The 100-Mile Diet

Smith, A.; MacKinnon, J.B.  2007.  The 100-Mile Diet:  A Year of Local Eating.  Vintage Canada, Toronto. 
 

If you decide to partake in the100-Mile Diet, be forewarned that in order to eat a varied diet you must do a lot of planning and researching!  It is also necessary to define what your 100-Mile Diet will consist of;  for instance, are you considering 100 miles away from your home residence as a radius or as determined by driving along roads? 

Most of the planning and preparing for doing a 100-Mile diet should start in the spring and carry out through the summer and fall so as to take advantage of all the fruits, vegetables, seeds, etc. that are produced in home gardens and in the wilderness during this time.  This lesson can be learned from the authors, James and Alisa, of ‘The 100-Mile Diet’ whose first official try at a 100-Mile meal in Vancouver cost them $128.87 for feeding only four people.  They soon learned that purchasing food items in bulk directly from local farmers was a much better choice;  which resulted in them actually spending less than they would have with their previous ordinary diet.  After an entire winter eating mostly potatoes, eggs, and beats, James and Alisa spent their late-spring, summer, and early-fall canning, freezing, drying, and fermenting various foodstuffs to use throughout the next winters months. 

As the authors found, it is very difficult to have a 100% true 100-Mile diet.  Yes you can eat food from your own garden and perhaps from a nearby farmer’s market:  providing honey, fruit, vegetables, eggs, etc.  However, just think about the many items that you would probably need to cut out of your diet (unless you are extremely lucky):  salt, flour, sugar, rice, peanut butter, citrus fruits/juices, bananas, popcorn, crackers, soya sauce, brown/black/kidney beans, junk food, the majority of spices, the majority of alcoholic beverages, and chocolate (which many people, including my mom, would be devastated to lose from their diets).  And many other items would require some ingenious ideas or hard work to make, such as ketchup, mayonnaise, and ice-cream. 

Another thing to consider is are you just going to eat things that grow/live within 100-Miles of you or are you also going to only use products from within this area as well.  If so, then this extremely limits your use of toothpaste, soap, shampoo, conditioner, dish soap, laundry detergent, etc. 

No matter what choices you make in limiting your 100-Mile diet, eating from the wilderness would require extensive researching and perhaps taking some courses to educate yourself so that you don’t poison yourself while trying to better the world.  This education may also help you in designing an effective garden for your area that can help sustain you. 

Also, are you only considering food that is always within 100 miles from your home, because if so then the water in a well, and perhaps hunted wildlife like moose and deer, may travel through more than the 100 miles surrounding your domicile.  And what about fish caught from local lakes?  Do these fish travel in more area than that covered by your 100-Mile distance?  And even if they don’t, are these lakes stocked with fry?  If so, where do these fry come from? Even home-grown, free-range chickens are raised on supplemental food of grains, with their eggs containing some of the nutrients derived from these non-local grains;  and local, range beef are grained for 6 weeks or more directly before butchering.  Even your garden’s aren’t safe because the fertilizer (if you use local or your own animal’s fertilizer) is from these “free-range” chickens and “range” beef.  So what edible “local” food items are really, truly, 100% from within 100-Miles of your home? 

So, is it worth this extreme effort to partake in a 100-Mile diet when it not only consumes a lot of your time, but also limits a lot of food items that we’ve grown up enjoying?  Or is it best to only make an effort to eat 80% or so of 100-Mile diet food, with the other 20% or so reserved for such things as delicacies (chocolate!) and international food. 

Marijuana - The Intoxicant

Pollan, M.  2001.  Chapter 3 – Desire: Intoxication/Plant: Marijuana (pg. 113-179) in The Botany of Desire:  A Plant’s-Eye View of the World.  Random House Trade Paperbacks, New York. 
 

Plants can offer a cornucopia of benefits, however you must be wary because not all plants (or parts of a plant) are beneficial – some are even the complete opposite...deadly.  Not all plants fall into these two categories, there are still other plants that fall between these two extremes, mainly those that are intoxicants – plants that are the “most remarkable of all” as they “manufacture molecules with the power to change the subjective experience of reality we call consciousness” (p. 114).  One of the most popular – indicated through the more than 400 different common names that it possesses – is marijuana (i.e.  Cannabis sativa and C. indica).  This plant has an astoundingly large number of common names including:  pot, ganja, dope, Mary Jane, Aunt Mary, Jane, grass, weed, bud, jay, reefer, blunt, boom, hemp, GOM (good old marijuana), and hash.  Interestingly, not only is this plant an intoxicant, but it has also been used for medicinal/healing purposes and as a fibre. 

Pollen noted that if the laws hadn’t have been passed that made marijuana illegal, it is completely possible that this drug would never have become so “cool” and popular, and thus would not have become such a huge drug addiction and legality issue.  Unfortunately we cannot just look at an alternate universe where marijuana was not illegalized and see the true results of such a choice, but it still makes me wonder if our present situation would truly be better now if marijuana had been legalized with restrictions.  I also found it fascinating to learn that “’the great revolution’ in cannabis genetics” (p. 132) – the crossing of the “homegrown” tropical C. sativa with the hardier and more potent C. Indica to produce a hybrid – may also have not occurred.  This hybrid is an exceptional plant as it combined “the smoother taste and ‘clear, bell-like high’” of the sativa with the “superior potency and hardiness” of the indica (p.132).  Without this major transformation and the transportation of the plant indoors (where their water, nutrients, light, CO₂, and heat levels were controlled), marijuana probably would not have gone from being “homegrown” (containing only 2-3% THC (the active intoxicating chemical)) to becoming “what is today the most prized and expensive flower in the world” (containing as high as 20% THC) (p. 130). 

Oregano: A Taste Bud's Spicy Pleasure and Oily Demise

How can a spice when added to food enrich its flavour, but when taken as an oil in order to heal colds and improve digestion prove to be a horrid tasting biological alternative to synthesized medicines?  This spice, oregano, has many uses – some proven, some suspected or alleged, some recent, and some ancient.  Most recently the oil derived from its leaves has been scientifically studied and has been used for treating many different ailments that plague humankind.  Personally, I have used oregano and its oil for both cooking purposes and for enabling the rebooting of my digestive system.

Oregano, as a spice, enriches the flavours of many foods that I enjoy, such as tomato sauce, pizza, and chilli con carne;  thus, in my books, this spice lives up to being the creation of the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite, and is well worth the honor of either being worn as laurel crowns by brides and grooms during ancient Greek weddings, or being put on graves to bring peace to departing spirits.  The strangeness of this spice is not only due to the Greeks thinking that the animals who consumed it were more tender and tasted better;  no this spice is also strange since the term ‘oregano’ refers more to a flavour than to a specific plant species.  The most common commercially used species’, however, are Origanum vulgare (the Mediterranean version) and Lippia gradeoleus (the Mexican version, which is used to make chilli powder).  One of the many products of Origanum vulgare, other than as the oregano herb, is ‘Oil of Oregano’. 

My first introduction to oil of oregano was when one of my roommates suggested that myself and my other roommate (a striving student nurse who was often getting sick) try using her oil of oregano to combat a cold that was going around.  So we all put about five drops of oil of oregano under our tongues, held it there for as long as we could (which was only a few seconds for me), and chugged a glass of water.  My roommate warned us that it tasted bad, but the stuff was so vile (burning my mouth with a nasty tingling feeling) that I chugged another entire glass of water before brushing my tongue with toothpaste (which I wasn’t technically supposed to do, but I just couldn’t handle the taste)...and, after all of that, I could still taste it!  It didn’t help that taking oil of oregano to fight colds means that it should be taken immediately before bed without eating anything afterwards, so I had to deal with that awful, persistent flavour in my mouth the entire night (a flavour that is nothing like the wonderful spice in the meals I enjoy).  Needless to say, rather than suffering through the experience again, I decided to live with the possibility that I might get sick. 

I was successfully able to avoid oil of oregano for about a year and a half, but then my family decided that it would be a good idea to do a cleanse after Christmas.  This “cleanse” (which is actually a “gut bacteria rebalance/elimination diet”) consisted of:  a week with oil of oregano before breakfast and lunch, and a probiotic pill before dinner;  prior to a second week of taking only probiotics before meals.  Throughout this time we were not allowed to eat:  sugar (except honey), gluten, yeast (alcohol), fungus (mushrooms), dairy, and vinegar.  We were also limited to eating only chicken, turkey, and fish for meats;  as well as being required to drink at least 8 glasses of water per day. 

For this cleanse we only needed to take two drops of oil of oregano under our tongues, which was much easier to handle than the five drops I had taken to try to ward off sickness (and it didn’t taste nearly as horrid).  An extra bonus was that the taste was washed away with the ingestion of food!  My father still complained loudly about the oil’s revolting flavour, but I suspect this might be because he didn’t swallow it properly (I held my breath throughout the whole ‘swallowing and chugging a glass of water’ procedure).  My mother, on the other hand, had suffered through using oil of oregano before this cleanse experience;  she had used it to overcome an awful and persistent razor-blades-running-down-the-oesophagus-type cough.  She considers oil of oregano to be a foul tasting but effective healer, at least in the instance of colds/coughs/flus. 

Oregano has been an important herb and medicine since ancient times – utilized by Hippocrates and Paracelsus, as well as being used in the dark ages and by post-Silk Road doctors in China.  During these periods of time it was employed to treat stomach pains, respiratory diseases, diarrhea, psoriasis, vomiting, jaundice, fungal diseases, rheumatism, toothaches, indigestion, coughs, fevers, itchy skin, aching muscles, sores, scorpion bites, and spider bites, as well as being used as an antiseptic.  Recent research is discovering just how useful oregano is and can be – especially its oil.  It is now thought that oregano oil may:

·         inhibit microorganism and fungal growth,

·         protect body cells from oxidation damage,

·         relieve and prevent spasms,

·         promote secretion/expulsion of phlegm from the respiratory tract,

·         inhibit mutagens,

·         reduce the occurrence of cancer,

·         relieve malaria symptoms,

·         inhibit cytotoxins, and

·         relieve flatulence.

In addition, today oil of oregano is commonly used for treating colds, flus, digestive disorders, and menstrual problems.  There are many testimonials from people who have tried using oil of oregano for various ailments – in conjunction with, or in addition to, the uses already listed – such as providing a sense of well being by relieving psychological stress;  which may explain why the ancient Greeks thought that the herb made people happy and that anointing a person with it would cause them to dream of their future spouse. 

Oil of oregano may be good for an amazing number of things and is quite safe to use, however due to its concentrated and potent nature it is advised that it should not be taken every day for more than 2 weeks at a time.  It is also necessary to take a probiotic (either in pill form or through foods containing probiotics) when taking oil of oregano as without this it can cause negative side effects such as yeast infections, skin irritation, and allergic reactions.  Not only should it be used internally with discretion, but for many of its topical applications it must be diluted. 

Obviously oregano cannot be used to heal every illness, disease, or ailment that is out there, but there is a lot of scientific research that has been done which shows some of the potential benefits of using oregano and its oil.  So the next time you’re sick, will you go out to the drug store to buy tablets containing who knows what kind of synthesized chemicals that have who knows what kind of negative effects on your body, or will you decide to try an organic, herbal remedy?  It’s a choice.  You have to decide if it is worth braving the disgusting taste of oil of oregano to use this natural proven healer. 

Praise to my Aloe Vera

For some people – like me for example – growing plants is a momentously difficult process.  The only plant that has miraculously survived my “not-so-green thumb” is my aloe vera plant;  which I believe has only survived due to my habit of ignoring it for about a month before giving it a little water and repeating the process.  This plant has amazingly been with me for 5 years now, and although it hasn’t appreciated being moved from town to town, or being accidentally dumped on its side during some of these trips, my aloe vera plant has miraculously pushed through all of these hardships and remained a beautiful, albeit slowly growing, plant.

Desert Plants

Nabhan, G.P.  1990.  Desert Plants as Calories, Cures, and Characters (pg. 3-19) in Gathering the Desert.  Univ. Of Arizona Press. 
 

As I practically have no knowledge of Indian culture or of desert plants, I found Nabhan’s story interesting;  however, because of my limited knowledge I had difficulties relating to the story and understanding what Nabhan was discussing.  I usually enjoy reading stories that expand my vocabulary – ones in which I am forced to look the words up in a dictionary in order to properly understand what is happening.  I do not, however, enjoy doing this multiple times for one page of writing – as I would have had to for reading ‘Desert Plants as Calories, Cures, and Characters’, if I had been in possession of a dictionary at the time that I read it.  Thus I only have assumed, generalized ideas of the meanings for “mescal”, “chiltepines”, “spry”, “mesquite-branch ramada”, “oraganpipe cactus fruit” (p. 3), “atole de pechita”, “batea”, “metate”, “carob” (p. 4), “succor” (p. 5), etc.  I admit – fully and completely, without argument – that my vocabulary and personal dictionary (the one located in my head) are limited, and it makes sense that I didn’t understand many of these terms as they are referring to plants that I’ve never been exposed to before.  However, I believe that this written work could have been enhanced by containing pictures of the named plants, near to where Nabhan discusses them. 

I did find the legends/stories concerning the Earth Maker and the greasewood (p. 11 & 17) plant to be a nice addition.  The one plant seed spanning a horizontal, doughnut shaped distance of 22 meters was also a highlight for me from this piece (p. 12).  This fascinating phenomenon actually makes quite a lot of sense when I think about it, however why it was able to form a doughnut shape without its offspring growing up around and within the circle, thus ruining this shape, seems strange.  It is also very interesting that the only known animal (a grasshoppers) to have counter adaptations to the creosote’s defense mechanisms is also protected from predators through its resemblance to the creosote plant itself (p. 13-14).  I liked how Nabhan points out that not only are some desert plants good for curing certain diseases that have inflicted Native Americans and Mexican-Americans due to their dietary changes, but these plants can also benefit human kind in other ways, even if it is just through the scents of their volatile oils (p. 8).

An Apple's Fake Sweetness

Pollan, M.  2001.  Chapter 1 – Desire:  Sweetness;  Plant:  The Apple (pg. 3-58) in The Botany of Desire:  A Plant’s-Eye View of the World.  Random House Trade Paperbacks, New York. 

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always loved reading;  probably since the very first time my parents read me a fairytale before bed, my interest was sparked and I wanted to be able to read those stories for myself.  I don’t enjoy all reading though – for instance, I hate/loath/detest textbook reading – but I have (almost) always enjoyed well written fantasy books because they are so descriptive that I feel as if I’m actually going through the experiences along with the characters (without the imminent danger).  This “trait” of mine, if you can call it a trait, is why I have appreciated what I have read of Pollen’s written works so much.  And I bemoan that I can’t learn all my coursework through reading such interesting, well-written, and attention grabbing language. 

Pollen starts his chapters by grabbing my attention with a descriptive story – which effectively draws me in and places me directly in the scene he’s describing.  For his apple chapter he did this by stating that if I would have been “on the banks of the Ohio River on a particular afternoon in the spring of 1806” I would have seen “a strange makeshift craft drifting lazily down the river” which “consisted of a pair of hollowed-out logs that had been lashed together to form a rough catamaran, a sort of canoe plus sidecar” (p. 3).  All of these, and his other, descriptions of the scenery help the story feel very real to me, which, in turn, spikes my interest in what Pollen wants to convey to me through his writing. 

I also like how Pollen shows great respect for the plants that he discusses, not just through all the research he does about them, but also through his discussions of how the plant has benefitted mankind (e.g. “...without [apples] the American wilderness might never have become a home” (p. 5)) and how the plant has ‘used’ mankind to further its own interests (e.g. “What did the apple get in return?  A golden age:  untold new varieties and half a world of new habitat” (p. 5)). 

I thoroughly enjoyed reading ‘The Apple’ chapter of Pollen’s ‘The Botany of Desire’.  I found it interesting to learn the ‘true’ story of the ‘Johnny Appleseed’ who had captured my attention as a child in Walt Disney’s ‘Melody Time’ – though my interest in this story was likely due to the songs (e.g. “...singing with my feathered friends, humming with the bees...”) and my appreciation of musical type movies.  However, even though I enjoyed learning the ‘true story’ – as perceived by Pollen – I also resent him a little for ruining my perfect fairytale picture of Johnny Appleseed;  though I also resent that the story became a fairytale-type lie due to the apples bad rap during the prohibition.  Pollen’s story and association between how John Chapman became Disney’s Johnny Appleseed and how the apple became “sweetness without dimension” (p. 7) were intriguing.  I enjoyed how he described this change with how both of their “tang of strangeness” (p. 7) became “composted beneath a deep sift of myth and legend and wishful thinking” (p. 6) and becoming a “fake sweetness” substituting the real thing (p. 7). 

Corn Overload

Pollan, M. 2006. Section I – Industrial Corn (pg. 15-119) in The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. Penguin Group, Toronto. 


Information overload! I just learned so much about corn – from Pollen’s ‘The Omnivore’s Dilemma’ – in the past eight and a half hours that I’m feeling overwhelmed. Wow...just wow!  

First off, before reading Pollen’s chapter on corn, I had no idea how abundant corn was in our food. It’s just amazing...in a disturbing way. For interest sake, I decided to look at the ingredients of the original rice cakes that I’ve been eating recently (since I’ve realized that I’m sensitive to gluten/wheat), and I was pleasantly relieved to see that the only ingredient was whole grain brown rice (with warnings that it may contain: peanuts or milk, soy, and sesame (depending on the brand)). Of course if they do contain milk, then there is likely “corn” in there as the cows that the milk came from were probably fed some corn. However, when I looked at the “Savory Tomato and Basil” flavoured rice cakes, I found a lot of evidence of corn: corn, corn flower, dextrose, milk, citric acid, lecithin, and (possibly) colour.  Yikes! That’s a bit alarming.

Corn really has succeeded in “world domination” (p. 23), at least in the aspect of “domesticating its domesticator” (p. 119), us. It has also caused such a multitude of problems: farmer’s not being able to break even, a “dysfunctional farm economy” (p. 47), poisoning of rivers and oceans (and thus the organisms that live there) (p. 47), obesity, health problems, etc. There is so much to do in order to fix the problems we’ve essentially created through high production of corn; but this problem is now so complex that I, personally, have no idea where to start to fix it. 

Obviously we should be thinking sustainably; trying to re-introduce biological cycles, decrease waste, etc., while making everyone happy (farmers, corporations, and consumers alike). An important change to make is that the beneficiaries of high corn production (e.g. Cargill and ADM) should not have such a huge impact on the laws affecting corn and its farmers, which are thus leading farmers further into debt and forcing them to work separate jobs to keep their farms. Since by ignoring ecological solutions (“closed ecological loop[s]” (p.68)) we’ve caused more problems, it would make sense to go back to the more biological way of growing food and raising animals. Personally, I really like the “old” idea of diverse farms which focused on natural cycles – containing: plowing horses, hogs, chickens, cattle, and multiple crops (veggies, fruits, and grains), as well as being sustained by light energy and sustaining each other, thus wasting nothing – compared to what they have become today: monocultures. However, due to the world’s huge population and our consumerism viewpoint, this is easier said than done (in fact it may be impossible to ecologically grow enough food for all the people on earth).

Thankfully society is starting to become concerned with sustainability, but is it almost too late to save ourselves and our planet? Have we grown so self-centered and greedy as to doom ourselves along with the rest of earth? Or are we going to get serious about sustainability and shut down everything we can that doesn’t conform to sustainable practices? But how logical would it be to do this...then again, it was the “logic of industry” (p. 45) that led us to this problem in the first place.

History and Advancements

Diamond, J.  1997.  Chapter 4 – Farmer Power (pg. 85-92), Chapter 5 – History’s Haves and Have-Nots (pg. 93-103), Chapter 6 – To Farm or Not to Farm (pg. 104-113), and Chapter 8 – Apples or Indians (pg. 131-156) in Guns, Germs and Steel.  W. W. Norton & Company, New York, New York.

History.  Human history is a compilation of stories.  For the past year I have been editing my own family history, which my mother assembled using literature and many ancestors’ personal stories.  I was initially shocked at how little I actually knew before I started this.  I knew that my mom’s side of the family were Mennonite in origin, but I didn’t know that they (for instance) would cut branches of mulberry leaves – just as the young leaves were beginning to unfurl – to lay crosswise over brown paper that had silkworm butterfly eggs on it from the previous year.  I had absolutely no clue that my ancestors grew silk worms, or that to obtain the silk they had to place the cocooned silk worms in boiling water before fishing out the loose ends of the silk and attaching up to 100 threads to the spindle of a spinning wheel to put the silk on a spool.  This I found to be fascinating (along with other things I learned about my history), and I think this is why I found how Diamond wrote, with personal or example stories, interesting;  for instance, Diamond mentioned how the pioneer farmer, Fred Hirschy, helped to change the American West from hunter-gatherer tendencies to farming (p. 85).  History affects us personally;  but, as Diamond pointed out, it also has affected what we eat today. 

Diamond stated that “Plant and animal domestication … [was] a prerequisite for the development of settled, politically centralized, socially stratified, economically complex, technologically innovative societies” (p. 92).  A “sedentary lifestyle” (p. 89) allowed for individuals to specialize in areas other than food gathering, leading to such positions as kings, bureaucrats, soldiers, priests, metalworkers, and scribes (p. 90).  However, the thing that struck me was that this also caused a lot of wars:  killing, subjugating, and thus decreasing many populations of people throughout the world.  I find it really upsetting that such an ‘advancement’ lead to such pain and suffering.  Yeah, it’s amazing and great that people became able to do more things, but I don’t appreciate how Diamond almost seemed to be praising the wars and conquests of the past when a lot of them were caused by power hungry people trying to wipe out and control others.  Something else that I hadn’t considered before was that a lot of disease epidemics were caused by domesticating animals due to infected animals passing their germs onto humans (p. 92).  I can’t say plant and animal domestication is all bad though, as domesticating animals and producing such items as cotton, flax, hemp, wool, silk, leather, gourds, wagons, etc., has improved human societies drastically (p. 90);  these, and other, inventions have dramatically changed our existence time and time again throughout history. 

While I was reading Diamond’s discussion of the extensive knowledge of hunter-gatherers concerning their local wild plants and animals, I thought again (as I quite often have) about how totally screwed us people in the technologically advanced world would be if all our technology was suddenly taken away from us.  Even me, whose mother is quite knowledgeable in her garden, would be totally useless if I had to suddenly start growing my own food instead of picking it up from the supermarket.  And there are many people far worse off. 

The Potato

Pollan, M.  2001.  Chapter 4 – Desire: Control/Plant: The Potato (pg. 183-238) in The Botany of Desire:  A Plant’s-Eye View of the World.  Random House Trade Paperbacks, New York. 


Being someone who was raised on both wheat and potatoes, I found it quite entertaining to learn from Pollan how controversial the introduction of the potato was to most European countries and in what creative ways the leaders of some countries introduced the potato.  What stood out in my mind especially was how “Marie Antoinette took to wearing potato flowers in her hair, and Louis” XVI protected his royal potato garden by his most elite guards till midnight in order to convince the local peasants that the potato was of value (p. 201). 

After attending the lecture by Percy Schmeiser (which had a large effect on my opinions and views of GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms)), it was a little disconcerting to learn that Pollan planted genetically engineered potatoes from the Monsanto corporation in his garden (p. 187) as I kept thinking about all the problems Monsanto GM canola has caused (e.g.  decreased crop yields;  decreased nutrition;  increased chemical use;  decreased biodiversity;  health concerns;  etc.) and what more problems could be caused by these NewLeaf potatoes.  Another thing to consider is that conventional farming “saddles the farmer with debt, jeopardizes his health, erodes his soil and ruins its fertility, pollutes groundwater, and compromises the safety of the food we eat” (p. 190) as well as allowing corporations to have a “noose” around the necks of these farmers (p. 235).  All these (and other) negative repercussions, that Percy Schmeiser and Michael Pollan pointed out, made me consider just how much of a problem our own cultural thinking (e.g.  monoculture (p. 228)) has negatively affected the farming industry, and thus us ourselves. 

Although if you were to read a specific section of Pollan’s chapter on the potato you may think he is supporting one side of the GMO debate, however throughout the extent of the chapter he actually provided a very well rounded discussion, considering the positives, negatives, and unknowns that he gathered from extensive research regarding Monsanto’s GMO potato, the NewLeaf. 

Agriculture and Plant Cultivation

Pollan, M.  2001.  Introduction – The Human Bumblebee (pg. xiii-xxv) in The Botany of Desire:  A Plant’s-Eye View of the World.  Random House Trade Paperbacks, New York. 

Diamond, J.  1997.  Chapter 7 – How to Make an Almond (pg. 114-130) in Guns, Germs and Steel.  W. W. Norton & Company, New York, New York.

The introductory chapter of ‘The Botany of Desire:  A Plant’s-Eye View of the World’ explains Pollan’s logic behind where his ideas came from and what he was trying to accomplish:  linking the desires (sweetness; beauty; intoxication; control) and destinies of humans and plants, specifically focusing on the points of view of apples, tulips, cannabis, and potatoes.  Pollan pointed out that many things involving plants can be thought of from two different perspectives, from humans and from plants perspectives.  An example of this is how Pollan stated that agriculture can be thought of as our own brilliant way of gathering food, as well as “something the grasses did to people as a way to conquer the trees” (p. xxi).  Pollan states that when discussing each of the four plants, he considered many things – including their history, science, philosophy, and mythology – with the ultimate goal that our thinking will be altered to consider ourselves having a “reciprocal relationship” (p. xxv) with nature.  How Pollan represented both sides and considered them both equally important and true makes me very interested in reading what he will have to say about each of the four plants and the interactions we share with them. 

I enjoyed how Pollan spoke very personably during this introduction; using a specific instance in his life (planting fingerling potatoes in his garden) to draw the audience into his thoughts and ideas, as well as using imagery such as “sowing rows in the neighborhood of a flowering apple tree that was fairly vibrating with bees” (p. xii).  I have found that I learn information much better, and remember it much easier, when this information is expressed as a descriptive, vibrant story.  Thus, Pollan’s writing in his introduction was very appealing to me. 

I quite like how Pollen spun the idea of coevolution, with the plants “playing on the animals’ desires, conscious and otherwise” (p. xv).  His thought:  “So the question arose in my mind that day:  Did I choose to plant these potatoes, or did the potato make me do it?” (p. xv) is a humorous way of explaining his point that “in a coevolutionary relationship every subject is … an object, every object a subject” (p. xxi).  Though he was slightly repetitive when backing up this point, stating it in these (and other) different ways helped me to understand better exactly what he was trying to say and what his ideas encompass. 

I really liked when Pollan said that “Plants are nature’s alchemists, expert at transforming water, soil, and sunlight into an array of precious substances, many of them beyond the ability of human beings to conceive, much less manufacture” (p. xix).  Comparing plants to alchemists enforced in me the amazing ability that plants have to make things that other organism need (but can’t make themselves) from materials/reagents that they can’t use. 

Chapter 7 of Diamond’s book ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’, entitled ‘How to Make and Almond’, used the almond as an example crop while discussing the cultivation of wild plants.  Plant domestication was examined, along with comparisons of the differences between wild and cultivated plants.  Diamond then addressed some invisible changes that assisted humans in cultivating some specific crops.  One of these was the mutations that occurred in peas, wheat, and barley, which caused them to not disperse their seeds properly in the wild, thus they were cultivated for easier gathering of the seeds by humans (p. 120). 

The way Diamond began his chapter on ‘How to Make an Almond’, by first starting with what wild plant hikers sometimes eat then going on to mention that a few dozen wild almonds contain enough cyanide to kill us, immediately got my attention as I was unaware of this fact.  In this chapter, Diamond occasionally wrote in a similar was as Pollan did;  for example “Naturally, strawberry plants didn’t set out with a conscious intent of attracting birds when, and only when , their seeds were ready to be dispersed.  Neither did thrushes set out with the intent of domesticating strawberries” (p. 116);  which I quite enjoyed.  I also liked how on page 122 Diamond goes into examples of how humans have artificially selected for different parts of plants that have purposes for us, as this enforced some of the examples that we did in our laboratory. 

All in all, I enjoyed reading Pollan’s introductory chapter more than Diamond’s chapter on almonds.;  however, I’m not entirely sure why this was the case. 

In Praise of Plants - Form and Evolution

Halle, F.  2002.  Chapter 2 – A Visit to the Landscape of Form (p. 41-124) and Chapter 5 – Evolution (p. 173-184) in In praise of plants.  Timber Press.  Portland.

The author began chapter 2 (A Visit to the Landscape of Form) by introducing the concept of form – first with quotes and then through their own words – as well as the difficulties of considering form and why these difficulties occur.  They then discussed the importance of form, especially compared to quantitative analysis, before going on to provide background information on plants and animals with regards to energy, surface area, volume, and growth.  The other factors of determining form – spatial structure, symmetry, and scale – were also discussed.  Chapter 5 (Evolution) also started off with quotes, but then went on to deal with the evolution of plants and animals with respect to their generations. 

The essence of this story is to compare the forms and evolution of plants and animals throughout their lives.

I thought that it was quite neat of the author, Halle, to start the chapters with quotes from other experts (p. 41 and 173) as they provided other peoples thoughts on the different subjects while introducing them. 

I also enjoyed the fact that the author tended to lead into the next section quite well – such as the ending sentence of the ‘Whence Form?’ section:  “So that the discussion may occur in the proper context, it is necessary to recall that plants and animals rely on different sources of energy” (p. 43), which came directly before the ‘Capturing Energy’ section.  Another example of this (out of many such examples) can be found in Chapter 5:  “…all plants possess two genetically different generations, one haploid and the other diploid.  And animals?  On this point they are much simpler than plants since they have only one generation” (p. 181) which occurs directly prior to the ‘One Animal, One Generation’ section.  Both these sentences properly conclude the previous sections while introducing the next. 

The author tended to provide background information and interesting facts, as well as to back up every point they made – such as when they were discussing how plants obtain energy, that this is done inefficiently, and what causes this process to be inefficient (p. 43).  Another fact I, personally, found interesting (since I am interested in visiting Japan sometime in the future) was the one concerning the botanical garden of mosses cared for by monks at the temple of Kokedera, Japan (p. 176).  Halle also often gave examples:  “Some [animals] profit from an elongated from by hiding among plants – pycnogonids, Phyllopteryx, stick and leave insects,” which I found quite nice as it helps put things in perspective for me (since I now know of some example organisms).  Though some background and back up information is nice, the author also spent way too much time on some things that could be summarized – and completely understood – in one sentence;  such as the multiple pages (p. 54-89) on plants having radial symmetry with one polarity and animals having bilateral symmetry with two polarities. 

The opinion:  “Animals are confused plants, turned inside out like a glove, with infolded leaves and roots in their digestive tracts.  Plants are fantastic animals, their insides turned out, bearing their entrails like feathers”  (p. 50) is quite interesting.  I do agree that there are similarities in function between plants outer surfaces and the digestive tract of animals, but, for me, that’s where the similarities end.  This sentence is however very descriptive and an interesting way to point out (in bold, capital, 72 pt font) that this similarity is present. 

I appreciate when the author uses descriptive words and sentences to help get their point across;  such as when discussing the mobility of plants (“…and throws flowers into the air, like pretty white butterflies the blossoms of Campanula or Gaura” (p. 101)) or the time scale of plants – using such words and phrases as “spectacular”, “majestic”, “frenetic”, “fierce swarming”, etc (p.103). 

I myself am not a very good writer, but I love reading those people who are, and I also detest grammatical mistakes, especially in published works.  I like writing to flow, and I very much dislike when sentences don’t make sense, though I understand that I quite often just read too fast or am in the wrong mindset when reading a sentence to understand it the first time I read it.  However, it angers me when I go back to read the sentence again and it still doesn’t make sense!  An example of this in this work is the sentence:  “Following Thom (1972), Boutot (1993) has shown very well the reasons for …” (p. 41), which  should have said ‘Thom (1972) and Boutot (1993) have shown very well the reasons for …”  Another example occurs in the first part of this sentence “Fundamentally a volume, an animal easily accommodates the effects of growth; little change in the form is required” (p.50) also doesn’t make sense;  and to be completely honest, I’m not sure what it was supposed to say either.  I suppose that since this was translated from the original French text, it makes sense that there would be some difficulties in the translation process; however, this is a published book, and I have very minimal respect for published works that have mistakes in them (or that are not written well). 

Another annoyance that I found was not expanding upon analogies and explaining them.  I admit that I’m not fully understanding the concept of form, and what the author is mentioning and discussing about it;  however, I don’t like that Halle didn’t expand upon and explain the analogy with the truffles under the oak (“The reader who is interested in birth, growth, and death will find them here associated with form, like truffles beneath an oak.” (p. 42)) as I don’t understand what this analogy has to do with “form [as] the product of growth” (p.42). 

I disliked the randomness of the sentence:  “Ribald zoological metaphors often make fun of such organs:  the eggplant, the obvious sexual anatomical associations of the double coconut (Lodoicea maldivica), nuts as slang for testicles, acorns (gland is French for acorn and the word has a sexual connotation), etc” (p.46).  I do not understand why this was included, was the author trying to add humour into the subject of some plants having special structures under protective sheathes?  To me it just seemed to be an inappropriate topic to include.  And to state after this that plants are smart – “Not too stupid” (p.46) – for doing this?   First of all, plants do not have brains, and secondly there is no reason for plants to make “evocations of animal form” (p. 46), it’s just human’s ‘dirty’ minds that come up with such associations.  And, are we really that vain as to think that way of plants;  that they would make such evocations? 

The randomness of “Thus, when you encounter a loudmouth, tell him that anyone who produces an anus before a mouth, and thus farts before being able to speak, should be more modest.  Yes, animals are strange” (p. 88), is a little more humorous, and thus a little more appreciated (from my point of view).  However, the stories of Oldeman’s (1974) nightmare of his fingers and feet forming colonies (p. 110) and Szent-György’s fishing trips (“… he always used a big hook, because although he knew he would catch nothing, he found it much more interesting not to catch the big fish than not to catch only the little ones” (p. 103)), proved to be much more entertaining. 

I have always found it interesting how when exceptions occur that contradict a previously thought idea, that people still find ways around them to keep the same idea (scientists can’t be wrong, can they?).  For example, Halle stated, with regards to forms with one polarity and radial symmetry, that “There are also a few exceptions among the mobile animals … [which] also have this form, but they are ancestral to sessile groups” and “Some sessile animals … do not have this form, but they are related to mobile groups” (p. 69).  I, myself, am a Christian – who doesn’t believe in evolution – and I just love learning about “exceptions” that God created to rules that scientists have come up with and how scientists then try to explain their way out of things so that their theories still hold true.  For me, it is extremely annoying how evolution is assumed to be truth in the scientific world; however occurrences like these are very entertaining. 

I found part of the author’s quotes of Michel Luneau concerning trees – “Our internal organization recognizes neither God nor a master” (p. 99); “It is a Jacobin God who has created humans, a ponderous God, jealous, authoritarian, cop-like, fierce, holding tightly onto his power, zealously intervening in his omnipotence” (p. 100) – and the author’s insistence that “Biological evolution is a reality to which all living beings are subject, and no serious biologist would dream of questioning it” (p. 173) offensive.  How can (and why do) scientists assume that everyone involved in the realm of science believes in evolution and does not believe in the existence of a God.  It’s quite irksome!  Though I can see how using those first phrases of Michel Luneau do emphasize what the author was trying to say about the differing structures of plants and animals. 

I found the discussion of the germ being potentially immortal and the soma being “condemned to disappear” (p. 183) quite strange.  Just because the germ becomes the sexual organs does not mean that they are “immortal”;  they would not be able to survive without the soma.  It is, however, interesting that the environment only influences the soma, thus characteristics acquired from this are not inheritable. 

This reading argues that form (being qualitative) is more important than quantitative studies.  Due to being a chemist, my thinking process disagrees with this as to properly compare and discuss forms there must be quantitative ways of comparing this information.  However, I view qualitative and quantitative information to be two sides of the same story, where neither side provides all the information;  thus these two types are both essential in order to fully understand concepts. 

This reading was very informative on the forms of plants and animals – their similarities and their differences – though it was a bit extensive in some areas (as already discussed).  I think that the larger story of this piece it to just understand how living beings function.