The art of eating poison

What if I tell you there is a place on earth where people are eating poisonous trees since many decades.

Surprising !huh!

There is a unique Island in Japan named AMAMI OSHIMA ISLAND with a population of around 75000 people and here people actually eat various parts of a deadly poisonous tree.

About this poisonous tree

Often this Island is nicknamed oshima and and the poisonous tree the consume is called cycad tree . If you visit this amami oshima Island you will be surprised to see the enormous range of flora and fauna on this Island but than why do the people inhabiting here are wishfully eating the poisonous cycad tree since many generations that too with respect and gratitude towards the cycad tree.

Possible dangers of cycad tree

People eat the wood, leaves, Bark, stem and fruits of cycad tree in spite of the fact that this deadly tree is an extremely poisonous tree which can cause internal bleeding, full liver and kidney damage and quite often death.

The ancient story behind consuming this poisonous tree

The people residing on amami oshima island believes that this tree has once saved the lives of their ancestors so the tree deserves respect and gratitude hence

people on this Island eat this poison.people wear gloves to cut the tree to climb on this tree because even if a simple cut from the tree into your skin can make you dead.

Delicacies made out of cycad

The cycad tree is consumed in numerous forms of delicacies like chips made out of cycad wood,curry of cycad flower,fruit soup, fruit desserts.

The process of poison removal

#Before preparing dish from it's fruit, the people take out the poison from this cycad fruit.

#Before prepairing wood chips from this tree the outer poisonous wooden layer of the tree is cut and the deeper unpoisonous part is used to make chips.

however if these poisonous fruits are eaten in large quantities they can even lead to death.

The ancient story

There is an old ancient story behind eating this poison. Long time ago the amami oshima island witnessed a massive famine along with acute drought. With no rain nothing could be cultivated here.nothing was there to eat for the people living on this AMAMI OSHIMA island. All plants and trees dried up and eventually died.People were starving to death. All plants and trees dried up and eventually died.The only tree that could survive in this famine was the Cycad tree.

The cycad tree needs very little water to grow and it can survive without water for many years. As there was nothing else to eat people started eating fruits leaves and other parts of this poisonous tree.They deviced special procedures to remove the poison before consuming parts of cycad tree.

The art of eating poison

The special procedures of removing poison from cycad tree and consuming it an art in itself which is transferred from one generation  to next generation. sadly this art of showing gratitude towards a life saver tree is dying slowly for now the island is full of other lush green edible trees also.

So what do you feel about the amami oshima island and it's very famous cycad tree?

 Do let us know in the comments section.