Elephants Give Trunks Down to Chiles

Chile peppers are not elephants' things, not at all.  According to a piece by Bjorn Carey ( August 5) at LiveScience.com,  African farmers who plant spicy peppers around their other crops find the peppers act as a barricade against ever hungry elephants and other large veggie-eating mammals. And the bonus--Zambezi Valley farmers are turning the chiles into a hot cash crop.

"Two companies – the African Spices Company in Zambia and the Chili Pepper Company in Zimbabwe –produce and distribute bottled hot sauces, jams, and relishes made from the peppers. "

Comments

[barbwire]

Our peach-faced lovebird, Bosco, loves hot peppers and chiles are included in many seed mixes for hookbill parrots like him, as well as other larger types. Cha cha cha.

[Foodie]

Love it, Babs! Do we know why?
They put garlic in dog food "because dogs love it." How do "they" know this?

[Cynthia]

Most living things have defense mechanisms built in to keep them from being destroyed -- and also have a few "enemies" who are unaffected by those defense mechanisms, so the living thing in question doesn't overwhelm any given ecosystem. These defense mechanisms range from brains to teeth and claws to bad taste (in animals as well as plants) to thorns to chemicals (such as the capsaicin in chiles). So most animals will avoid chiles, because they hurt, but a few animals (including humans and Bosco, the peach-faced lovebird) enjoy them, so we don't end up with a planet covered with chiles.

A good example of what happens when a plant has no predators is the introduction of prickly pear cactus into Australia. With no natural enemies, the cactus almost completely covered the state of Queensland and parts of New South Wales -- 25-million hectares -- before the cactoblastus moth was introduced. Said moth lays eggs on prickly pear cactus, and the larvae eat the cactus. There is now a museum to this moth in Queensland, because it literally saved the state.

So in Africa, the "natural enemey" of the chile appears to be the human, who happily picks the fruit despite a defense mechanism that, because it is new to the continent, few, if any, other animals will have adapted to.

So it's a great idea. I'm so pleased they've hit upon such a clever, doubly beneficial solution to the problem.

And as for the garlic in the dog food, having done a short stint in tasting research, I can tell you that it's pretty much the same way you figure out what people like -- you serve it, and you notice the reactions. Of course, in research, it's a little more complex than that, and when your subject can't make comments, you have to test longer. But "they" really do spend a lot of time trying to make the pet food as desirable as possible for pets.

[Foodie]

Love that moth story, Cynthia, thanks.
As for dogs' preferences.......I have not encountered many fussy eaters in the doggie world. In fact, researching the eating predilections of some canines would require high speed cameras and laser-like reflexes. The dish goes down, and the food is inhaled in a flash.
Garlic?! Was there garlic in thar, Jethro?!

[Cynthia]

They probably used poodles. We had a fabulous poodle, but whenever he got a taste of human food (he was so cute -- only 7 pounds, puppy cut, and the runt of the litter, so his nose never got long and pointy -- a perennial puppy -- almost everyone who came into our home fed him), it would be days before he would touch dog food again. Many dogs will scarf whatever is around, even after eating human food, but poodles won't. So fussy eaters (and I'm guessing poddles aren't the only ones) are one key to the doggy taste-testing research. I'm guessing a lot of patience is also involved -- and possibly high speed cameras, too. ;-)

[Cy Cook]

Years ago I read that garlic in dog food helped repel fleas so I put it in the rice and meat mixtures we cooked our dog. She lived in good condition for about 16 years. Now, I see that onion is poison to dogs. Isn't garlic in the onion family? So, if it is, does that mean we should not give our dogs anything with garlic in it?

[foodie]

I still think garlic is used in commercial dogfood--but then I just found this re onions and garlic being bad for dogs.
http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?cls=1&cat=1935&articleid=2414

Both garlic and onions are members of the allium family, yes.