This Is Your Mind on Plants

 

When I discovered The Omnivore´s Dilemma by Michael Pollan I was at a point in my life when I was trying to better understand my relationship with food. I bet, 99.9% of humans do not think about food in cultural or philosophical terms but as a former anorexic, it took me years to re-build my world in a healthier and ´normal´ way. Words do help in such situations to see everything in a deeper way.

There is no turning point in my life as I was reading his latest: This Is Your Mind on Plants: Opium-Caffeine-Mescaline. I was not looking for reasons or a philosophical basis of any kind, but trustful to my life motto: ´No expectations no disappointment´, I am pleased to be surprised sometimes of some extraordinary ideas while embracing new topics. 

Except caffeine, which is my trustful companion since the early age of 14, which I already had the chance to read and write something about, the other topics were vaguely familiar, mostly through literary references. The mission of a well-written book though is to bring even the most novice reader into the world of the story. A mission perfectly accomplished by Pollan in this book. At least in my case.

What is really appealing in this book is the interpretation of the topic within the cultural, political and social context. Fascinating is for me the details about how coffee - and tea - turned popular as part of a wider efficiency driven culture aimed to keep the working force active and awake. The opium ´wars´ and the random incrimination of poppy seeds cultures for equally random political reasons is another deeply interesting chronicle of our cultural wars. As for mescaline, everything was completely new to me and I am grateful to have obtain this information through such a generous explanation connecting native population histories with the appeal for ´New Age´-kind of lifestyles. 

Well documented and written in a way that brings the topic close to a wide range of readers, This Is Your Mind on Plants is informative and relevant for the ideologically changing context affecting even the humble beans or tea leaves in your coffee. 

Rating: 5 stars