology and of Molecular and Cell Biology. At Berkeley, he is also affiliated with the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, Center for Computational Biology, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, Jepson and University Herbaria, and Essig Museum of Entomology. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2020 to write Most Delicious Poison and lives in Oakland.
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