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Message: <blockquote data-quote="roger semerad" data-source="post: 9126422" data-attributes="member: 6998612">I like Snarfs answer, but I do feel the need to come up with an in universe answer as well.  It's just an interesting abstract problem.My take on this comes from how I view magic itself.  Magic is basically wish fulfillment as a natural process.  It's superimposing your will over the existing reality.  As such, both the will, definitions, and the intent of the caster decides what the parameters are.  This would mean that the Yaun-ti would not only need to see their party member as potentially food but have the full intent to make them such in the immediate future.  In the case of the live oysters the caster would have to have the intent to harvest them for food after casting.  You can hide your own intentions from others, but not yourself.  If you tried to run around this limitation of this magic by casting purify food on the oysters, then deciding to leave them be in their habitat your intentions at the beginning would be false and the spell would fail.  This also covers using the spell with people with very different biologies.   If you cast this with the intent for the food in question to be consumed by all in the area, the spell will purify the food in a way that will satisfy the biological needs of all that are included in the original intent of the caster.  If you cast purify food on something with the intention that only someone of your own biology would comsume it, then it will only be purified according to your own biological needs.  If another creature then showed up and tried to eat the food it wouldn't be safe unless it's own biological needs just happened to line up with the original caster.Using my answer to these edge cases it would depend on the perception of the caster.  Since they are superimposing their will over reality, the resulting reality will reflect the true beliefs of the caster.  If the caster truely believes that these are toxins then they will be expunged from the food and drink.</blockquote>

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