What's the probability that a random alien fruit, provided

Obviously there's no practical way to even ballpark this, but even if alien fruit evolved simple sugars that we could digest, chances seem high that the other junk it's made out of would be toxic or at the very least indigestible to us, causing diarrhea, defeating the purpose of eating it.

>>7678735
there are plants on our own planet that evolved in the same environments as we did that will poison and kill you. This is why when hunter/gatherer tribes move into new areas, the safest food sources are fish and game, meat is edible as long as you cook it.

It is incredibly unlikely plants on another planet would be edible to people.

>>7678763
This, basically. Life on earth evolved, as far as we can tell, in a closed ecosystem. If life evolved elsewhere, in a similarly closed ecosystem, chances are low that the two would be compatible. Unless life as we know it on earth is actually the only form of life possible, but that still doesn't guarantee that we could safely eat, digest, and extract nutrients from it.

>>7678735
How is it possible for hunters and gathers to test if the plant is safe? Do they use old people as test subjects?

>>7678735

it will either be edible, or it won't be.

therefore the probability is 1/2.

>>7678779
You know what the most common side effect of eating small doses of poisonous plants is? You get fucked up. Eat some cocoa leaves? get fucked up, Strychnine in small amounts? Bit fucked up.

Most plant consumption can probably be traced back to random niggers eating small plant leaves, trying to get fucked up, and remembering the ones that didn't kill them and the tasty ones (roots, fruits, whatever)

File: Amanita muscaria.jpg (61KB, 530x431px) Image search: [Google]

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>>7678786
1/99 just to be on the safe side

>>7678772
So we can eat alien meat but not alien fruit?

>>7678786
>implying that the probability will be split evenly

>>7678880
Is it possible half of the top mushroom to be safe for eating. The other half is poisonous?

>alien
>fruit
pick one

>>7678779
http://lifehacker.com/5454722/use-the-universal-edibility-test-to-find-food-in-a-survival-situation?sidebar_promotions_icons=testingoff&utm_expid=66866090-67.e9PWeE2DSnKObFD7vNEoqg.1&utm_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dhow%2Bto%2Btest%2Bif%2Ba%2Bplant%2Bis%2Bedible%26oq%3Dhow%2Bto%2Btest%2Bif%2Ba%2Bplant%2Bis%2Bedible%26gs_l%3Dmobile-heirloom-serp.12...0.0.1.1923.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0....0...1c..34.mobile-heirloom-serp..5.27.2381.uiw9X4l-21E

it depends. the common structures we see in organic molecules are based on some really basic chemistry - if you're carbon based, there's only so much you can do with carbon compounds and still be small. unless the planet they evolved on had a VERY strange chemical context, i would expect the general classes of organic chemicals synthesized by their cells to be similar.

some compounds might be just similar enough to interact with our receptors, but there's no guarantee. we have a hard enough time finding physiologically active natural products as it is, and we're looking in our own biological system

more likely, most of the alien organic compounds would either pass right through us or end up benignly accumulating in fat stores or something.

>>7678735
First of all, read the damn file name people

Second of all, I'll answer OP despite this being a troll thread. There is no answer in numbers, if this is what you're looking for. Just like Drake's equation the answer to your question is in variables only:

E = F * fc - ef

where E represents edible fruit, F represents all fruit, fc represents the fraction of fruit which are carbon based and ef represents fruit on earth, so that earthly fruit won't be taken into calculation.

>>7678913
>implying nutrient covered ovaries grown on some sedentary stationary thing is that big of a stretch

>>7678735
>What's the probability that a random alien fruit, provided it is carbon based, would be edible for us?

A random dead alien animal is a safer bet for eating. Just strip out the muscles and discard the rest of it.

the bigger question is not "will it kill me" but "will i even get nutrition out of it"

they might use some carbohydrate analogue that we could metabolize, but there's no guarantee at all that they'd use similar enough amino acids for us to digest their proteins

>>7678735
how do you randomly sample the space of all possible carbon based fruits?

since many possible elements will kill you even in trace amounts, the probability is likely 0

>>7678933
Yeah, sure it's a troll thread, but some of those actually stimulate the dissemination of knowledge, much like yours does. At least it isn't atheism/creationism/flat-earther garbage.

>>7678950
If you ever found yourself stranded on an alien planet, and you found a bunch of fruit varieties, how would you decide which one to discard and which one to try?

>>7678735
I would say pretty high because of convergent evolution. Life hasn't found biomaterials better than cellulose, protein, and sugar. The only issue might be handedness of the biomolecules, even though they may be the same they might have different chirality.

Are there possibly all sorts of micronutrients in varieties of exotic fruit that would benefit my health in unpredictable ways if I consumed them daily?
When I buy some even remotely exotic fruit, I like to think that what I'm eating is something special with possibly beneficial chemicals that I wouldn't otherwise get.

>>7678735
Pretty high. The human body is incredibly resilient. Even if it wasn't great for us, we could still probably eat it and the biochemical processes in our body would break it down and use it for energy.

Why would it even have the same sugars as earth fruits instead of having useless sugars that would go through us like splenda due to lack of proper enzymes?

File: 765px-Chirality_with_hands.svg[1].png (161KB, 765x519px) Image search: [Google]

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>>7678892
Maybe. There's a 50% chance that alien meat will have the wrong chirality.

>>7678906
Some plants only have roots that we can digest, so yeah

>>7678779
From what I've seen in survival shows, you chew a small piece of the plant for a few minutes and wait for negative symptoms appear. It nothing happens, it's probably safe to eat.

>>7679020
we can't even process cellulose and most vegetables and grains.

>>7678735
50[math]\%[/math] it either will, or it won't

>>7679999
thank you, Bayesiboi

>>7678735
Not enough information to evaluate. It might as well be 50%, but I'd rather just leave probability out of it.

You ultimately have no idea.

>>7679838

See:
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>>7678735
We don't even know if there is fruit on other planets. They might not have plants or animals

>>7679819
>Life cannot be anything other than based on the same compounds that we are

>>7680779
The point is that EVEN if they were made in the same way, there's only a 50% chance that it would be oriented in a way that we could make use of it (since it's not like one orientation is intrinsically better than the other).

>>7680845
?

Are you implying orientation is more important than composition?