The Botany of Desire

I saw this documentary on Netflix the other night and I was amazed not only because the author was pretty much right about every single thing he wrote... but its amazing how we always thought we controlled the plants around the world, and well the documentary doesn't talk about all plants, its about the 4 main plants that have travelled the road to success just to gratify our desires, he said that apples have spread because of its sweetness, potatoes to gratify control, the control that we give it because we feed ourselves, and he talks about the wonders and fascinations over the tulip's beauty, and cannabis or "weed" because of its very powerful ways to make us go into a mental indulgence of the chemical it produces, they interview people who can legally grow it in Amsterdam, and Im astonished because it makes me see that these plants are GENIUSES!!!

The author is journalist named Michael Pollan, he narrates his own experiences with each of the plants, which he then intertwines with a small yet very exact explanation into the social history, we get to know who really was Johnny Appleseed, who which Pollans calls him a "human bumblebee".

Pollan also explains the necessity of chemicals, for farmers and of course the new ways of the future for the use of less chemicals, and the possibilities of genetically engineered potatoes, who were not very welcomed by society.

Its about a 2 hour program, but its fun to watch how real farmers do it all to survive and be at the mercy of their crops, because anything can happen especially if there was a bad winter or a dry season, there is also a pure apple farm grower in which all he does is grow apple trees and makes apple cider the old fashion way... many things can be learned and can give all of a us a huge amount of information and believe me you will want to buy the book and read it, and its a better appreciation for the plants we eat, see, smell, touch and taste...
Did you know that if you take the seeds from an apple and you start growing them each seed will be a totally individual apple tree? totally different from its father and the mother!!

In farms and cultivating the plants and crops people have had trial and error, its never easy and I liked the part of the documentary where there are many families in Peru that still and only eat potato as the only form of nutrition, and they call themselves "the potato culture" the result of good crops are their richness and their treasure and they have rituals for the nature spirits to always ask for good crops they are rituals from many centuries ago, the communication is amazing because they call the soil, "mother earth" which is also an interesting topic now that Im mentioning it... but the documentary is really nice, you will learn a lot and I totally recommend it!!

Madi*