Sunday, April 1, 2012

0 to 100 in 365 days

The 100-Mile Diet

By Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon


Published in 2007 by Vintage Canada from Toronto

Today's Assigned Reading: The entire book



Well, up until this point we've been reading chapters or excerpts from various texts and books… but never the entire book. I wonder if this is meant to be some sort of treat or reward for having gotten this far in the course…. we get to read an entire book! Yay! Or maybe not =D


Ok, on to the serious stuff.


At only about 250 pages, double-spaced and with a fairly large font The 100-Mile Diet was a quick enough read, taking me only about four days to finish. It also helped, I think, that the book was written by professional writers, not scientists or people of academia. That is to say, this book was written for the general public to easily pick up and enjoy… not for hapless university students upon whom it might be forced as part of a course's required reading (such as Guns, Germs and Steel… I only know of one person who willingly read that book).

Because The 100-Mile Diet was written by writers and was quite simply a narrative of their experiences in eating locally, I found it to be quite enjoyable and easily relatable. I especially liked the beginning - the authors start by explaining the facts and experience that caused them to even think about only eating food from within 100 miles of their home in downtown Vancouver. After that, the book tells of their adventures (and misadventures) in doing this for one year.


The book is organized by month and each is prefaced by a seasonal 100-mile recipe. In each month the two authors alternate voices and tell of the foods available, what they were eating and how they prepared it. In most chapters they also included notable food-related stories and major events in their lives. By revealing their personal thoughts regarding the difficulty of sticking the 100-mile diet (in the early part (p37-39) and living with each other (later on in the fall (p153)), we see them as real people, not saints who are above the problems of use average plebs.


Because of this sense of reality that they give to their adventures, we see how at the end of the year they enjoyed the experience and why they continued - even after the year was up - to eat locally. That is to say, they continued to eat locally because they felt better, both in body and in mind, and because by eating locally they felt happiness come from the simple act of eating (which we all must do every day…). Who wouldn't want to sit down at every mean and think yum and hurray?


Overall I quite enjoyed the book. I have to say, my favourite part was how the two authors were Canadian and lived in Vancouver. As a result I knew the places and the farms where they went (eg Reifal Bird Sanctuary (p52), Salt Spring Island (p90), English Bay (p220)) and could follow in my mind better than if it had taken place in say Toronto or New York. I greatly enjoyed that aspect of the book — in a sense the book itself was local!


I also really enjoyed reading about all the heirloom varieties of crops that they were eating, such as Red Fife wheat (p61) and the great many beans on p95… Rojo de Seda, Black Coco, Cannellini, Cheetah, Leopard, Ruckle and Orca (which is also known as Calypso and comes up later in the book). I know these varieties and have grown a great many of them in my garden!


But… as was suggested in this book, these species are but imports from the rest of the world (93); there is very little native growing in the Pacific North-West. So in a sense their 100 mile diet was still not really local and was based upon plants whose seeds — in some way or another - were not originally from the 200-mile circle that they ascribed to. It would be really interesting in my opinion to try eating 100% off the land for a year — just to see if it was possible!


Finally I just want to mention how horrified I was regarding their discussion on the decline of the natural environment (p135-144)… especially their point that as we cannot remember what it once was like, we do not know what we've lost and thus are OK with the present state (p144).


This idea reminds me very much about a book I read a while ago entitled The Forever War, a rough analogy of the Vietnam War. Basically, in the year 1996 an inter-stellar war begins and Earth's best and brightest are conscripted to become soldiers in a war no one really understands. The novel follows the story of William Mandella - who is conscripted in 1996 but still around 1500 years later (at the end of the war). Due to time dilation he only aged about eight years.


My point is that after those 1500 years, Mandella - a person from our time - has essentially become an alien from a completely different planet because the people, society and Earth had changed so much (and not exactly for the better). As the story progresses, you see that the sheep-like people of the year 3500 are OK with those changes because they've never known anything else. But because Mandella remembers what Earth used to be like, he is discontent with the current state of affairs and ends up being exiled across time and space.


To think that I may be one of those sheep because I've never questioned what the world used to be like is disconcerting as hell! And I don't suppose I'll ever really know what the world used to be like - the ocean full of jellyfish (p137-138), the rivers packed with fish (p138-139), and the forests full of wildlife, birds, and hundreds of plants (140-141).



But enough of the doom-and-gloom. It's warm out, I'm caught up on school work and it's time to plant the garden.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

The Wonders of Weed and Witches

The Botany of Desire
By Michael Pollan

Published in 2001 by Random House
Today's Assigned Reading: Chapter Three (p113-179)
Otherwise known as Desire: Intoxication, Plant: Marijuana


Well, having read all 66 pages of this chapter I must admit that I now feel as if I were taken away on quite a trip.

Sure, I read this in two hours straight, sitting on a windowsill facing south and sun-drunk with the brightening of spring. Right now I have a headache and my eyes cannot quite focus upon my computer screen and I feel I am being called back to that gorgeous sunlight…. but duty calls, so here goes.

In general I have to say that I didn't quite enjoy this chapter as much as I did others; I found it to be wandering and random in some places and yet highly focused in others… perhaps Pollan was trying to make the reader understand what it is like to be high? Certainly his descriptions on pages 160, 161 and 166 - 168 helped with that purpose but honestly I just found the entire chapter to be more than a little confusing.

In my opinion, his described history of pot was interesting but nonetheless lacking in flow — not as good as it could have been. But that's not to say I didn't enjoy some parts; I got quite a laugh from his misadventures and explorations with Marijuana. I very much enjoyed his stories (I love stories), including his experience in growing pot (pg 121-124), his trip to Amsterdam (pg 129) and of the death-defying Assassins doped up on hashish (pg 172-173); however I found these gems spaced far apart with little more than filler placed between them.

I think Pollan could have written this chapter in but 40 pages, or maybe 30, and thus would have captivated my attention a fair sight more so than it did today. I was tempted to give up reading but because this chapter was assigned, I slogged through. *sigh*

On another topic, I totally understand Pollan's desire as a gardener to grow pot… not for the drug but simply to see if he could grow the plant. I must admit for a few years now I've wanted to grow hemp (outside, just to be clear) and add to my collection of odd and random garden plants… but it is next to impossible to acquire reputable seeds that haven't been shelled or irradiated. Although a few years ago I was offered some pot seeds by a friend…………………….


Finally, there is one last thing I want to comment upon… the revelation about how witches really "flew" on their broomstick (p119). Prior to this revelation, I was following along fine and I'll admit, especially amused by how Pollan was talking about witches using various items such as belladonna, datura, and toad skin… items which I was sure were relegated to fantasy or perhaps Harry Potter.

Indeed, I was certain Pollan was going to say they had no active nature and that witches flying in the night sky with a full moon to their back is but a myth - for we all know you cannot sit on a broom and launch yourself into the sky. Everyone knows that witches didn't exist; they couldn't really fly.

I guess up until this point I'd never stopped and wondered where the idea of witches and warlocks came from - surely there must be some reason but I guess I'd always assumed it came from fanciful stories and tales told to frighten young children.

So I'm sure you can imagine my shock and surprise when Pollan revealed that witches were indeed real, what a "broomstick" actually was, and how those woman launched themselves into flight…. And for fear of getting my blog R-rated or shut down, I'll just say that if you don't know what I'm talking about go get the book and read page 119 yourself.

I'm not sure what perturbed me most by this revelation - that the idea of "witches" actually has a basis in historical fact, that the ingredients they used to fly were exactly like what is used in Harry Potter… or that witches actually flew (just not in the way I - and most people, I'm sure - thought or presumed).

Sure changes your perspective on the game of Quidditch, eh?

“All The Flowers of Tomorrow are in the Seeds of Today”

Hello Reader!
As per Lyn's instructions to post our essays upon our blogs, so here is mine. Enjoy =D




“All The Flowers of Tomorrow are in the Seeds of Today”


Last year in my garden I planted, cared for and tended to over seventy-five different varieties of the common bean. Phaseolus vulgaris (for that is its Latin name) is a very demure and unassuming annual plant that grows quietly where sown and requires little attention to develop fully. When the end of summer rolls around, the bean plant calmly sets its seeds and accepts its fate – and dies just as quietly and complacently as it lived. And while each bean plant looks rather like its neighbour, I have been captivated by the extraordinary diversity of their seeds for over five years now.
In the bean patch of my garden over seventy-five different colours and shapes of beans grow. Some seeds are pure orange, lemon yellow, neon pink, lime green, plain white or dull black. Others are grey splotched with purple or have red dots upon a brown basecoat. Some are light blue with darker brown speckles while others still are red and orange or brown. A few even have designs, including “Yin-yang”, of which one half of the seed is white with a black dot and the other half is black with a white dot.
In size they also vary – one variety is tinier than a grain of rice while another is bigger than a blueberry. Most however, are around the size of a fingernail, but swell or shrink and change shape depending upon how good the year was. Some seeds grow flattened like a penny while others are round and fat, and even more are elongated and slender. But what amazes me most is how it was not by my hand that this great diversity arose – the vast majority of these bean varieties have been around for at least a few hundred years, if not a few thousand!
So if not from my garden, how and where did this great variety in beans really come from? I know that the seeds planted one year must come from a previous year’s crop, but how many generations back must I go before I can determine how and where the beans in my garden originated?
According to recent scientific papers, about 10,000 years ago in both Central and South America the common bean diverged from its ancestral species of Phaseolus aborigineus. Whether by human hands or a speciation event the reason for this divergence is unknown. Either way though, it is clear from archeological evidence that after this date – about 8000 years BC – humans began to cultivate the common bean.
Undeniably since this speciation event, beans have been grown and harvested by someone's caring hand. And while the stories of those individuals have been blown away and lost on the winds of time, the varieties they grew still remain. Included in these are “Anasazi” and “Hidatsa Shield” beans. And because these varieties are present and grown today declares to the world that the actions of those long-ago people haven’t yet been completely forgotten.
But all this occurred a few thousand years ago – so between then and now who was growing beans, and where? Well, up until the 12th century, beans were solely grown in South America as well as some parts of Mexico. Then in 1100 AD, beans seeds were acquired by the Native Peoples of the eastern United States of America. After this date, the common bean was grown in a new land by a new people. And just as those people adapted to include beans in their culture, the seeds they planted adapted to their new land, producing new and different varieties including “Hopi Black” and “Arikara Yellow”. So, just as how the ancient Mexicans are remembered today by the beans they once grew, so too are the people of the eastern United States.
The next big journey that beans took was in the early 1500s, when their seeds were packed aboard the ships of European explorers and brought to the “Old World”. At first they were regarded as a novelty, but a mere fifty years after their arrival, the common bean was grown across much of Europe. And as the people who grew them intertwined their fate with the wandering vines of the bean plant, their lives are remembered in the seeds they saved for the next year’s crop.
Over the next four centuries, more bean varieties were moved from the Americas to Europe, while others (such as the original “Sulphur” bean) diffused throughout the rest of the world. Some varieties (including “Mayflower” and “Red Valentine”) returned to North America with European immigrants and were grown across that entire continent. But no matter their individual stories, within the past five years, seventy-five of the world’s varieties of beans have made their way into my garden here in downtown Kamloops.
Thinking about how the ancestors of the beans I now so caringly cover with soil and tend to were also tended to by countless people throughout history just blows my mind. And when I consider that people have been saving and re-planting the ancestors of my seeds every year for the past TEN THOUSAND years leaves me in a state of wonder and awe.
Thus when I thought about how the bean seeds I hold today are the result of the efforts of incalculable numbers of people throughout time, I realized that the world in which we live in today would not be the same if our ancestors hadn’t worked hard or made the decisions that they did. And while to us now their stories may be forgotten and their lives unknown, the impact that they’ve had upon the world and our shared future is nonetheless substantial.
So just as my ancestors tended to the ancestors of the beans I now grow today, one day my descendants will grow the daughters of the beans I shall raise tomorrow. And a few thousand years after I am dead and gone, the seeds I cared about today will remain and they will tell my story. They will say to the people millennia from now that there once was a person who cared and grew these varieties year after year. And while my name and face may be forgotten, my descendant seeds will remain and tell my story – because what I chose to do today decided what sort of tomorrow the future will be.



References:
Botany 940 – Systematics Seminar [Internet]. c2011. Wisconsin, USA: University of Wisconsin-Madison; [Fall 2011; cited 2012 Feb 16]. Available from: www.botany.wisc.edu/courses/botany_940

Berglund-BrĂ¼cher O, BrĂ¼cher H. c1976. The South American Wild Bean (Phaseolus aborigineus Burk.) as Ancestor of the Common Bean. Economic Botany. 30(3): 257-272.

Common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) [Internet]. c1977. [cited 2012 Feb 16]. Available from: http://www2.mpiz-koeln.mpg.de/pr/garten/schau/PhaseolusvulgarisL/Common_bean.html

Diamond G. c1999. Guns, Germs, and Steel. New York (New York): W.W. Norton and Company. 151p.

Field Beans [Internet]. c2011. Manitoba: Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives; [cited 2012 Feb 16]. Available from: http://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/crops/pulsecrops/bhd03s01.html

Heirloom Beans [Internet]. Carman, Manitoba: Heritage Harvest Seed; [updated 2012; cited 2012 March 18]. Available from: http://www.heritageharvestseed.com/beansrs.html

Purdue Agriculture - Horticulture and Landscape Architecture [Internet]. c1998. West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University; [cited 2012 Feb 16]. Available from: http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/duke_energy/phaseolus_vulgaris.html

Singh SP, Gepts P, Debouck DG. c1991. Races of the common bean (Phaseolus-vulgaris, Fabaceae). Economic Botany. 45 (3): 379-396.

Wendat (Huron): History [Internet]. c2005. Canada: Library and Archives Canada; [updated 2005 Sept 9; cited 2012 March 18]. Available from: http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/settlement/kids/021013-2111.2-e.html


Sunday, March 11, 2012

That Desert Ain't Deserted!

Gathering the Desert
By Gary Nabhan

Published in 1990 by Univeristy of Arizona Press
Today's Assigned Reading: Pages 3-19
Otherwise known as "Desert Plants as Calories, Cures and Characters", and "The Creosote Bush Is Our Drugstore"

This week's reading was of two literary sketches about Opata Indians and their historical relationship with the natural flora of the Sonoran Desert. Moderately scientific but not unenjoyable, these pages are a narrative on the culture and plants from the perspective of research scientist and ethnobotanist Gary Nabhan.

As a result, this reading was oddly formal and yet because it was told in the form of a story this piece very enjoyable to read. I think because of this the scientific information and botanical facts that the author was trying to inform people about stuck more thoroughly in my memory. That is to say, I think the style of writing represent by "Gathering the Desert" is an excellent way of getting otherwise boring or dry information across and making it accessible - and desirable - to the general public.

For example, would you rather read "Sweet, like carob or chocolate pudding in flavour and texture, the mesquite-pod atole was a special treat for by botanist friend who had known that the pods were an important ancient food, but had no idea how they were customarily prepared" (p 4), or "Mesquite-pod atole is an ancient food that tastes sweet like chocolate pudding". NO! This second sentence is BORING!

In light of this delightful narration interwoven with scientific facts, I especially enjoyed both the stories and the botanical info behind the many plants of the Sonoran desert (p5-7) and the ancient creosote bush called "King Clone" (p12-13). Additionally I found the historical uses of creosote very interesting (which, let me tell you, make the plant sound like the cure for all disease) (p14-15), as well as the tale of the "thermonuclear explosion nicknamed "Sedan"(p19). That is to say, in 1962 at the blast site, the previously growing creosote bushes were obliterated, but then ten years later it was determined that - WITHIN the radioactive test area - the very same shrubs had re-sprouted and continued to thrive!!

Overall I found this reading to be very intriguing and left me thinking about it for several hours after I read it, coming up with questions and continuing to wonder at its content and meanings.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Sweet Tooth and Chocolate Pig

The Botany of Desire
By Michael Pollan

Published in 2001 by Random House
Today's Assigned Reading: Chapter one (p3-59)
Otherwise known as Desire: Sweetness, Plant: The Apple

In this chapter, Pollan interweaves the story of Johnny Appleseed with the history of the apple, from its roots in Kazakhstan (p53) to Europe and then over to North America (p20). He also tells of how the apples of centuries ago progressed from being bitter and inedible, useful only to be made into cider to the modern day edible- fruited apple and the success of the marketing strategy "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" (p22).

I found his narration to be a little too loose for my tastes, and somewhat hard to follow... although that may have been my fault as I was a little illucid at the time when I read this chapter. However I did find his history of the apple to be quite fascinating!

This weekend I hiked up Tranquille Creek and to my surprise in this most-travelled of destinations, I found three beaver dams, the remains of an old homestead... and one stubborn old apple tree, all bent and knarled and twisted but alive nonetheless. How long ago was it that this apple was planted, and what sort of fruit does it yield!?

And what of the ancient settler that planted it - what was their reasons for growing an apple tree not twenty feet from their front porch? In Pollan’s own words, “a taste for sweetness appears to be universal” (p19). And like the ancient settlers of yesteryear, I too desire sweetness.

It’s poetic, really, that I am sitting here reading this chapter and cursing myself for breaking my four-year fast of chocolate. Well, now I'm chowing down upon – what else – an apple, trying to get over the vertigo I am currently feeling. And why you ask, why am I experiencing such spectacular vertigo that I cannot bear to watch people moving around me, much less to move my head from side to side? Well, that’s because I cannot get over my sweet tooth. And not even a very sweet tooth I have!

Perhaps I should backup and explain. About four years ago I developed an irritating and unwanted sensitivity to sugars – white, brown, cane, maple… even honey! Immediately upon consuming even the slightest bit of sugar my head would start to spin and all semblance of concentration would be lost. So, after swiftly figuring out why I felt so ill was due to eating sugar, I reluctantly stopped. No more sugar, no more bread (which requires sugar for the yeast to make the bread rise), no more molasses cookies, no more flavoured potato chips (which I must say, are loaded with sugar)… and definitely no more chocolate.

Well, OK, every few months or so I’d break and have a little bit, perhaps some chocolate here, a cookie there… but very soon after I’d be reminded of why I stopped eating sugar in the first place and that’d be enough to get me to stop for the next few months.

So you can imagine my happiness at how over this past reading week I had more than my usual amount of chocolate-dusted roasted almonds - and felt quite fine! Perhaps I’ve out-grown the sugar issue (I thought), maybe it’s gone away on its own. So you can imagine why, on this past Sunday night when I found a chocolate bar that’d been hidden from last year that I just had to have a piece.

For me, that first bite of refined sugar, the sweetness of the chocolate – after four years in self-enforced sugar purgatory, wow. Can you blame me for eating some more??
Reveling in the sweetness I promptly I ate ¼ of the chocolate bar - it wasn’t even that big to begin with! Then I went to bed.

Well, the next morning (yesterday) when I got out of bed and stood up – that is to say, attempted to stand up... and fell back down again. Everything was spinning and it wasn’t me that was moving! This vertigo continued all through the day and into the next. Even now, it still hasn't gone away, not really. So… I guess I cannot have sugar after all :(

It's back to apples for me.

I guess what I’m trying to say with the above narrative is that I sympathize with the American settlers. With no other source of sugar but that from hard apple cider or the rare sweet-tasting apple fruit, in comparison to vegetables, those apples sure taste darn good. But with regards to that sweet tooth, how even sweeter things are desired – say cheap sugar, cane sugar and high fructose corn syrup… I can totally see why the apple tree was given up in favor of the even more compacted sweetness of refined sugar. And I can especially see how those people who, without restraint, could easily pack on the pounds. Because historically, all there was apple cider *sigh*. And I cannot even have that.

Friday, February 10, 2012

...and the dominance of Corn

The Omnivores Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
By Michael Pollan
Published in 2006 by Penguin Press
New York, New York

Today’s Assigned Reading: Industrial: Corn (Chapters 1 to 7, p15-119).

In this section of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan focuses upon how corn is the primary source of calories in the American diet, albeit unbeknownst to most consumers. In this section he also explains what government policies and social pressures have resulted in corn being the most prevalent crop grown across the entire United States. In his narration, Pollan talks about how corn is grown, and where it goes after its harvested – surprisingly, its not straightforward as to how corn gets from the field to inside your stomach (p63). Specifically, the majority of corn consumed does not come from the obvious products of corn: corn starch, corn meal, or corn-on-the-cob.

Nope, most of the corn eaten is not in any form recognizable that it is in fact “corn”. That is to say, Pollan explains how the majority of corn goes to feed cows, which in turn transform kernels into meat, which we then eat (p65). What’s left of the rest of the corn harvest then goes to produce *other* compounds – high fructose corn syrup, ethanol and other alcohols, starch, plastics, and emulsifiers – which we then eat in our sodas, alcoholic beverages, fast food, and pre-packaged processed foods (p85).

Because of these unbelievable levels of consumption, Pollan states that Americans are “processed corn, walking” (p23). However I wonder – are they (we) really? I don’t think so – or at least not so in my case. For example, before writing this blog, I had a lettuce and avocado salad with apple cider vinegar, a blueberry muffin (made with butter, eggs, milk and wheat flour), and an orange. Well, unless the organic cow that produced my butter and milk or the chicken that laid my omega-3 egg were fed corn, today I’ve not eaten anything containing or made from corn. In fact, I am allergic to corn, and can barely eat a few pieces of popcorn or even a small slice of cornbread before beginning to swell up! So I think I’d know if I were eating such an unbelievable amount of corn that Pollan states Americans do (p64).

This raises a question - how did he calculate this annual amount? Was it by percentage of C13 found in our food or our bodies, or by what percent of our food’s ingredients came from corn? Or did he take the overall yield of corn for one year, divide it by the number of citizens in the USA, and say that’s how much corn they each ate? Because I have issues with all of these methods of calculations.

Firstly – the percentage of C13 in an object is, in my opinion, an invalid measure of the percent of corn within it. This is due to a basic botany fact – corn is NOT the only plant that preferentially acquires C13! That is to say, sorghum, millet and most members of the sunflower family (as well as hundreds of other species) preferentially acquire C13, too (Wikipedia article: C4 carbon fixation)! Therefore we cannot completely base our “amount of corn eaten” on the percent of C13 found in our food or bodies – because other foods NOT EVEN REMOTELY ASSOCIATED WITH CORN can contribute to this “C13 corn percentage”.

Secondly – determining the amount of corn eaten based on the amount of food ingredients that are sourced from corn is a questionable method at best. That is to say, is it valid to consider these compounds to still be “corn”, even after they have been highly processed, digested and meddled with? In Biology, we are taught that what define an organism is its DNA, genes, and the proteins it makes. Therefore if the DNA sequences, genes or protein that identify “corn” as “corn” are no longer present in these various compounds – having been separated into many tiny pieces along the way - can they still be considered “corn”?

Thirdly – by taking the average yearly harvest of corn and dividing it amongst every US citizen and saying that’s how much they each consumed is downright wrong! There are a number of reasons for which I disagree with this. Firstly, Pollan himself points out that the vast majority of the corn goes to feed cattle. Well, cattle are very inefficient at converting food into meat – therefore we can factor out a great number of calories right there (p80). Next, the processing methods applied to corn to make any number of compounds is surely not 100% efficient. For example, of every 100 corn calories going into the processing plant, likely 10 calories or less will come out and be consumed. Thirdly, a great amount of corn does not even end up in food (p85)! Who knows how much of the 10 billion bushel corn harvest goes into ethanol production (p85)! And finally, how much of this corn is abandoned or spilt, like the surplus pile observed next to the grain elevator in Farnhamville, Iowa (p58)?

Therefore while proportionally each US citizen may “consume” X-number of pounds of corn over one year, they do not do so directly by sitting down and eating those X lbs of corn over the entire year – the vast majority of these calories are processed first, whether by an animal or a factory, and either then have no guarantee of even ending up in a human’s stomach – perhaps they end up fuelling cars, or maybe are abandoned and left for rodents to enjoy.

But even with my objections to the method of calculating how much corn is eaten per American per year, that’s not to say I particularity disagree with Pollan’soverall point that Americans eat way too much corn. That much is, to me, quite obvious in his final chapter entitled The Meal: Fast Food and by how many litres of soda I’ve seen people around me consuming on a daily basis.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

The Rise of Farming...

Guns, Germs and Steel
By Jared Diamond
Published in 1999 by W.W. Norton and Company
New York, New York

Today’s Assigned Reading: Chapters 4, 5, 6, and 8 (p85 to 113, and p131 to 156)

In these four chapters, Diamond clearly explains what factors allowed hunter-gatherers to begin an agricultural life, why they did so, and what effect agriculture had upon societies throughout the world. He also explains why societies with agriculture and domestic animals have historically dominated those without, and how the development of agriculture leads to the development of complex societies, increased population, and higher technologies.

Basically, the development of farming in any area depended greatly upon what plants were around and to what extent they provided adequate nutrition, protein, and calories. If the native plants did not provide a balanced diet or not enough calories – as was the case in New Guinea (p149) or the Eastern United States (p151) – agriculture did not fully develop. But, on the other hand, if the wild plants provided abundant calories, a complete diet, and were more rewarding that hunter-gathering (as was the case in the Fertile Crescent (p146)), agriculture took off!

Cool, eh? It sure explains why there was a population explosion in Europe, thus leading to the eventual colonization (or should I say, invasion) of the rest of the world – and explains why I’m sitting here in Canada, typing away on my computer.

Now Lyn, please don’t get mad… here is where I will make a brief departure from the incredible world of plants to the amazing world of animals. I just want to point out something amusing here – all the large animals that have been domesticated by people around the world have been herbivores. Sure, dogs and cats are carnivores and pigs are omnivores, but they are pretty small.

So why then, are there are no large domestic carnivores – say comparable to the size of a cow or donkey? Who wouldn’t want a large carnivorous cow!?






Well, with regards to domestication, Diamond makes the point that first, the species present in a given area (be they animal or vegetable) had to be domesticatable and secondly, that domesticating them would provide benefits than outweighed continued hunter-gathering.

Well, our two most common animal companions represent the successful domestication of carnivorous species – dogs from wolves and cats from Egypt. So it is possible to domesticate carnivores, and there are benefits associated with them. Granted, dogs and cats are not farm animals and we don’t eat either species (er… at least not in Canada)... but they’ve been around for several thousand years so there’s gotta be a reason why we’ve kept them, right? The prevalence of cats cannot all be due to crazy cat ladies…




But seriously, why are there not any large domestic carnivorous critters – say lions or tigers or bears? In terms of availability, there are certainly large carnivores located throughout most of the globe.

Historically, any domestic animals larger than a dog – say bigger than a donkey – have all been herbivores. I mean, aside from the obvious use of these animals, I’m sure some ingenious indigenous person could figure out how to harness a bear or cougar to a plow…

But seriously, let’s first consider if this is a good idea!

Consider this – when plowing your field with your friendly pair of oxen, do you every think they might turn and EAT you? No, you don’t. Why? Because they’re herbivores. They cannot eat you (well, they may try, and oxen sure can bite, but they are not effective eaters of meat and certainly don’t see you as “dinner”).

Or, when you’re done plowing your field, you’d lead your animals to your barn or stable and feed and water them. Then you go into your house and eat your dinner, and go to sleep. But – would you wake up in the middle of the night worrying that your horses will get tired of being cooped up and may start to eat each other? NO! Because horses are herbivores and while they can kick and fight dirty, they do not do so out of a desire to eat meat.

So… that’s probably why there have not been any large domestic carnivores – they by definition eat meat and therefore are very hard for a walking dinner (i.e. a human) to control or domesticate!

And also you’d need meat to feed them, which means you’d have to raise up herbivorous critters to then feed to your carnivores… which would require far more food stuffs than one large herbivore would on its own.

But imagine, a tame bear pulling a plow…

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Want some flounder with your tomatoes?

The Botany of Desire
By Michael Pollan
Published in 2001 by Random House

Today's Assigned Reading: Chapter Four (p181-238)
Otherwise known as Desire: Control, Plant: The Potato

In this eloquent and casually written essay, Pollan interweaves his historical narrative about the potato with examples of how people have attempted and are currently attempting to control nature, plants, animals, economies, and ultimately people and societies.

For example, he discusses how the strength of large-scale industrial monoculture relies upon massive inputs of synthetic compounds and similar machinations. By following the train of logic that suggests genetically modified foods are critical to feed the world because their modifications will relieve farmers of the need to use these synthetic inputs, Pollan got me to understand and even sympathize with the conventional farmer — he almost got me thinking that maybe GM crops were a good thing.

But next ……… next, Pollan shatters this idea with a terrible and stark reality — this is not the only way to grow food! For example, organic farmers do NOT use massive amounts of synthetic inputs; they hardly use any at all! And furthermore, their farms are sustainable, alive, and producing yields equal to that of conventional farmers (p224)!

So why doesn't all our food come from organic farms? Well, there is a very simple answer to this question, and yet it is a very complex one. This answer is best summarized by the name "Monsanto," but really is a matter of how we as consumers are willing to buy what such massive multinational corporations offer us. By giving them the power of our purchase, we allow them to dictate what is available, what is the norm, and what is acceptable in society. Basically we have given faceless, nameless corporations — whose main goal is to make money — utter control of a critical resource that every single human on this planet needs to survive: food.

This multinational control is particularly well demonstrated by the case of the Russet Burbank potato. As dictated by McDonald's, fries must be made of this potato. However, as this variety is particularly vulnerable to net necrosis (p226), farmers must frequently load up their spray guns and douse their plants with pesticides so toxic that they'd rather loose their crop than go near a recently sprayed field (p219).

Shocking, eh? Well, it gets better (or worse, depending upon your perspective…). When Pollan asked a nearby organic farmer how he gets around this disease without applying any pesticides, he replied "That's only really a problem with Russet Burbank's… So I plant other kinds" (p 226).

To this I thought WHAAAAAAAAAAAT? A national; no, an INTERNATIONAL corporation with stores in almost every country of the world is DEMANDING their farmers grow varieties that require multiple applications of several different TOXIC and LETHAL pesticides, all to make the perfect french fry????

Er…… what else, aside from potato and veggie oil and salt (the listed ingredients) was in that french fry I ate yesterday?

Furthermore, how the blazes can this have occurred? How screwed up IS our food system — how can people allow this to happen? How is this morally, socially, environmentally or ethically acceptable? Surely the perfect french fry is not worth this much.

But no, someone wants to get rich and control the market and screw up our future's food supply — and then they say "trust us". Um… I want to point out — if someone representing a massive multinational corporation that has its fingers in every part of the food system's pie asks you to trust them, would YOU? WOULD YOU?


Another part of this narrative that especially worried me was the eventuality of insects developing resistance to genetically modified crops, in addition to other conventional pesticides. Monsanto estimates this will occur, at the latest, in thirty years (p215). Um, I'll be 50 then, and still around to see this happen. So this makes me worried as it'll definitely occur in my lifetime — what'll my food look like then?

With regard to the issue, Pollan raises this question regarding the use of crops GM'd to produce Bt - should Monsanto be promoting resistance to one of the safest organic pesticides around? In my opinion, this is essentially like shooting our grandchildren in the foot.

Furthermore, what right has Monsanto to destroy Nature's own pest-control mechanism, one that has been used by farmers since the 1930s to keep crops organic and plants safe from marauding pests (p215)?In light of this horrifying thought, I would like to offer a personal addition to the notion of wide-scale resistance — such resistance will have a far greater impact than just upon our food.

For three months last summer, I patrolled around the Thompson and Okanagan valleys looking for the West Nile Virus. Basically, I collected mosquitos and dead birds and shipped them off for testing at the BCCDC in Vancouver. But West Nile is not what I want to talk about here - I want to talk about the density of mosquitos in the city. While last spring was very wet and in some places in the country the bugs were horrendous, their densities were kept pretty low in the city thanks to my mosquito-killing counterparts.

Beginning in mid-April, teams all across the Interior were out killing mosquitoes using Btk, a variation of the chemical produced by Bt-impregnated potatoes. In this case, bacterial spores are caked upon corn grits and are applied to water bodies when mosquito larvae are present in high enough numbers to warrant treatment. Aside from killing 99.9% of mosquito larvae, this "pesticide*" is pretty amazing as it only affects mosquitos and black flies in their larval stage; it harms no other critters. For example, my boss has two dogs and they have eaten the grits many times to no ill effect. Even better, the killed mosquito larvae provide a non-toxic food source for local fish and insectivores!

Now imagine if mosquitoes became resistant to Bt… Consider first the efficacy of this product — it is about 99.9%, meaning that about one out of every thousand mosquito larvae survives treatment. Next, I encourage you to remember the occasional mosquito you saw from your sun deck last summer — and multiply it by a thousand. Now, please visualize a whole horde of mosquitos dive-bombing you and making your life a miserable living hell.

I don't know if mosquitos would become resistant to Bt, but this is one thing I know I do NOT want to experience.

As you can probably tell, I thought this chapter was bloody disturbing, especially due to Pollan's comparison between conventional GMO farms and Mike Heath's organic farm. If people would simply chose to eat different things (i.e., not french fries), maybe we wouldn't need to screw up our environment in such a way and maybe we could all eat organic too.


Well, Lyn, you wanted emotion in the writing — you've gotten it from me. I am just a little bit disturbed and ticked off and seriously disheartened by this reading… Monsanto sure has done a good job at getting us to swallow what they feed us, both literally and figuratively.

*if you want to get your hands upon some of this "pesticide," you need only to wander into your local Zellers or Home Hardware where you can buy it like you do toilet paper. Btk-encased corn-grits is only considered a restricted product and a pesticide-applicator's licence is required only if you want to buy 18 kg bags of the stuff. Which seriously, unless you intend to nuke your local lake, you don't need AT ALL. In fact, the only danger this product poses is that…… um…… er…… uhhhhh…… it kills mosquitoes! Yeah, this stuff is real dangerous.

Monday, January 16, 2012

In which plants were first "domesticated"... or, how to make an Almond

Guns, Germs and Steel

By Jared Diamond

Published in 1999 by W.W. Norton and Company

New York, New York


Today’s Assigned Reading: Chapter 7 (p114 to 130)

Otherwise known as “How to make an Almond”


and


The Botany of Desire

By Michael Pollan

Published in 2001 by Random House


Today's Assigned Reading: The Introduction (pxii-xxv)


Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies is an approachable and engagingly written non-fiction book that does not require any background knowledge to understand. It tells of the many factors important in how different societies across the world and throughout time began, developed, progressed, and in some cases, fell. In Chapter 7, Diamond explains how plants were first domesticated and what factors lead to the rise of agriculture — literally, he tells us “How to make an Almond”.


The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World is likewise an easily read and approachable work of non-fiction. In it, Michael Pollan profiles four plants — the apple, tulip, marijuana, and potato — and tells us of their history, domestication and interrelation with people from the perspective of both the plants and the people.



The main point of these readings — and what I found most mind-blowing — was how the early domestication of plants by humans was driven primarily by the plants themselves.


Basically, the “domestication of plants” for human purposes did not arise from some smart human who took wild seeds and stuck them in the ground and watched to see what would happen. Nope, early “domestic” plants came about as a result of the influences that hunter-gatherers had upon the plants they gathered — and how these plants adapted to be better dispersed by the new animal in their environment.


That is to say, plants influenced people to domesticate them, to disperse their seeds and to increase their fitness in the exact same ways that plants influence all other animals, both now and historically (GGS, p116; BOD, pxv).


This elegant idea explains the origin of most of our current “domestic” plants. At the root of this explanation is the idea that humans are not the only ones to have "domesticated" plants. To explain what Diamond and Pollan means by this, I want to use the definition of domestication. According to Wikipedia (accessed on Jan 16th, 2012), “Domestication is the process whereby a population of animals or plants, through a process of artificial selection, is changed at the genetic level, accentuating traits desired by humans." However, if we rephrase this definition and make it less human-centric and broader in scope, we find that “domestication” implies that certain animals or plants are selected for and are changed as a result, based on what is desired by the forces or species doing the selecting.


Thus we can state that other animals “domesticate” plants, too!


For a human-driven example, imagine lettuce: it has been selected to have large crunchy and delectable leaves. We want large leaves, and so we select and propagate plants with the traits we want. But… what about birds? How, when a bird species selectively prefers “larger” or “bluer” berries, is this bird not domesticating this berry species to produce the traits that the bird “wants”?


Granted this is not a deliberate process and occurs through natural selection — that is, if large blue berries are preferentially eaten, over time these traits will increase as seeds from these berries will be dispersed at a greater rate and have greater reproductive success compared to those berries that are smaller and less blue. But, because the traits that the birds “wanted” increased in frequency, can we not, according to the definition above, consider these birds to be domesticating these plants, too?


Or what about bees. Imagine if you will, that bees prefer to collect nectar from red flowers more so than yellow ones. This, over time, would result in an increase in the overall prevalence of red flowers, because they are being selected for and thus experience higher pollination rates and will set more seed!


Thus based on these examples of natural selection, we can say that plants are being "domesticated" by the birds and the bees, too.


Therefore I suggest that we humans get off our high and mighty horse named “superior species” — we have not domesticated plants; they have manipulated us into spreading their seeds around! That is to say, as plant populations adapted to express certain traits preferred by humans (based upon human-imposed selection pressures), those plants’ fitness increased exponentially as their seeds were spread across our farms and fields.


Thus I very much like Pollan's idea that our relationship with plants is not one of superiority or dominance, but rather one of mutual survival (BOD, pxviii). Without our “domestic” plants, we cannot survive, and without our help, our "domesticated" plants cannot enjoy the high level of fitness and world-wide growth that they do now!


So I want to say that long ago, perhaps without either side even being aware of it, some plants and a few people entered a contract; an alliance. While each gave up something (people their independence and free-ranging nature as hunter-gatherers, and plants their ability to grow in the wild), each would help the other become the most dominant species of their respective kingdoms on the planet today.


This is an amazingly different and perhaps a unique way to look at plants — and one definitely worth exploring.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

In Praise of Plants

The following posting is a freewrite critique on the points raised and writing style presented in Chapters 2 and 5 of the very interesting book entitled "In Praise of Plants".

"In Praise of Plants"
Written by Francis Halle.
Translated from French by David Lee.
Published in 2002 by Timber Press in Portland, Oregon.

Covering the content found in:
Chapter 2: A Visit to the Landscape of Form, pages 41 to 124, and
Chapter 5: Evolution, pages 173 to 184


“In Praise of Plants” provides a compelling argument as to why plants should be given an equal or superior status to animals in the often animal-dominated worlds of science and society. From this book, our assigned readings consisted of Chapter 2 in full (p 41 to 124) and the first eleven pages of Chapter 5 (p 173 to 184).

In Chapter 2, the many differences in body form between plants and animals were described in vivid detail. In this chapter, three overall points were made. Firstly, “plants are immense surfaces” (p44), whereas “animals are … volumes covered by small external surfaces” (p47), albeit with large internal surfaces (p47). According to Halle, this difference is a direct result of how members of each Kingdom collect energy (p43). A second point made was that plants in general are vertical-growing and radially symmetrical (p69), while animals predominate the horizontal and are bilaterally symmetrical (p73). Finally, his third point is that plants undergo indeterminate growth and will continue to grow throughout their life, whereas most animals do not; most mobile critters have a pre-determined maximum body size (p97).

In the first 11 pages of Chapter 5, the author declares that plants and animals are not affect by evolutionary pressures in the same way and that this difference is due to the manner in which plants and animals reproduce (p173). Specifically, for every lifecycle plants go through, two separate generations are required – the diploid sporophyte and the haploid gametophyte (p176). Furthermore, there is no specific “somatic cell line” or “gametic cell line” in plants – all somatic tissues are potentially gametic, and all gametic tissues are potentially somatic, depending on what factors are present (p184). In animals, this is unheard of! Indeed, in animals, the somatic and gametic cell lines are distinct and separate. Also, only one diploid generation is required per lifecycle (p181).

Structurally, I thought this book was well-written with the popular audience in mind (albeit initially only those able to read French) and that it flowed quite well. The content and points made throughout are very interesting and provide a unique way of looking at the world of plants. Indeed, in many cases I had never before thought about plants the way Halle describes them until I read this book! A very dramatic example is how Halle states that “Animals are confused plants, turned inside out like a glove… [and] Plants are fantastic animals, their insides turned out, bearing their entrails like feathers” (p50). This is such a neat way of looking at the differing biological features of plants and animals!

I thought the entire book is well-structured with subtle humor woven throughout, making the writing very persuasive and clear. Furthermore, I liked how Halle included quotes and observations that other authors and scholars have made about plants – from Pliny to Darwin to numerous recent scientific papers. By including their thoughts in almost every paragraph, I thought that Halle made his argument even more persuasive, showing that he is not the only one who talking about and looking at plants in such a unique way! And, in case you did not understand the written content, many large and well-drawn illustrations make his point even more clear.

Overall I found the writing to be generally understandable and that the main points for each section were made very clear… so exceptionally clear that, in one case, Halle spends nearly 25 pages to get his point across that plants grow vertical and are radially symmetrical, whereas animals are horizontal and bilaterally symmetrical (p53 to 77). Not surprisingly, I found this to be a little tedious. Another part of the writing that I did not like was how in many cases, complex or uncommon words are used – and no definitions were given. For example, “zenith” (p57), “nadir” (p57), “polarity” (p59), “Echinoderms” (p77) and “lianas” (p99) are just a few.

While I am not entirely sure if I now believe that plants are superior to animals, I certainly will view plants quite differently having now read this book! The differences between these two kingdoms that really stuck me were how plants grow vertically and animals grow horizontally, and how plants are essentially surfaces whereas animals are essentially volumes. I found that these two points provided a much more rational way to define the difference between animals and plants - far better than the definition that animals don’t have chlorophyll or that plants cannot pick up their roots and move around*.

*Like an Ent from the Lord of The Rings. But then… the real question is - are Ents animals or plants?!?!