What Are They Eating to Make Them Crazy?

According to historian Mary Matossian, contaminated food may have played a key role in important historical events (“Rye Explanation for Past Craziness,” Nov. 24). For example, food poisoning brought on by a fungus that grows on rye grain produces a natural form of the hallucinogen LSD, and this may have been responsible for massive peasant outbreaks before the French Revolution and symptoms synonymous with witchery.

Her theory seems very interesting. Now if only I could determine what contaminated food heavy metal rockers, TV evangelists and most politicians have been eating, I think I could make the world a better place. I guess we are indeed what we eat.

KENNETH L. ZIMMERMAN

Cypress