The evolutionary link between food, condiments and medicine

Jamie B Thompson 

The deep relationship between humans and plants is of great interest to ethnobotanists, human ecologists, and evolutionary biologists. Humans have incorporated thousands of plant species into both traditional medicine and our diets, as foods and condiments. Many of these provide not only calories but also micronutrients and other bioactive compounds that contribute to health [1]. The boundaries between these categories (food, medicine, and condiments) are therefore somewhat blurred, and many plants have multiple uses. This overlap, and the relationships between groupings, have been widely discussed in ethnobotanical research. A recent article by Mateo-Martín et al. explores this continuum using a statistical phylogenetic framework, sampling three cultures and 3,000 used plants across Europe [2].