James WongVerified account

@Botanygeek

British-Malaysian botanist with a special interest in food crops • Teaches about plants, food & horticultural science for work. 📷:

Joined September 2010

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  1. Pinned Tweet
    29 Oct 2017

    I ❤️ ponds, but live in a tiny London flat. So I made a ‘nano pond’ using just an lamp & fruit bowl. Complete with mini waterlily.

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  2. Hello, I’m a botanist in a movie. I ingeniously cheat death to escape Mars. (The Martian) Battle dinosaurs & save my mates. (Jurassic Park) Grow the oxygen to keep my fellow astronauts alive. (Sunshine) Hey, Hollywood gets it right sometimes! 💪🏻🌿😂

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  3. 5 hours ago
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  4. Retweeted
    10 hours ago

    People called the police last year because KFC ran out of chicken for a couple of days.

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  5. 7 hours ago

    Britain has not been able to produce enough calories to sustain our population since Victorian times Fascinating to see how the risk of not being able to adequately feed ourselves is being rebranded as ‘opportunity to reduce food miles.’

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  6. 8 hours ago

    Avocado plants contain a range of toxins (esp in seeds). There is no evidence that they are safe to eat. The only documented traditional uses (even in places with extreme poverty) is feeding it to animals to sterilise them. Perhaps pass on this? 🥑🥑🥑

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  7. Spoiler: Eating one food for the rest of one’s life isn’t a great idea. Protein would likely be the least of one’s problems. The very reason why we evolved to eat a diverse range of foods is to mitigate the risks of nutritional deficiencies. Thanks for an excellent question!

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  8. Yes! Unusually for a plant food quinoa is a complete protein. BUT If you eat plant foods together, say beans and rice, the combo gives you complete protein. This advice is only relevant if you plan on eating just ONE food for the rest of your life.

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  9. Yes! I barely use any growing media now in my aquascapes. I now just superglue plants to rocks and wood, as if they were epiphytes, and add fertiliser to the water. Who knew superglue would be one of my gardening tools of choice?

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  10. This is of course before we consider that one might like to experience more out of life than to just ‘survive’.

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  11. TWITTER: Humans do not NEED to eat carbs to survive! TRUTH: The only way our planet can produce enough calories to sustain over 7 billion people is via carbs, as they produce more calories per acre than fat/protein. So, in a very real sense, we *do* need carbs to survive.

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  12. Jan 4

    I know this is twitter, but who would have thought this tweet pointing out that humans aren’t ducks would have people so furious? Ahhhhh twitter....

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  13. Jan 4

    TWITTER: ‘If bread isn’t good for ducks, why should we eat it?’ (See also, ‘If zoo monkeys shouldn’t eat too much bananas, why should we?’) TRUTH: Because humans aren’t ducks 🦆? (Or monkeys🐒)

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  14. Jan 4

    The idea that eating wheat is unhealthy because it was recently domesticated is a common one amongst the low carbers. The problem with this narrative? Wheat and cows were domesticated around the same time. So beef should be off their menu too. 🐮 🍞

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  15. Jan 4

    ‘Historically wheat is poverty food.’ (Thus it must be unhealthy) Herein lies a universal quirk of human nature that skews how we understand food. Being considered posh doesn’t make something healthier. Being affordable doesn’t make it unhealthy.

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  16. Jan 4

    Oh, and before someone replies saying how unethical quinoa is.... That’s also totally untrue. In fact, it has been a lifeline that has lifted 100,000s of some of the world’s poorest people out of poverty. So enjoy both, in possession of facts, not because of fear.

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  17. Jan 4

    NEW YEAR TWITTER: Ditch wheat! ‘Ancient grains’ like quinoa are far more nutritious. TRUTH: Regular wholemeal flour contains comparable levels of nutrients to quinoa. Some are in fact higher. Quinoa is also only about 1/3 as old as wheat, so the opposite of ‘ancient’. 😉

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  18. Retweeted
    Jan 2

    Fascism is still on the rise, the leader of the free world is a joke, the UK has its most incompetent gov in living memory and far too many people seem to lack basic decency and humanity. And Twitter is just as shouty and unpleasant as ever. Happy 2019 everyone.

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  19. Jan 1

    Thanks to science we now know that immorality isn’t the cause of ill health. (Duh!) AND that attaching weird moral labels like ‘clean’ and ‘pure’ or ‘sinful’ and ‘junk’ to different foods is bat shit crazy. So do yourself a favour and spare yourself the agony.

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  20. Jan 1

    Across time & culture, people might use different words for the concept... But the basic premise of believing illness is one’s own fault, caused by a immoral desire for pleasure is universal. (As is the idea that atoning for this sin by doing something grim is the only cure.)

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  21. Jan 1

    Interestingly, what these toxins actually are is never identified, but we *are* told what causes them to build up: Basically anything fun / tasty. The solution? To purge these from you body. How? By doing something really not very fun: Laxatives, fasting, enemas, blood letting.

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