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Comment by omnibrain | Hacker News Reader

For some reason our kindergarten teachers (in germany) told us that the plant is poisonous. That taught me very early to question authority figures like teachers, because the same day when I came home from kindergarten I found my grandfather sitting on his yard bench eating dandelion leaves.

Thinking about, they might have told us it is poisonous to keep us from playing with them, because the sap colours skin and clothes brown with hard to remove stains.

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At least in the US, people routinely spray dandelions with weed killer. So an argument could be made in favor of telling kids - especially in a classroom setting - where you'd rather err on the side of keeping kids from picking dandelions from any yard they pass by, and eating them.

Sadly, this is accurate. I am comfortable picking those up in my yard, but I would hesitate to pick those anywhere else.

There was a time in my life when I was all-but homeless, and pretty much penniless, despite having two jobs --- the only reason I didn't get exposed to Round-up on at least one occasion was because I was careful to blanch the dandelions I was planning on eating by placing a heavy stone on them for a day or two or three --- this goes a long way to make them less bitter in taste.

I am glad you have made it. As sad as the story is, it is also fascinating to me. Would you be willing to go into more detail ( among other things, why would heavy stone work in this case )?

There's not much to it --- made a bad life decision, had some follow-on bad luck, falling out with family, and was fortunate to have support of some friends and to land the two jobs.

As noted, dandelions are bitter in taste, and this can be mitigated by blanching them --- putting them under a heavy stone is one way to do this, or one can dip them in boiling water briefly. It also softens them a bit.

Yeah we tell our kids about edible plants like dandelions, but caution them to basically never actually eat any they find.

Really, just saying "they're poisonous" would be quicker and the outcome wouldn't be all that different. They do have to be treated as poisonous, kinda, in urban and suburban settings.

I had a similar experience with the anti-drug propaganda as a student. In the US there is (was?) an anti-drug program called DARE that as students in the 80s and 90s we were routinely subjected to. It was basically anti-drug propaganda. They went over all sorts of downsides/side effects of drugs (which are EVIL) including marijuana. The most terrifying "side effect" to most of us boys was the shrinking of your penis (yes seriously this was taught).

Once I learned the reality around "drugs" it was a startling lesson to me that you need to question authority figures, even though this at times can infuriate them. Now with teenagers of my own, hearing some of the things their teachers teach them as "fact" can be depressing, especially when it's tech-related and it's clear that the teacher has absolutely no idea what they're talking about.

> even though this at times can infuriate them

Why should you care whether or not they're infuriated? That's a very subservient perspective you have.

when they have the ability/authority to "punish" you, you care. You may decide that you care more about your independent spirit than you do their happiness level, but you do care. As someone who stood by their unpopular opinion on principle even though the punishment (a very low grade) blemished an otherwise sterling GPA, I don't think it's possible not to care.

When it's a state who can throw you into a cage and lock the door for extende periods of time, you're going to care. If you don't, I would seriously question your sanity (or honesty).

I too remember the DARE program. Prior to DARE, I didn't know much about drugs, and after I knew all the major kinds people did, the kinds of effects they had, how to use them, and where to go buy them.

Oh yeah, they also gave a bunch of those horror stories about them, some of which I am sure were true, but many obviously weren't.

DARE did in fact usually increase drug use.

This was shown by multiple studies [0], but the program ran many more years.

It could be a coincidence that everyone involved in the program profited immensely from it.

The guy who started DARE, Daryl Gates, was roundly blamed for LAPD's racist culture; so much so that he 'retired' after the Rodney King riots.

Here's a fun quote of his: "... blacks might be more likely to die from chokeholds because their arteries do not open as fast as they do in 'normal people'."

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_Abuse_Resistance_Educatio...

Speaking of questioning authority figures, a more recent saying comes to mind: The next time that somebody tells you, "the government wouldn't do that," oh yes they would!

"Winners don't do drugs".

LOL OK. But actually most of them do.

They might have sprayed them, making the poisonous

Maybe they were confusing them with buttercups (rununculus) which are poisonous.

That would be funny, because on other occasion I remember collecting huge bouquets of "Hahnenfuß" (we called them "Butterblume") on walks with the kindergarten group. :)

A lot of people are just misinformed.

That would never have flown in our (UK) class, where we grew up drinking Dandelion and Burdock pop

It was however playground lore that touching them and licking your fingers would make you wet the bed. Indeed the French name for them is literally that, pissenlit, which they must have had good reason to choose over the perfectly fine English name for them, dent de lion.

Dandelion is widely used as a diuretic.

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