I have eaten it many times, vendors say it's a root. But the last time I ate it, it was little more fibrous and hard and I ate little more than the usual. For the next couple of days my tongue was itching and I had little difficulty speaking. Then I googled it and read somewhere that it's not edible.
It's surprising experts don't know what the thing is given it's so commonly available.
Yikes. Your symptoms were likely caused by calcium oxalate raphides, little mineral needles present in raw agave (and several other plants). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphide
Most cultivated edible plants have been selected against having too many raphides. Though people can still be sensitive to fresh pineapple and kiwifruit which contains proteases that amplifies the damage done by the oxalate needles.
Wild plants, on the other hand , has not been subject to the same selection process and could easily contain a dangerous amount of oxalate.
> However, it may not be so healthy. “Agave has lots of alkaloids. It can be poisonous if eaten in large quantities. Maybe that’s why they sell thin slices,” Dr. Yadav, now retired, warns.
Species doesn't mean as much in the plant world. Cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts, collard greens, kohlrabi, and gai lan are all Brassica oleracea. You can have specimens that are even technically the same cultivar but wildly different alimentary character.
Hooray!! I totally love the way 'Brassica' vegetables provide such a vivid illustration of the amazing variety that some selection-pressure can yield on the development of essentially a single type of input organism. Makes you wonder what might happen when these types of selection-pressures start affecting humankind more!
Brassica and domesticated dogs diversified because of controlled breeding. Unless you get a bunch of totalitarian eugenicists with differing goals, I dont know how this could happen with people.
Oh yeah. Brassica rapa has your turnip, napa cabbage, bok choy and rapini/rabes. Brassica napus gives canola oil, swedish turnip, and rutabaga. Mustard comes from B. juncea, B. nigra and B. hirta.
Also those species names aren't really even guaranteed to be accurate because biologists, botanists, geneticists, etc, can't even really agree on where to draw the line.
There's a whole genre of Brassica memes and it's fantastic.
It's surprising experts don't know what the thing is given it's so commonly available.