The Botany of Desire

The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World
Author: Michael Pollan 2001 267pp
My rating 3*
Started January 12 2008, Finished January 16 2008

Basically, an excuse for the author to investigate four types of flora that he found particularly interesting: apples, tulips, marijuana and potatoes. The unifying concept is the relationship between the plants and humans – what properties the plants contained that caused humans to widely cultivate them. The (three star) section on apples was fairly interesting, primarily a study of and meditation on John Chapman (aka Appleseed) who “once punished his own foot for squashing a worm by throwing away its shoe”. The middle sections, Tulips and Cannabis, with their musings on color and consciousness barely held my interest. However, the five star final section on potatoes, which can be viewed as a prolog to Pollan’s must read, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, is essential reading for anyone interest in how the food we eat gets to the table. After reading it, I will be unlikely to buy non-organic spuds again. It also has some eye-opening things revelations about GMO russets, which incorporate a pesticide into their genetic structure: among other things, the FDA did not feel a need to issue a determination on their fitness for human consumption since it does even consider these potatoes to be a food, instead classifying them as a pesticide which placed them under the jurisdiction of the EPA which for its part, without conducting any studies or tests, concluded that since it combines a safe food with a safe/approved pesticide, the GMO “New Leaf” potato is ergo fine to eat.