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Food

Botanist Calls Out Wellness Blogger for Putting Toxic Flowers on Food

So much for "clean" eating.
Photo via James Wong / Twitter.

It’s hard trying to be perfect. You’ve basically got to cut all animal products from your diet (goodbye bacon sarnie! Goodbye honey even though you’re not quite sure why it’s vegan!) and spend £50 on a Nutribullet to make cashew butter once and then never touch again. Every day, you must put a cucumber in your water, and wonder, what am I doing? Why am I soaking a fruit in this tap water? Surely I should just … eat the cucumber?

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But hey, at least you’re not garnishing your food with dangerous flowers that could make you vomit. This was the case for one anonymous Instagram blogger, who published a photo of a chia seed pudding decorated with a toxic flower on their Instagram.

The mistake came to light after one exasperated botanist saw the image and took to Twitter to share his worries. As reported by Metro, James Wong, writer and botanist, tweeted an image of the photo, warning followers against the alarming trend, popular in certain circles of the clean eating scene. “Another day, another ‘clean eating’ instagramer posting images of toxic flowers on food,” wrote Wong.

He continued: “If you're not 100% sure something is edible, just don’t eat it.”

Which, you know, seems like common sense.

The flower featured in the piece, a variation of lily, contains the toxic substance lycorine, which can cause symptoms such as vomiting, diarrhoea, and nausea if consumed even in small amounts.

Hey, at least it’s vegan.