Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Carnivorous plants!

SilentPanda

SilentPanda

Moderator emeritus
Original poster
Oct 8, 2002
9,997
33
The Bamboo Forest
So I got this Desktop Carnivorous Plants thing for Christmas. I asked for it because well... it's kind of interesting. I mean... when I was a kid I had played with a venus fly trap on occasion and it was cool. So here is a little kit with even more meat eating plants. I'm that person that's "hard to buy for" because I buy everything I want (within a gift giving budget for most anyway). So that's why I got this. It was on my self-list of things I "could purchase if I really wanted to spend even more money".

Soooo anyway. After I got it I had this thought... do vegetarians eat carnivorous plants? Which then led me to the thought... are carnivorous plants edible? Which led to... if they are edible could you make a salad of them?

The first question isn't really important. But does anybody know if carnivorous plants are edible? Any experience eating them? I mean... so long as it won't kill you it's "edible" I guess. You can eat pennies but they aren't really edible. But I've eaten a salad made of grass and flowers before.

I tried searching around for this but combining eating with carnivorous plants in google just generally brings up carnivorous plant information since ya know... they eat stuff.
 
I bought my mom and my brother the same gift for Christmas. I can't wait to see the results!

I found a list of edible plants here, and saw no mention of carnivorous plants. But you may search each plant found in the kit and find out more about it.

And I doubt a vegetarian would link him or herself to the chain of a plant that eats meaty things. You'll probably get a first hand response here soon, though.
 
For me, the first question is the most important, and most intriguing question! I would think that iSaint would be correct, but it would be interesting to hear from actual vegetarians on what they think.
 
HEhehe what if you ate it and it somehow attacked the inside of your stomach or intestines. Weird thought!
 
tobefirst said:
For me, the first question is the most important, and most intriguing question! I would think that iSaint would be correct, but it would be interesting to hear from actual vegetarians on what they think.
Click to expand...

Technically, I do not believe bugs are classified as "meat." :confused:

These plants are referred to as carnivorous only because they eat other living things with the exception of other plants. ;) :)
 
tobefirst said:
For me, the first question is the most important, and most intriguing question! I would think that iSaint would be correct, but it would be interesting to hear from actual vegetarians on what they think.
Click to expand...

I think it's interesting rather than important. What one vegetarian will eat is not necessarily what another will eat. The answer to the first question may well be just a flip of the coin. Vegetarian is a broad term.
 
SilentPanda said:
I think it's interesting rather than important. What one vegetarian will eat is not necessarily what another will eat. The answer to the first question may well be just a flip of the coin. Vegetarian is a broad term.
Click to expand...

See Ilkley Moor for an early exploration of the progress of molecules in food...

And Hamlet had something to say about it too:
"Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots: your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service,--two dishes, but to one table: that's the end."
"Alas, alas"
"A man may fish with the worm that had eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm."
"What dost thou mean by this?"
"Nothing, but to show how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar."
 
CanadaRAM said:
See Ilkley Moor for an early exploration of the progress of molecules in food...

And Hamlet had something to say about it too:
"Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots: your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service,--two dishes, but to one table: that's the end."
"Alas, alas"
"A man may fish with the worm that had eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm."
"What dost thou mean by this?"
"Nothing, but to show how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar."
Click to expand...

You sir, get an award for confusing me twice in one post... :) :confused:
 
*waves* Hi! Vegetarian here, I would not eat those plants because it's totally gross.
What if I got a BUG LEG stuck in my teeth.
That'd be totally double gross.

Like, really, really, REALLY gross.
Really gross.
*shudder*

and also, the plants probably taste bad.
I'm imagining like a horrible combination of baloney and bok choy.
EEeeeeewwwwwwwww.

Well.. that's my jacked-up explanation of why I wouldn't eat those plants.
I wanted that plant thing for xmas though, :p
 
CanadaRAM said:
re: vegetarians who may (or may not) eat a plant that has consumed meat...

"Ilkley Moore Baht'at" and Hamlet both speculate on people eating meat that has (in a roundabout way) eaten human -- kind of a cannibalism by proxy...
Click to expand...

I am made out of Tyrannosaurus Rex molecules! Well... I bet at least one molecule of me is... RAWR!
 
katie ta achoo said:
*waves* Hi! Vegetarian here, I would not eat those plants because it's totally gross.
What if I got a BUG LEG stuck in my teeth.
That'd be totally double gross.

Like, really, really, REALLY gross.
Really gross.
*shudder*

and also, the plants probably taste bad.
I'm imagining like a horrible combination of baloney and bok choy.
EEeeeeewwwwwwwww.

Well.. that's my jacked-up explanation of why I wouldn't eat those plants.
I wanted that plant thing for xmas though, :p
Click to expand...

I don't think I'd eat them myself. And I'm a Tyrannosaurus Rex! RAWR!
 
We had a Venus Fly Trap for a while. It was the laziest plant I've ever seen, and lazy isn't a word you usually apply to plants. It was too slow to catch flies so we had to catch flies for it, put them into its trap, and hold them there until it closed.

Come to think of it, maybe that means the plant was clever, not lazy. It got us to be its slaves!

Hmmm, why am I now humming this song?
 
Doctor Q said:
We had a Venus Fly Trap for a while. It was the laziest plant I've ever seen, and lazy isn't a word you usually apply to plants. It was too slow to catch flies so we had to catch flies for it, put them into its trap, and hold them there until it closed.

Come to think of it, maybe that means the plant was clever, not lazy. It got us to be its slaves!
Click to expand...

haha - same here. i bought crickets from the pet store to feed that lazy plant of mine... just like a good little slave. :D it died on me though, i don't think i was ever so pissed off about a plant dying in my life. not sure why it died either, it was well fed and i did what the "directions" told me to. <pout> interesting plants.
 
My only experiences with Venus Fly Traps are putting my finger in them to close them (which eventually killed my Venus Fly Traps) and catching flies to put in them, ahh great times.

In town there are these gardens in two huge glass houses which used to have Venus Fly Traps too, so yeah... *poke poke*

I apologise for my plant killing, I was young and stupid.
 
I was actually considering ordering this for myself. But I know next to nothign about these kinda plants and are having troubles finding something to help me so i'ma ask here. So I live in on the 13th floor of a building so it get pretty warm up here. Whould that be a problem? And how about food source? There are little no no bugs that get in here so does that mean I have to go get flies for it myself?

Thanks in advance :)
 
Golden_315 said:
I was actually considering ordering this for myself. But I know next to nothign about these kinda plants and are having troubles finding something to help me so i'ma ask here. So I live in on the 13th floor of a building so it get pretty warm up here. Whould that be a problem? And how about food source? There are little no no bugs that get in here so does that mean I have to go get flies for it myself?

Thanks in advance :)
Click to expand...

They're tropical plants so the warmness isn't an issue.

You can BUY mealworms for them to eat.
I'm not sure, but I think you can feed them baloney. Someone I know that had venus fly traps fed her plants baloney.
 
Ah good. Thanks for the help. I thoughht that they were tropical plants.

Oh and if anyone has a link to a goss site for carieng for thses plants that would be greatly appreciated.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back