Review – good mosquitoes and hidden strength

Biologist Sarah M. Schmidt takes a close look at eleven food plants – a selection of plants that are most frequently grown and eaten worldwide. With her book, she strives to better classify the ambitious goal of better classifying the various, often contradictory information from digital media, advertising and television.

The title of the book “No chocolate without mosquitoes” promises tension. Thanks to its tiny height, a very specific type of mosquito, the cocoa pieces with the Latin name Ceratopogonidae, has the ability to dust female cocoa blossoms with the male pollen of another cocoa blossom. Male cocoa maths do not require blood meal, only the female insects of this kind need the blood of an animal or humans.

In the fight against other blood -sucking mosquitoes that transmit a large number of dangerous diseases, the cocoa block should not be overlooked, the author warns. But here she could have been more detailed. Because with the knowledge of the usefulness of individual mosquito species, the release of genetically manipulated mosquitoes that continuously erase their female descendants appears highly questionable. This is practiced, for example, in Brazil to combat malaria and dengle.

Sarah M. Schmidt also takes the readers on the journey to the origins of apples, citrus fruits, corn, wheat, rice, potatoes, coffee, penny plants, bananas and cabbage vegetables. Based on the potato from South America, she not only explains the nature of breeding, but also its consequences for world politics.

Random breeding success

The potato plant, which originally grew near the equate, is adapted to a constant length of twelve hours. Planted in Europe, the potatoes began to form thick tubers in September after the autumnal day and night, which were then surprised by the onset of frost. It was only after a random breeding, in which the flower color was in the foreground, did a change in the genetic material occurred, which resulted in the European varieties of potatoes, regardless of the long summer days, much earlier to fill their storage organs with potato strength.

Irish farming families fed from up to six kilograms of potatoes a day until the outbreak of potato rot in 1845. The potato had become the most important staple in Ireland because the farmers had to deliver the expensive grain growing on the lease surfaces to their English landowners. The nutritional value of the potato, on the other hand, was hidden from the lords of the United Kingdom because the above -ground parts of the plant are not edible. With the spread of potato disease in the rainy Ireland, around 1.5 million people died of hunger and its consequences. More than 2 million Irish emigrated to America and Australia in the course of famine.

Globalization and injustice

Numerous other injustices related to food plants are discussed in the book. The dark side of the pipe sugar harvest by enslaved and kidnapped people is illuminated. The corn plant was also unable to avoid its fate “from the gift of the gods to the industrial monster”. Only one revenge remained with the highly bred Maiskörners: their consumption brought a life -threatening lack of vitamin B3 With themselves, but of all people with the poorest people in Africa.

The consumption of coffee, on the other hand, even heralded the time of European rationalism. From the 17th century, drinking coffee replaced the regular consumption of wine or beer. In particular, the intellectuals, scientists, writers, but also business people and politicians, appreciated coffee and a sharpened mind. Europe awakened from a twilight heard by alcohol.

At the end of each chapter, readers receive a “pro tip”, for example to keep potatoes dark so that they do not germinate so quickly. The author warns that the knowledge of food plants is lost from previous high cultures. The author conveys the humility and be amazed at the planet Earth, given the biological miracle nourishing to us.

Sarah M. Schmidt: No chocolate without mosquitoes. Astonishing over 11 plants that taste us every day. Leykam 2024, 317 pages, born, € 25.50.