Botany of desire potato. Botany of Desire Ch 4. Summary 2022-10-17
Botany of desire potato
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The potato is a humble, starchy root vegetable that has played a crucial role in human history. Despite its humble beginnings as a wild plant in the Andes Mountains of South America, the potato has become a staple food in many cultures around the world. In fact, the potato is the fourth most important food crop in the world, after wheat, corn, and rice.
One reason for the potato's success is its versatility. It can be cooked in a variety of ways, including boiling, frying, and roasting, and it can be used to make a wide range of dishes, from mashed potatoes and French fries to potato chips and vodka. The potato is also a good source of nutrients, including vitamin C, potassium, and fiber.
But the potato's success is not just due to its culinary versatility and nutritional value. In his book "The Botany of Desire," author Michael Pollan argues that the potato's rise to global prominence is also due to its ability to fulfill certain desires that humans have. According to Pollan, the potato satisfies our desire for sweetness, as it can be used to make sweet dishes like sweet potato pie; our desire for beauty, as it can be used to make ornamental plants; and our desire for control, as it is relatively easy to grow and can be stored for long periods of time.
One of the most striking examples of the potato's ability to fulfill human desires is its role in the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s. At the time, the potato was the primary food source for the Irish peasantry, and the country was heavily dependent on the crop. When a fungus called Phytophthora infestans hit the potato crops, it caused a massive famine that resulted in the death of over a million people. The famine was a disaster not just because of the loss of life, but also because it led to widespread emigration from Ireland, as many Irish people sought better lives abroad.
The Irish Potato Famine serves as a poignant reminder of the importance of the potato in human history. While it may seem like a humble, unassuming vegetable, the potato has had a profound impact on the world, satisfying our desires for sweetness, beauty, and control. Today, the potato remains an important part of many people's diets and will likely continue to play a significant role in the human story for years to come.
Botany of Desire Ch 4. Summary
He ends by attributing unexpected power to the potato: once it is genetically modified - and he has in a small way been experimenting with GM crops in his own garden - it gives us a sense of control over nature. This gmo has been modified so that now when the beetle eats its leaves it actually dies, and this prevents the need for pesticides. . Along the way, the program will explore the natural history of the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potatoâand the human desires that link their destinies to our own. The ability to adapt in order to survive is the human instinct that allows individuals to prosper in difficult situations, those who are unable to adapt become the people who make up the bottom rung of society.
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The Botany of Desire
So this killed this potato. By selecting the most edible fruits and discarding the cores, they gradually spread the cultivation of the fruit into the Mediterranean region and Europe. Michael Pollan, a professor of journalism and a student of food, presents the history of four plants, each of which found a way to make itself essential to humans, thus ensuring widespread p. With flowering plants, Pollan argues, beauty entered the world and made it possible for plants to attract pollinators and seed dispersers on the basis of color, flower appearance, and the food value of their fruit. The Irish only grew one type of potato, and since their population depended so heavily upon it, when a ship from South America brought over a fungus that infected potato plants and caused them to die, their population took a huge hit. The apple gratifies our taste for sweetness, the tulip seduces us with its beauty, and marijuana tempts us into intoxication.
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The Botany of Desire Summary
The Botany of Desire is a fascinating book in its scope and range of interests. In the process man changed plants and eventually the same plants, in turn, transformed people. Pollan argues that humans do not have control over nature as we tend to believe, he believes that nature plays an equal or even more dominant role in our relationship. How did a somber Calvinist culture, the wealthiest nation in Europe, temporarily go mad in speculating over flower bulbs? As it turns out, optimization is a business, and a profitable one. Pollan grew some of these new potatoes in his Connecticut garden, but had reservations about serving them at a town picnic without informing his neighbors. His book takes an imaginative leap into the plant world which fascinates, irritates and challenges in equal measure. He thoroughly examines the connection of humans with the apple, the tulip, marijuana and the potato and reveals how all these plants have grown to satisfy human needs.
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The Botany of Desire (TV Movie 2009)
Twenty-first century apple trees are propagated asexually by grafting, but by collecting and distributing apple seeds, Johnny Appleseed was promoting the emergence of new varieties of apples through sexual reproduction. Plants are not made to grow in monocultures, they were made to be able to compete in their environment, and through natural selection their plants would be better equipped to deal with pests and disease. This creates a problem because if that one crop fails to grow, then the farmer has no other crop to rely on for profit, causing the farmer to use chemical pesticides. Holland is a flat country largely reclaimed from swamps and marshes, and land is scarce, so the Dutch tend to create miniature, jewel-like gardens in which these prize tulips were the centerpieces. Nature plays a part in controlling us. If you don't like this theme, this movie is not for you. The potato is said to have exerted a decisive impact on human evolution because it is able to satisfy H.
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Botany of Desire, The
Nonetheless, all of these techniques are poisoning our foods and our environment. In return, the soil is more alive and actually contributes nutrients of its own making to the plants. This famine lasted for 3 years -they "put all of their eggs in one basket" -diversity is so important is the lesson -It was the first modified potato -hope to stop the Colorado potato beetles from eating the crops, by stopping spraying pesticide because the potato had a protein that was only poisonous to the beetles there was a pesticide inside of the potato -GMO had opposition all over the world- people want to know what is in their food! Now, with the advances of science, we have some sophisticated ways to make easier get the most wanted kinds of livestock and plants. The first part discusses the areas of desire of mankind in which the apple brings out the aspect of sweetness. The chapter considers the entire genus Tulipa and does not mention any of the roughly 100 species comprising it. It starts with our use of language to describe the environment around us.
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Power to the potato
It discusses how the apple, the tulip, and the potato have evolved to meet the needs of humans. However, the question remains as to the purpose of their use, from an evolutionary perspective. Sometimes this has been a natural process, and other times humans have manipulated the plants. A basic recounting of the natural history of the apple is presented in summary form, along with concise notes about the apple's historic importance in human civilization. Apples, for sweetness; tulips, for beauty; marijuana, for pleasure; and, potat. Then, she dives into modern agribusiness, a new lifestyle where commonsense farming has become more and more rare, especially in the United States.
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Reviews of The Botany of Desire
Human beings have been remaking the earth for a long time, but since science and technology has become so advanced, human beings are like guests now trying to figure out life. Jeremy fears that one biotechnical processes are loosed they may be irreversible. If we were to experience what happened to Ireland it would be even more devastating to our current population. . Pollan believes that the apple had much of the control over its destiny; that it is the one that chose its fate, not humans as we are so inclined to believe.
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The Botany of Desire Summary & Study Guide
Five more reasons are that plants are used as food, as medicine, for making materials, as herbal substances, and also in the lab for experiments and the testing of new products on a living organism. Human domestication of plants is a special case of coevolution in which humans have selected and bred certain plants for their nutritional, medicinal, or aesthetic value, and plants have responded by expressing, within the range of their genetic variability, new and humanly desirable traits. The spanish took the potato plant back with them to Europe where it had a huge affect on the population. Thus, the costs and effects of optimization are often hidden from the public by industrial leaders in an effort to maintain profits. He moves on to provide information related to the history of corn, its carbon count, and how it grows. The purpose of this is to satisfy his desire for perfection by controlling the seeds of plants such as apples and potatoes.
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The Botany of Desire
The Dutch were also attracted to the color streaking in solid bulbs, which was caused by a virus that also reduced the size and number of the bulbs, making them more valuable as commodities. As a result of the constant coevolving plants and bugs, though, famers have had to keep evolving their pesticides, as well, which has left farmers, like Forsyth, to their fields with some of the most toxic chemicals now in use, including an organophosphate called pg 219. The introduction of the apple to America is particularly well-developed, with a nearly complete focus on the activities of John Chapman, better known as Johnny Appleseed. The spanish invaded this area and killed the Incan population who first grew the potatoes and learned how to domesticate it. The text does not consider, or even apparently realize, the problematical approach of discussing co-evolution of species at generally the genus level.
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Botany of Desire
Humans for the first time have the power to take direct control of evolution, a disconcerting prospect. There was a large population increase because the potato increased the food supply tremendously weather in northern Europe was not ideal for growing crops, it was very wet and soggy, which was not the right conditions to grow grains, so most years they experienced famine from a food shortage. Chapter 3 presents marijuana. He attributes to plants extraordinarily sophisticated and manipulative ways of getting what they want. We get the impression that Pollan does not trust this genetically engineered food because it is completely unnatural.
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