The Botany of Desire - Documentary Review

Based on a book by Michael Pollan, this documentary was brought fourth by an idea Pollan frequently thought about while gardening. He works so hard to ensure the health of each plant, and he thought - how did these plants manage to get us to take such good care of them? In other words, he noted that the plants that have associated themselves with humans have been using us very effectively to propagate and evolve themselves. Pollan uses the film as a great platform to share some of his considerable knowledge on the subject of food.

This documentary was one of the first sources that encouraged me to think more about mono-cultures in our Agricultural system. When you think about the fact that both apples and potatoes come in around 5000 varieties, you start to wonder why we see so few varieties in the supermarket. It's more difficult to process, price and automate a food system without strict standards, and pound for pound we can produce more food in our automated system. This problem is that the system is not sustainable, it is not promoting healthy living, and eventually it may cause a big catastrophe. The "lucky" specific varieties of crops that are chosen for mass production (i.e. the russet potato or golden delicious apple) are quickly preyed upon by nature in the form of fungus, viruses, and insects. Without the use of pesticides or genetic engineering, these crops would consistently fail. Nature is constantly updating and protecting itself with its genetic diversity, and when you stall the evolution of that diversity the creatures that "control the crop population" become much more efficient at doing their job - eating the crops. So we spray them, and chemicals end up in our food supply causing well-documented health problems - or we end up with a situation like the Irish potato famine, where one crop if very effectively attacked (by a fungus in this case) and suddenly 1 out of every 8 Irishmen starve to death. That wouldn't have happened had they grown a few types of potatoes.

The documentary covers the evolution of apples, tulips, cannabis, and potatoes. It is full of information, and is driven by some good footage and Pollan's agreeable voice. I have to say, it's intellectual curiosity that will keeps you watching until the end. I fell asleep and had to watch it in two sittings, but I think most people will like it and take away good information.

p.s. (I can do p.s.'s on blog posts, it's my blog)
If you haven't seen Food Inc. you should watch it first, Pollan plays a big part in it too. It's much more compelling and is more of a call to action - it changed the way I eat.

The AutoDesk Commercial That Used To Follow TED Talks

TreeHugger Best-Of Slideshows - Lots of Good ideas, and entertaining

http://www.treehugger.com/best-of-green/