defense chemicals

In our last post, we looked at the dangerous lectins. Another very sinister defense mechanism in plants are oxalates (oxalic acid). The definition of oxalic acid is “a poisonous strong acid (COOH) that occurs in various plants as oxalates and is used especially as a bleaching or cleaning agent and as a chemical intermediate”.Oxalic acid is actually lethal in high doses. There have been a few recorded deaths of oxalate poisoning after overconsuming oxalate-rich