Aroma in the Morning

I met someone years ago. Her name is Coffea arabica, but she is known as Coffee.  Coffee and I started our relationship more than 7 years ago. The relationship started out light and without the intention of commitment. I wish I had known Coffee’s intentions of being a lifetime partner rather than a summer fling. I could have seen the signs if I wasn’t so closed minded.

Nowadays I wake up to Coffee, and whenever I’m in the need of someone to give me a boost I have my Coffee. Some people call it an obsession, but they are wrong. It isn’t an obsession, it’s an addiction. Unhealthy addiction? I wouldn’t say so. Healthy addiction? I wouldn’t say so. Life needs moderation. Even the healthiest things in life can become unhealthy with extreme overuse or over consumption.

So I was thinking about how close Coffee and I have become. Our relationship started blooming 3 years after we had met. Every year Coffee brings me white flowers and red ripe fruit. Coffee continues to show me her strength through each year with her towering structure hard as wood. The ripples of her muscle tissue run the length of her fine narrow structure. Coffee’s limbs can reach beyond all of my short stumpy limbs.

Now you might be wondering what it is about the coffee tree I want. Well the main attraction is the beans. The beans are the dried seed from the coffee cherry. This is done annually and the cherries are usually picked manually due to the inconsistent maturation of the coffee cherries. Therefore, my coffee gives me a gift each year. The fruit covering is removed and the beans are dried on asphalt cement or mechanical dryers. My Coffee usually gives me flavoured beans; yum, vanilla and hazelnut. These beans are flavoured in a mixer that tumbles the beans without damaging then and then sprays them evenly with a pressurized spray mechanism. An interesting thing about Coffee is that I don’t usually get to see Coffee; usually I only get to see Coffee’s gifts for me. Coffee stays in climates that range 15 – 30 °C in temperature and with only 1500 -3000 mm of rain each year. Another environment Coffee prefers is elevations between 600 – 1200 meters above sea level. Coffee spends most of her time in South America.

When I really thought about how well we knew each other, I came to the realization that Coffee knew me better than I knew Coffee. Unfortunately I have been naive in thinking I knew Coffee from the inside out. I didn’t know Coffee’s family, the secrets, and lies. In order to overcome this gap in our relationship, I had to do some research and asking. To begin with, I asked where Coffee’s ancestors came from, Rubiaceae. Coffee has a few ancestors but they said their first ancestors came from Arabia in 900 C.E. Wow, Coffee’s family has been around longer than I thought. It didn’t stop there no, it turns out my Coffee has a lot more relatives than I knew were possible. First of all, my Coffea arabica has a cousin, Coffea Robusta, and she didn’t think it was relevant to tell me. I have probably met Rubusta before and didn’t know it was a cousin of my Arabica. Not only that, Coffea arabica has a sibling, decaffeinated Coffee; a dark side 0.8 – 1.4 % caffeine, Arabica, with a light side with less than 0.02% caffeine. While decaffeinated coffee can occur naturally in Ethiopia, decaffeinated coffee is usually manufactured industrially through the process of GMO’s.

At this point, I was ready to break off the relationship.  I had had enough of the secrets. I thought in relationships we were supposed to tell each other everything. I suppose that’s what I get, from being in a relationship with the drug influenced Coffee. Her sibling does not possess the drug aspect, and would be the better or safer side to be on.

The research and questions I wanted answered brought one answer I wasn’t sure I wanted. I am not Coffee’s only one; Coffee has been disloyal this whole time as she is the number one consumed beverage in the world. Defeated, yes I have been by my own lack of knowledge.  It’s off I said.

A few days went by and I thought of the pros and cons of everything I had found compared to what I knew before.  Coffee contains phenolic acids which contain antioxidant properties. Coffee has been shown to lower the risk of some types of cancers. Coffee has been shown to protect against Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Moderate intake of Coffee can lower the risk of diabetes, stroke, liver disease, and heart attacks. Moreover, if you have Coffee Turkish style or the French Press way, you actually increase LDL cholesterol levels, which is good cholesterol. With the help of filtered Coffee, this actually stops the diterpenes from passing through the filter into the Coffee.

As a result of all of the research, I knew I had to make a decision and tell coffee what I had decided; to live with, or without her.  My conclusion was moderation. Coffee doesn’t have to be the only one; I can get to know decaffeinated Coffee. I don’t need to live in fear of the dark side; I can spread my risk by drinking Coffee and her sibling.  Coffee and I decided to continue our relationship, but keep it open to change and the option of altering anytime.

We all have unique relationships. Like our finger prints, our relationships are different than anyone else’s relationships. Our unique relationships can be with people, material things and especially food. We might not know about them, or might not consider them relationships. However, they are there, in the background and should be brought forward. Are they bad or are they good relationships? They can even be indifferent if you have yet to consider it a relationship. Do you really know what it is you ingest? Have you ever done research to find out? You might be dealing with deceit from the very product you eat for energy. They all have secrets; it is up to you to figure them out. Is it truly what you want? Are you okay with what you’ve exposed?

Food industries are not out to do what is right; they are out there to make money. Therefore, what you eat could possibly be harmful to you. We shouldn’t continue to stroll around the world with blindfolds on when the blindfolds can be so easily untied.  Unfortunately, like the cat, curiosity might not take you where you want to go and you may not be able to come back to where you started.  But in this case, food industries should not control you. You should make the effort to decide what is best and what is not best for your life and your lifestyle. I have found out things about coffee that I did not know before, and what I learned is that I should only consume it in moderation. It doesn’t need to be a necessity.

References

2004. Not Quite Shipshape. Nature 429: 789. General Science Abstracts (H.W. Wilson). Web. 20 Feb. 2012.

2012. What Is It About Coffee?. Harvard Health Letter 37(3): 4-5. Health Source – Consumer Edition. Web. 20 Feb. 2012.

Chang, Ann S., Boon-Yee Yeong, and Woon-Puay Koh. June 2009.Symposium On Plant Polyphenols: Nutrition, Health And Innovations. Nutrition Reviews 68(4): 246-252. General Science Abstracts (H.W. Wilson). Web. 20 Feb. 2012.

Coffee Research Agriculture. [Internet] 2006. Coffee Research Institute.[cited 2012 Feb 20] Available from: http://www.coffeeresearch.org/agriculture/main.htm

Drink Healthy Drinks. [Internet] 2012. [cited 2012 Feb 20] Available from: http://drinkhealthydrinks.com/the-7-negative-aspects-of-coffee/13/

ENotes. [Internet] 2012.[cited 2012 Feb 20] Available from: http://www.enotes.com/flavored-coffee-bean-reference/flavored-coffee-bean

Robinson, Richard. Biology Reference.[Internet]. 1999.[cited 2012 Feb 20] Available from: http://www.biologyreference.com/Ce-Co/Coffee-Botany-of.html

Shane, Bob. Coffee: To Drink Or Not To Drink. [Internet][cited 2012 Feb 20] Available from: http://www.pnf.org/CoffeeEdited041001.pdf

Shinjiro Ogita, Hirotaka Uefuji, Yube Yamaguchi, Nozomu Koizumi, Hiroshi Sano. Decaffinating Coffee.Research and Education Centre for Genetic Information, Nara Institute of Science and Technology. Nara 630-0192, Japan.

Softpedia.[Internet]2001. [updated 2012 March 23, cited 2012 March 23] Available from: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Top-14-Coffee-Effects-on-Your-Health-70537.shtml

Wikia. [Internet]. 2012. [cited 2012 Feb 20] Available from: http://coffee.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_coffee_species

Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Coffee Bean.[Internet] 2012. [cited 2012 Feb 20] Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_bean

Tell Me Your Eutopia

Smith, Alisa; MacKinnon, J.B. The 100-Mile Diet. Vintage Canada Edition.Toronto: Vintage Canada of Random House of Canada Limited, 2007. Page: 1-263.

On my way to Regina trying to ease the turbulence from the small planes used to transport people from place to place in Canada, I can’t help but daydream. The day-dream might not be a typical daydream, but its a picture perfect eutopia in my mind. And it all starts in my back yard.  Freshly mowed grass, wearing only a bikini and jean shorts, with my long hair pulled up to give a nice breeze to my perspiring skin. The sweltering heat only intensifying the beads of sweat dripping from my hairline into the garden of my own. Not only is it I in my backyard, but also my gorgeous Siberian husky Nikita, of 6 months old, playing with my young cat, of a descendent unknown, Carlos. I take a break from the garden and venture to see my two loveable animals. Nikita bounces around me with uncontrolled excitement only to quickly lie on her back expecting to get her pink soft belly rubbed. Am I allowed to stop, not in her thoughts. And in through the gate walks a special someone who can brighten the sunset and repeat Nikita’s excitement.

-That’s a picture of the two, I worked hard to figure out how to just put it on my blog, but I can’t figure it out!

The only thing that my daydream has that might not seem like a normal daydream is that I have everything in my daydream, except a garden. I am completely influenced by not just this reading, but every reading I have done in this course. However, I would say this one hit me pretty hard. How was it that I would have my eyes swell with tears, and helplessly laugh at some of the events that took place in this read. To begin with, it could not have been anymore local to me. Now I grew up in the coast, I’ve lived in Vancouver, and I currently live in Kamloops and I can say that each and every location named gave me a feeling of engagement. I felt like I could re follow the experience with them, besides their cottage in Dorreen, I have never been there, and I have never been to Terrace either. I think that the experience of reading the book definitely fired inspiration throughout and all around me, I’ve already started setting up dates to finally attend a Kamloops farmers market.

Throughout this learning experience, I must comment that the 100 mile diet does not seem easy. The way the author’s both write about their experience I think it can be easily felt of their hardship and the fight to make it through. It is a lot easier to continue the supermarket routine if that is the routine you have been living for years. When Alisa brings up about her past and how she was diagnosed several times with “depression” it makes you feel as if she has fallen back into that dreadful hole. The only reason why I have it in quotation marks is because how can a four-year old be depressed?  I’m sure it can happen, but I guess I have never been around a four-year old that expressed such distant behaviour. Maybe I don’t know enough four-year olds.

Now jumping through a loop-hole here, the infested wheat. The first sight of creepy crawlers in a bag of food at my house would in no doubt be tossed out. And I believe the reason why would be because of how we have grown into the civilization we are today. At least in Canada, the United States and other developed countries. I can remember when I was maybe twelve years old, with an urge to make myself some pizza dough. I was at my dads house and decided to go to the first place to begin my adventure, the flour bin. Oh was I ever horrified and disappointed, the flour was infested with maggots. Thinking of it now, I am reluctant to admit that I didn’t do anything with it, I cringed when I saw the infestation, but I put the bin back. Later when I went home, my mother informed me that if the flour is not in an air tight container after a while bugs, insects, and other creatures will enjoy the flour as well. This also takes me to another memory, at my dads in the same house years later after we moved from it only to return to it. In the middle of the night I had woken to use the facility. As soon as the light switch was turned on I was wide eyed and compelled to stay completely still. Ants, I don’t think I have ever seen so many I don’t even know how to estimate how many there were. All I know is that they were all in the counter, all in the sink, and when the light was switched on they all assorted in an organized fashion into the wall. Now this bathroom is in the middle of the bottom floor of the house. No windows, no outside surrounding it. Seems impossible.

Nothings impossible. I learned the same things that Alisa and James did about the land we live on. I am completely clueless when it comes to knowing what grows around me, or what can.

The only thing I need to do to reach my eutopia, is get a garden started. How will I do this, I have no idea but I’m sure however it turns out will be an achievement especially from not having a garden to start with.

Anywhere and Everywhere

Pollan, Michael. The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s Eye View of the World. 1st ed. 1.  New York: The Random House Publishing Group, 2001. Chapter 3, 112 – 178.

Jolly green giants. What an interesting way to describe a desired weed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxeEzu5ARU0

I don’t know how anyone would be able to live with such paranoid fear and continue growing the towering jolly green giants. Pollan were you trying to make yourself go crazy?

P.130, Pollan’s reference that cannabis is America’s leading cash crop of selling for upward of $500/ounce seems outrageous. I quickly looked online, and it seems a bit lower in Canada, but it doesn’t fall too far from that number. Unfortunately, I could be completely inaccurate because I have no idea what it sells for so I am taking the Internets word for it.  Alright, so from the fact that cannabis is America’s leading cash crop, I do wonder why the government has not yet decided to take control over this plant.CLARIFICATION, I meant I wonder why the government has not taken control over the marijuana industry because I feel that the government continues to seek out more power over the people. Now this is coming from me with large speculations for government, because unfortunately, I don’t know any kind of government that hasn’t sneakily done something in their favor. Anyways, back to where I was going with this. Leading cash crop, government control = more money for government. Isn’t that why we are taxed on everything? Why are we invading countries with mass amounts of oil?

Unfortunately, in the case of cannabis, law enforcement does not seem to fluctuate the production of cannabis. It seems to show a clear desire for the plant to overcome a large amount of people’s fear of the law.

Pollan makes interesting connections between how different animals react with plants differently. For example on page 117, the effect Nepeta cataria on the cat and how it has no effect on humans, or at least the effect has not been noted. Now I have catnip in my house, and I can tell you, I have to hide it in a cupboard because if I don’t my cat Carlos will get it. Even if it seems like the bag is sealed, it isn’t because he knows how to smell catnip out from anywhere. If it isn’t “locked” away he will get it.  Similar to the ability of our poor sense of smell and how we can smell marijuana  if it is in the proximity of where we are.  Even so Pollan notions that it isn’t just adults that alter their consciousness, on page 139, Pollan comments that even children will alter their consciousness by spinning excessively, or ingesting enough sugar to obtain a sugar high. Interesting enough, it seems that humans tend to alter their consciousness in one form or another, and even other animals, as seen by the cat.

On page 114 Pollan says “There it is, right in the middle of the word intoxication, hidden in plain sight: toxic”. Well that is definitely accurate and not surprising. On a regular basis, well without the aid of a chemical from a plant we are not intoxicated. However, ingesting something to alter the way in which our mind thinks, how we act, we can become intoxicated. But any form of medication and drug can be toxic to our bodies. Too much alcohol damages our liver. Too much marijuana can slow our natural production of dopamine. Other drugs cause an addiction that need detoxification before stopping. Some medications have addictive properties much like drugs. To be more specific, medications are drugs. In turn, the difference between the toxic effects of drugs versus the benefits of medication is the dosage, and moderation.

Throughout history, Pollan has provided the information to conclude that drugs and medication in life have been used for over 10 000 years, for example the cannabis plant. However, at this day and age it can be seen that moderation is not as easy as it might seem. Everyone reacts differently to certain kinds of drugs or medication. The ones who are effected the most are the ones who can’t sustain moderate intake. We are not supposed to be intoxicated every waking hour of our days. Yet we all have the temptation to try. Whether or not we take the extra step to try the mysterious will take us down different paths in our lives. Not necessarily completely different, but possibly very different paths.

A drug to improve memory, I wish we knew of that now. Exams are coming.

We will never be the last one standing.

Nabhan, G.P. 1990. Gathering the desert. University of Arizona Press 209 pp. 2- 19

Persistance, something we lack. Does that mean we are persistent to self destruct?

Now when I read the eating mosquitoes section  the first thought I had was; “Can you get malaria by eating mosquitoes?” So obviously I had to check it out, and it makes sense why you can’t get malaria from eating mosquitoes. The mosquito has to insert the parasite directly into your blood stream, if the mosquito is eaten the parasite is destroyed in the digestive tract and does not enter the blood stream.

This super curing plant creosote reminds me of a natural flavor sold over the counter that saved a cats life. Now I do not know what it was called or where is was bought, but what I do know is that the cat, Mer, lived for years after. It happened about  8 years ago and Mer, being a regular cat, ran into the street at the wrong time. Mer was hit by a vehicle and received a gash wound across his belly. Just to make things clear, it was not a gaping wound, he did not have half of his intestines falling out but the wound was open, and bleeding everywhere. The first thing to do was to stop the bleeding, or slow the bleeding down. Mer was not in good shape, but neither was money for a vet bill. The next step was to brainstorm quickly what was needed to be done. There was no surprise that the owner ended up at a natural herbal store asking for a plant that was not sold on the shelves. The purchase was done and the owner went on her way to heal her cat. This herbal magic was rubbed onto Mer’s wound. Not only was the wound sealed, healed, and without infection it was a fast recovery of two weeks and Mer was back to his regular self.

It can be interesting to hear stories of all these wonderful natural plants and the special components that make up certain plants are described as “imaginary” healing. From my point of view, I think there are some plants that cause imaginary effects but there are definitely plants out there that do the real thing. The main reason why plant’s aren’t all considered truly healing is because we don’t know why or what exactly from the plant causes the infection to be rid of. However, plant’s are mysterious in their ways, they have the ability to alter the chemicals in our brain causing intoxication, why is it so ludicrous to believe they can heal us? The ignorance of civilization from the beginning has disabled us from accepting the wonders of life. I think the ignorance has caused people to banish old rituals or belief’s because they don’t want to try to understand. It is unfortunate, and maybe one day when we can get back to the natural way of life we can work to be persistent like the creosote.

 

 

 

Deliciously Unknown

Pollan, Michael. The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s Eye View of the World. 1st ed. 1.  New York: The Random House Publishing Group, 2001. Chapter 1, 3 – 58.

I think the next time I enter a liquor store I will be on a mission to purchase some good old hard cider. A challenge seems to have fallen into my lap. Applejack’s in the making.

Not really because I haven’t been into a liquor store the last few weeks, and by the time I go into one next, I will have forgotten about my challenge.

Anyways, Micheal Pollan takes us through an adventure to find Johnny Appleseed, also known as John Chapman. This figure in life has been pronounced the apple’s “sidekick”. Now he is not just a regular sidekick, he becomes the apple’s publicist. Apple is no longer the hidden sweetness thanks to grafting, seed planting, and Johnny Appleseed. Not every seed planted by John Chapman turned into a delicious apple tree, some turned into the wild sour, strange looking fruit that resembled nothing of what is called an “apple”. From this reading I wonder how such a complicated tree became domesticated when the seeds planted truly were unpredictable. No one planted seed is the same in apples, which is by far one of the strangest things. Planting a seed that would grow into a tree that resembled nothing of the parent seems bizarre. Usually there is something that is inherited by the offspring in the phenotype. Then again, life likes diversity and surprises. That doesn’t mean us humans like surprises. And it goes to show because they invented grafting for the apple tree to overcome the surprise plant that grew from seeds. This grafting technique creates a clone from the desired apple tree you wish to continue and aspire in life. But like the potato, the apple could be put up against Mother Nature, and Mother Nature does not like over populated clones.

I thought Pollan had some interesting things to say, first of all, page 10 Pollan says “In the case of the apple, the fruit nearly always falls far from the tree”. Now from hearing that no two apple seeds from the same apple tree will produce two of the same apple trees, the statement that Pollan says is ironically completely correct. So where did we get the saying, “the apple never falls far from the tree”? It is definitely strange how this overused cliché saying is so wrong.

There are two other passages, one that doesn’t have much relevance but I thought stuck out in the sense of imagery. On page 32 “The water, moving with surprising dispatch for the time of year, looked like a freshly black topped road, except where snags flustered its surface causing it to sparkle. In places spooky mists rose from the surface…” I don’t think I would ever be caught in a canoe travelling on water that was black, with spooky mists arising. I’m thinking; horror movie waiting to have something pop out of the water at any moment in time. The odds wouldn’t appear to be good. Furthermore, the other passage on page 44 “…and the metaphor of a library begins to fit: endless bookshelves of books that are alike only superficially”. I can guarantee everyone has been to a library. I will admit, they can be completely overwhelming. Where to start? Anywhere, but where you start will dictate what you leave with. Nonetheless, if you are at the library choosing a fiction novel to park your nose in, you could have two novels right next to each other; they will be under the same “Heading” but will be like the apple orchard, far from the same.

The story of the apple and the apples life seems to have been distorted in time, similar to John Chapman’s history story. Life has a way of altering and changing the way information gets passed down from one generation to another. Therefore, in my opinion, I think Pollan is right; the apples story has become lost. The apple could grow in the wild before, and now the apple suffers the loss of fitness to survive against competitors. In that sense the apple’s story has been lost because it could function perfectly by itself before, and now it has become a dependent. This is different than corn because corn could never survive in the wild because of its hybrid husks that block the seeds. Therefore, the corn was never independent, always dependent.

I am glucose-fructose, modified corn starch and xanthan gum.

Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. 1st ed. 1. New York: The Penguin Group, 2006. Part I, 15 – 119

It can’t be, this chicken is chicken, and that corn is corn. Well now we know that all those hard pronouncing long words on the ingredient list of the food we eat is actually just forms of corn and not 5 different kinds of ingredients.

Interesting enough, Micheal Pollan taught me more than one might want to know. Right from the beginning Pollan extracts corn from major ingredients in life. The Zea Mays has become the most powerful and dominant crop produced and distributed in our lives. Micheal Pollan shows that the number 2 corn starts in the fields like the regular(sweet or cream, ones we eat) corn but is overproduced because it has a different gravel road than the ones we directly eat. Instead number 2 corn will be ground up and sent away.

First being sent to feed the animals that feed on grasses. However, this grass does not sit well with the cattle that are brought up to provide beef, for us who eat meat in the world. Instead this mutant number 2 causes disturbances within the cattle’s digestive system. Causing anything from minor infections, discomfort to even lead to death. The death is not caused directly, however, it is caused because diseases arise within cattle if antibiotics are not being taken. Seems a bit like a paradox, similar to an individual working out to lose weight, only to go home and eat everything in site that has invisible labels reading “HIGH IN FATS, SUGARS, CARBOHYDRATES. NAME IT WE GOT IT”.

Then this brings us to the turning point of figuring out what xanthan gum is. That number 2 corn again is ground up more, to the point of being converted into corn starch. It doesn’t stop there though, corn is also ground up and processed to be corn syrup, xanthan gum, and many more ingredients we are all familiar with. An interesting thought is that corn fills so many unknown black holes in food, both directly and indirectly it can be considered to feed us almost all of the major food groups.

For example: grains = tortillas, fruits and vegetables = corn, in its plant form, meat = corn is fed to the meat we eat which becomes incorporated to produce more mass on the animal

Micheal Pollan on page 18 says this more simply “To have some corn with your corn.”

A few things that caught my attention from Micheal Pollan. In the first sentence, page 15 “Air conditioned, odourless, illuminated by the buzzing fluorescent tubes…” and the truth of how there is more diversity in the 1 acre of land of the supermarket produce than any other acre of domesticated plants in the world. All of it at the reach of your finger tips and no external work at all. The only requirement is if you have enough money, unfortunately, Micheal Pollan also wrote that the farmers are forced to sell their crops for less money than what it costs to plant and harvest them. Now this makes me certain I would not like to be a farmer. I would not like to be at the surrender of someone else without the ability to have another option. I feel a farmer is hopelessly helpless, yet needed like no other. Again like I said in an earlier blog, the evil of selfish empowerment has the ability to take everything, and not leave any room for the one below you to live comfortably.

Now I suppose I live a sheltered life when it comes to certain aspects of knowledge about everyday life. I just found out that petroleum is produced from corn. Whoops, I might have been the only one, my mistake.

Anyways, on page 30, Micheal Pollan calls the corn a teosiate freak. A mutant maize that became superior. I like that description of corn, because it was the perfect mutant gene to become a co partner with humans. I mean really, what kind of plant would be able to survive if their seeds were inside a ‘package’ unable to release the seeds to produce more without the help of a co partner. And then on page 119, we read “The grass that domesticated its domesticator.” Now at first glance, it doesn’t seem that way. But when we understand that corn is the precursor to more than just food in our lives, it is hard to not realize that we are dependent on the corn. Not only that, but because of the inability of corn to grow without the help of a co partner to remove the husk and the precursor the cereal crop is to other things in our lives, why can’t we consider the grass domesticated its domesticator. In the least, there is a mutual dependence of each other.

Hot sauce = my every day, all day, everything but sweets topping has: glucose-fructose, corn starch, and xanthan gum. All those ingredients are derived from corn, and therefore, are corn. If we are what we eat, then I suppose I can be considered the walking cob.

Did the evolution of domesticating plants prove a civilizations intelligence?

Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. 1st ed. 1. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999. 85-113, 131 – 157.

If the domestication of plants was proof of intelligence of a particular group of people, then where do you think the earliest domestication of plants would have been?

In Chapters 4, 5, 6, and 8 Diamond unravels the archeologists ways of determining where plant domestication began, and whether it began independent from the other civilizations changing from hunter-gatherer to farmer. From Page.99 Diamond, shows a map of where the centers of origin of food production developed. Among these centers are, The Fertile Crescent, China, Eastern U.S, Mesoamerica while New Guinea, Ethiopia, Sahel, West Africa, and the Andes and Amazonia are the few that are still in question of whether they developed food production from other centers or not.

The Fertile Crescent is the main attraction of Jared Diamonds description of the centers of origin of food production. You might ask why, and that is because it is the oldest origin of food production coming in with evidence from 8 500 BC. Not only does the Fertile Crescent show the oldest food production evidence today, the Fertile Crescent has an extremely wide diversity of wild species. A reason why the development of food production was more prominent in the Fertile Crescent is because of the mediterranean weather pattern. The Fertile Crescent has dry hot summers, and mild wet winters. Now because of these changing climates, it provided a larger diversity of annual plants. Annual plants are the prefered crop plant because they produce edible plants each year, rather than every few years.

Furthermore, among these chapters, Diamond notions that the former hunter gatherer lifestyle was continually altered to evolve into the latter food-producing lifestyle. However, whether the beginning was accidental,or  unconsciously influenced, is not fully known and neither is how the native hunter-gatherers were influenced to take on the new lifestyle. In the beginning, it can be seen the direct influence of being able to produce more than enough calories for the surrounding people of the area with the food-producing lifestyle. However, the consequence of being able to feed more people would not have been known. It would not have been known that the more you can feed, the more reproduction would occur because there was more food to feed “more” people. Nonetheless, plant domestication could be seen as a positive, the more you can feed the better and less deprived one would be. However, on page 104 Diamond claims that “most peasant farmers and herders who constitute the great majority of the world’s actual food producers, aren’t actually better off than hunter-gatherers. This is another misconception of how decisions that we make don’t always do what is expected.

This portion of Diamonds book was rather dry only because there seemed to be too much detail in the overall incentive of these chapters. Understandably that information is needed to provide evidence and to tighten the bolt on the origin of food production, however, I suppose I am not fascinated with the regurgitation of information over and over again. On another note, Diamond always has informative and interesting connections with his topics. For example, page 94, “When we trace food production back to its beginnings, the earliest sites provide another surprise”. The surprise is that these origins are nowadays ecologically degraded and dry. At the same time though, this seems like deja vu, using all the nutrients on the land over a period of time that land becomes unusable anymore. I wonder if we are doing this yet once again, the demand for food production is so high because of the world’s population that every possible ecological niche for crops and domesticated animals is being used on an everyday scale. Sure one farmer might leave one acre of land alone for one season, and then re plant seeds on it the next year. But is this just going to lead to the same consequence as earlier food production societies  lead to? Where the land is ecologically degraded and dry?

Another interesting thought is the idea of the origin of food production and empowerment? One might think that the origin of food production and how native people’s lifestyles were either forced to evolve due to food availability or due to powering forces. However, I believe that the origin of food production did not evolve to be the most powerful society of today. Reasons for this I am not sure, however, I do believe that it was the beginning of ruling empires. My opinion comes from the way Diamond describes that the native people eventually had to conform with the larger growing population.

On another note, Diamond says on page 112, “The paradox developed because human population densities rose slightly more steeply than did the availability of food.” Again, nothing has changed. We continue to reproduce and begin new cities and communities in ever ecologically appropriate niche we can live in. Eventually the land producing food will decrease and at the rate we are heading to a whole new level of starvation. Continually, it is the more privileged and economically stable societies and countries that are given the access to these domesticated crops. Why? I am not sure why one person is more privileged than another. However, that is the way society was built then, and continues to flourish. Who can beat the other.

 

Do We Know What We Are Eating?

Pollan, Michael. The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s Eye View of the World. 1st ed. 1.  New York: The Random House Publishing Group, 2001. Chapter 4, 183 – 238.

Do you know what your eating? By the sounds of if Monsanto is disrupting the freedom our ancestors worked so hard to get. Why do we have nutritional labels on food to show what ingredients go into the milk, bread, chicken, potato chips we eat on a regular basis but none on produce, and no label stating there is genetically modified products in the food. Why is Monsanto above the previous law?

Now between Micheal Pollan’s experience and views with Percy Schmeiser’s, Monsanto is not only trying to control interactions between plants and nature, but even farther, tyring to control nature itself.

In Micheal Pollan’s Chapter 4 : Desire – Control, Plant – Potato, he takes us through the journey of his experience at growing genetically modified potatoes “NewLeaf”, and through the different farms in Idaho. In the end, even how remarkable the “NewLeaf” potatoes sprouted and grew without any sight of the potato beetle, he never ate them. The thought that eating something that he didn’t know the risks, or even the consequence of eating the naturally occurring pesticide Bt had never been researched lead Pollan to regard his “NewLeaf” potatoes as a mystery he did not want to plunge into becoming the guinea pig. However, the greatest concern of not wanting to be a guinea pig, is now a reality, because when “NewLeaf” potatoes were available they could have been in any type of food, and with Monsanto’s power, we have no idea.

After Percy’s presentation on Wednesday, January 25th, 2012 I came to the conclusion I am completely clueless when it comes to larger things in life. Clueless in the fact that knowing versus not knowing, sometimes even has a grey border. Who would have thought that the pesticides, herbicides could be so harmful, well maybe I’m the only one out of the loop. Or even so, who would think that government would allow a company to make something, and distribute it into society without even testing possible outcomes of this exposure?

Unfortunately, I didn’t realize how reading Micheal Pollan and hearing Percy Schmeiser would induce emotions I didn’t know were possible when it comes to food and government. First of all, I think these concerns raise even a larger problem in society than one might think. So we have these new genes being implemented into plants that are called “The Terminator” gene. Not only does this gene do exactly what it is named, it can cross fertilize. Okay so this is not accepted by our government to be released in Canada, however, our government has proven to have an alliance with Monsanto, but are they completely unaware of how Monsanto is creating their steps to full power. The world is continually proving that the more we invent new things, the more selfish we become. Selfish to be powerful, the greed takes over and it seems one/one company/one society will do whatever they can to get more power. Control is definitely power. That is one thing Monsanto is pushing more and more, I mean really, who in their right mind would want to bring a genetically sterile plant into the free world. If cross-fertilization can occur, would these genetically sterile plants broaden the spectrum of different plants to become sterile? Who get’s to say that I and we cannot grow anything anymore, unless we purchase it year by year. This is truly sickening. If we don’t even know the consequence of “NewLeaf” potatoes and how that naturally genetically producing pesticide does us harm, what if we were continually exposed to plants that we ingested were sterile? Does anyone know if this could make us sterile? Or even so, what if all those seeds that needed to be planted in order to make the sterile plant, became contaminated or were burned. Would that plant now become extinct? Why can’t the government see the cross-fertilization of plants occurs and that the genetics of that plant don’t just stop, they continue to their progeny. Are we so selfish for power that we would overpass the destruction of ourselves? At this rate, I think so. The evidence shows that we are starving to control nature,  with  or  without nature agreeing.

For example, Page 184, Micheal Pollan, “…global warming. In that view storm is as much of a human artifact as the order of trees it shattered one manifestation of human power pulling a rug out from another.” We tend to do things on impulse and then once the problem occurs we have to find ways to fight nature’s voice to continue. Now this isn’t to say that is a bad thing, the only difference between Monsanto and problems associated with global warming are that Monsanto’s response to natures way of becoming resistant to natural pesticides is to introduce a new natural pesticide. This is only a short-term fix, nature has created these natural pesticides in dosages, not enough to make a resistance. Will we continue this till everything has grown a resistance to everything possible to defeat it?

Another example of how nature plays it course against human actions is how the potato impoverished the Irish by driving up the country’s population came to an end during the potato famine, Page 203. What is disturbing is that “People ate weeds, ate pets, ate human flesh.” Page 230. Natures way was signalling that Ireland was becoming too populated, something needed to end the continuing population increase. Nonetheless, back to society and selfishness, if it is true that people would rather eat their own kind than die, from my view of humans, this would show a selfishness that we possess. However, yes other organisms eat their own kind, but it isn’t natural for us to eat our own kind.

In the end, this week’s reading and Percy Schmeiser’s presentation has somewhat caused a disturbance in the way I view the direction that life is going.

Natural or Artificial selection, is there a definite difference? Or is the border blurry?

Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. 1st ed. 1. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999. 114-131.

Pollan, Michael. The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s Eye View of the World. 1st ed. 1.  New York: The Random House Publishing Group, 2001. xiii-xxv.

Definition of natural selection from Freeman. Biological Science, Canadian Edition.Toroto: Pearson Education, 2008. G-22.

– The process by which individuals with certain heritable traits tend to produce more surviving offspring than do individuals without those traits, often leading to a change in the genetic makeup of the population. A major mechanism of evolution.

Definition of artificial selection obtained from material for the course Plants and People 3430, Lyn Baldwin,

– Deliberate manipulation by humans, as in plant and animal breeding of the hereditary traits of a population by allowing only certain individuals to reproduce.

Now between the author Michael Pollan of “The Botany of Desire”, and Jared Diamond of “Guns, Germs, and Steel”, these two definitions seem to have less extreme differences than how we are taught in first year biology.

Both of these authors tell the story from a plant’s point of view. The point of view of the plant is to live and continue passing down genetic material to offspring to have the most ‘fitness’. Now fitness is the ability of the organism to reproduce and survive in a given environment. Coming from a person’s point of view to express the plant’s point of view, the question of who was selective for who in the beginning? It all gets traced back to the ancient times and the relationship that humankind and plants had. Was it the plants evolving to better improve their overall fitness in a human populated world, or did we alter the way plants evolved from our desires? These two sections of each novel show us an alternative way of how we view natural selection and artificial selection. In, “The Botany of Desire”, the plants view is done by experiences from the author with growing plants and the relationship he has discovered between humankind and plants in the midst of his garden. Now from “Guns, Germs, and Steel”, Jared Diamond provides us with ancient time examples of the relationship between humankind and plants to provide the point of view of the silent yet fully powerful plant.

From a person’s point of view, it’s just a plant, I can move it here I can move it there. It wasn’t until I read both these passages and decided that it might not be who is controlling who. So like Pollan says “but in the coevolutionary relationship every subject is also an object, every object a subject”(P.xxi) both plants and humans have evolved to have a dependency for each other. Pollan describes the dependency of ‘non-domesticated’ organisms(ex. plants and animals),(p.xxiii) “Indeed, even the wild now depends on civilization for its survival”. Now our dependency lies in the fact that over the years we have developed a nutritional diet that is from evolutionary plants to develop characteristic tissues that we can digest. “It might not have been the intent of the plants to become dependent on humans to continue the life of each crops progeny (Diamond, P. 119), but in a human driven world where our presence is felt everywhere ( Pollan, P.xxii), it still is survival of the fittest, but environmental conditions have changed from when plants first evolved to live on land. On another note, in my point of view, these two authors persuaded me ever so easily into the plants point of view. Demolishing the old version of  strict boundaries between artificial selection and natural selection to see them as the same.

There were a few lines by both authors that definitely stood out.

“The wolf is somehow more impressive to us than the dog.”(Pollan, P.xvi) What I like about this statement is that it is true that the wolf seems to be a bit desired. Speaking from experience, I have just recently added a Siberian husky into my life and in the beginning of searching for the ‘right’ dog, part wolf has always been a bit of a desire of mine. And I don’t even think I could explain why, because rationally thinking, it seems absurd and definitely not a good idea because wolves, they are still ‘wild’, can have behaviour that is dangerous. This behaviour can come anytime anywhere; one thing that most domesticated dogs don’t possess, if trained properly. However, this statement also brought me to the attention of how dogs have evolved over time, in a human driven world, to be more fit than wolves. Like Pollan says “…there are 50 million dogs in America today, only 10 thousand wolves”(P.xvi) the dogs have out fitted their ancestral wolves in the environment of the world today.

“…not even ardent nut lovers eat wild almonds”(Diamond, P.114) This was in the opening paragraph of Chapter 7. I couldn’t help but laugh at this. Through the explanation of hikers and their desires to pick and eat wild strawberries, blueberries and blackberries, this is a strange truth, why? Well unfortunately, a better question is, I wonder how many people were lured into their death because of the old technique of trial and error that hunters used. Who would have thought that such a ‘domesticated’ nut would have been lethal to us ages ago. Someone must have tasted the mutant nut, spread the word, and others must have tried the not so mutant nut a few times.

On an ending note, both authors had a different way of saying the same thing. Pollan gave more of the plants desire to please us, to improve its fitness. And where Diamond expresses the need we have for plants, that started thousands of years ago, before all the technology. From page 130, Diamond, doesn’t forget to end with reminding us that the plants used for eating today, arose naturally in the world thousands of years ago. Not to say it was the fittest of its time years ago, it was in fact mutant genes, but became the fittest.

It is easy to see how adaptable plants are, and how efficient humans are at pursuing their desires to obtain what they want. If the environment conditions change, I wonder who would out live the other. Plants or humans?

The Similarities Between Animals and Plants

This weeks reading was from “In Praise of Plants” by Francis Halle, pages 41 – 124 and 173 – 184. This book was translated by David Lee. Timber Press, Portland, London.

The readings from pages 41- 124 and 173 – 184 are an explanation from Francis Halle that there can be another way to think and observe plants. Plants should be considered more alive than some scientists conclude. Francis Halle describes in great detail the way he thinks about plants to persuade the audience of his novel to not only believe his words, but accept them as true. Francis Halle works his persuasion by discussing the similarities and differences between plants and animals. In some of the writing it seems he is slightly bitter towards the, what he might consider, ignorance of other scientists.

Chapter 2: A Visit to the Landscape of Form, pages 41 – 124 focus on the form of life. The space that each life form takes up in our and the world. Not only does the form come to focus but the surface area to volume is of interest because that is how organisms obtain nutrients and gases for living and development. The surface area of plants is considered similar to animals surface area of nutrient absorption and gas exchange. The similarity is that plants have leaves that increase surface area for absorption from the sun that are above ground, and then they have the surface area under ground, their roots that increase into the depths take up more space than the exposed plant, up to 3 times or even greater space. Another aspect considered is symmetry. Plants have radial symmetry, whereas the majority of animals have bilateral symmetry. Francis Halle considers the reason for symmetry is the motility of the organisms. The organisms with radial symmetry in animals are not motile, whereas plants with radial symmetry are not motile either. Animals on the other hand are usually bilaterally symmetrical and are motile. However, Halle also indicates that plants might not be motile in the same way that animals are, but in the case of growth being considered motility they are definitely motile.

Pages 173 – 184 from Chapter 5: Evolution, discusses the similarities and differences between organisms at the level of reproduction, life, death and generations. The main discussion is about the differences.  Plants have a one plant, 2 generation life whereas animals have a 1 animal, 1 generation life. On top of that, plants are continually changing, they are living cells that grow constantly and when cells and tissues are no longer needed they die and leave(fall off) the organism. Whereas animals do not continually grow, animals can only grow the amount that they are going to grow. Their legs cannot become longer if they continue to eat too much, they might grow in width but not in length. Plants however, can continue to grow both in width, for example a tree, and in height.

This writing was not the easiest read but had some interesting and neat ideas. There were words that I don’t think I ever read before. For example, ansiotropic on page 54, pleuronectid on page 64, homeotic on page 84, crenulated on page 100, encumbered on page 113. Now these are just a few examples of words I had to read twice to make sure, 1 – I was pronouncing them properly(hopefully), 2 – Able to incorporate the words to get a basic understanding of what is being said.

Throughout the read, I would say I’m not sure if I liked or disliked the way I found the author to write with an almost angry tone. For example, on page 116, Francis Halle writes “Does the immunologic criterion suggest that plants are individuals, or do the two other criteria suggest the opposite? …Is it conceivable that a particularly well-integrated colony could emerge as an individual? Would the individual thus be a recursive idea, a nested reality? Let us see what zoologists think…” It may be that the writing is too formal and at a higher level than my understanding, however, the way I interpret these few sentences is that Francis Halle is frustrated that zoologists cannot see that plants are individuals. Yes plants might be able to live and regenerate a part of them that is cut off, whereas almost all animals cannot. It seems Francis Halle wants people and scientists to re consider the specific reasoning of how to classify an individual. In a sense I agree that the basis of individual could be broadened. Who gets the say in what is and what isn’t considered an individual. However, why is it directly focused to zoologists?

A few parts of the book that I thought were a neat way of thinking about plants and animals was on page 50 when Francis Halle writes about how plants and animals are similar in the way they do gas exchange and nutrient absorption, it is all about surface area to volume and how to maximize. I thought this was a neat way of discussing the similarities because I am not a botanist and lack in-depth knowledge in the matter that it had a light bulb go off inside my head to make me look outside the box. Plants have organs just as we do. Very intriguing idea to consider.

Another part I thought was marvelous was on page 103, where Francis Halle talks about the time scale for plants versus animals. From an animal(our) perspective, plants are not motile. Whereas, Halle opens the idea that plants don’t have the same biological clock or time frame as us. What if plants thought we moved too fast and could not be seen(just like ants cannot be seen on the ground). That doesn’t mean they aren’t motile, it just means we live in different ways. The way Halle describes how what if 2 years for us was a tree’s 1 minute. The visualization brought to me was as if I was watching one of those video snap shot camera/camcorders on extreme fast forward mode. The movement is obvious, and so obvious it makes the idea of motility less clear. Even if the plants do not move from side to side directly, I would consider them motile in the sense of growth.

The last part of interest is on page 176 and 181. Francis Halle describes the generations of plants versus animals. Now even though I have learned that plants reproduce differently than animals, it never occurred to me that one plant had two generations. I thought it was a uniqueness about plants that is significantly different from most animals. However, I also considered that plants produce a more complex life cycle compared to animals in the sense that plants can live as haploid and diploid. All I wonder is if being able to live both haploid and diploid makes them more complex or less complex?